Fire in California

Ddays said:
Then at minimum, why not have a "supression wall" with monitors like these set up on the borders of the neighbors that would flood the area and act as a break?

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Maybe in some cases that would work, but if you watched the live footage you saw walls and waves of embers blowing as far as the eye could see. Tree top to tree top when the winds were 40mph and above.

Where is that picture of? Those definitely look like easy to ignite roofs, which is probably why they have such a system.
 
JAGS said:
People can say and blame all politicians for a lot. This isn’t a Trump thing. And I’m not even a Trump fan. Fires are difficult to prevent. Thus I’m looking directly at DWP and LAC for preparedness. High winds are not that new.
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The others to blame are the property owners who did nothing to "fire wise" their property so it is more difficult to burn. Since it seems that property owners do not take responsibility for themselves, it needs to be encouraged by mandates and periodic inspection, with penalty for non-conformance. The fire safety rating should be a matter of public record so all can see it.
 
Ddays said:
Then at minimum, why not have a "supression wall" with monitors like these set up on the borders of the neighbors that would flood the area and act as a break?

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I'm sure in theory something like this would work. The big issue I see is practical application and then operation. Maintenance and who turns it on? Also it would have years and years of sitting with no use except for periodic testing. I've seen the aging fire sprinkler system on an 80yo military base give all kinds of problems. I can only imagine a system like this sitting idle for years and all the problems associated with it. I'd be willing to bet things like have been looked at but decided against due to all these variables and more. Besides spot fires from a brush component can occur half to 1 mile in front of the flaming front. How do you protect/predict against that? As I've said this fire happened because everything came into alignment. Dead dry brush probably 50+ years old, unprecedented winds (speed, direction, and location), and an ignition in the location it started. Had this been late summer when temps are higher it'd have been worse.
 
jesse3638 said:
I'm not letting the politicians off at all, but I'm also not sure what you think could have been done. Are you suggesting that all the hillsides be cleared of brush? If so that's just ridiculous. Could they have tried building a huge fire break around these communities? Yes. Biggest problem with that is these home owners probably wouldn't have wanted that due to it affecting the aesthetics and privacy of their neighborhood. Not to mention all the tree huggers fighting it. Also given the conditions it probably would not have done much given the high winds and ember cast creating spot fires within the neighborhood. As I said once it was in the neighborhood it was the structures carying the fire. That reservoir didn't directly feed the hydrants so I'm not sure how that would have provided additional water. What happened is the municipal water system was overwhelmed and simply ran out. Probably old and should have been upgraded. With regards to the ocean. Sure they could have set up a system to pump from it but it would have only been used in a case like this and would sit idle for years therefore creating a reliability issue with such a system. With the given factors they could have had all the people in the world prepo'd there and it wouldn't have helped much. This fire went from to ignition to uncontrollable in minutes so unless the got to the point of ignition as it started this thing would not have been stopped. Besides no one knew a fire was going to be there. What of they guessed wrong and prepo'd fire equipment in the wrong area say the ventura area or Santa Barbara? Now the response to pacific palisades or altadena is extended. To many coulda, woulda, shouldas. From what I see about the only thing that would habe maybe helped would habe been to take a stand on the edge of the community before the fire got there and set fire to the brush there to keep it from impacting so hard. Again the winds were so strong once the structures caught fire they were what was fueling the fire spread. Were they supposed to bulldoze houses to create a fire line? Same thing happened in 2003 whem the old fire ran down into San Bernardino.
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I’m just saying there was nothing to be done is letting the city, county, state and federal government off the hook to easily. Yes I’m suggesting there should have been a huge firebreak around the community. Yes I’m saying the fact that LAFD is understaffed by fifty percent from twenty years ago but go on double the number of calls every day played a role. Oh and yes a pumping scheme from the ocean would sit idle perhaps for years but they are supposed to check fire hydrants annually, perhaps they could test a pumping system annually as well. I’m not sure why LAFD would station in Ventura or Santa Barbara. I would assume those counties and city’s FDs would take care of that.
Yes once the structures were involved with the wind as high as it was it was pretty much over unfortunately but im saying a lot should have been done to avoid getting to the position California is now in.
 
NPC 6060⁸42 said:
I’m just saying there was nothing to be done is letting the city, county, state and federal government off the hook to easily. Yes I’m suggesting there should have been a huge firebreak around the community. Yes I’m saying the fact that LAFD is understaffed by fifty percent from twenty years ago but go on double the number of calls every day played a role. Oh and yes a pumping scheme from the ocean would sit idle perhaps for years but they are supposed to check fire hydrants annually, perhaps they could test a pumping system annually as well. I’m not sure why LAFD would station in Ventura or Santa Barbara. I would assume those counties and city’s FDs would take care of that.
Yes once the structures were involved with the wind as high as it was it was pretty much over unfortunately but im saying a lot should have been done to avoid getting to the position California is now in.
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What you're not understanding is that it would have taken a mile wide fire break to potentially do anything. There are all kinds of existing fire breaks, they're called roads! Fires in the situation we just experienced jumped them with ease. Also you don't understand that in times like this. Departments can call in outside resources to help staff or over staff critical areas during red flag conditions. The feds do it all the time. This was the perfect storm and realistically nothing but nature was going to stop or prevent this. That's how about how 90% of large fires are controlled anyway.
 
jesse3638 said:
Here is Adam Carolla's take on the celebrities trying to rebuild after the fires. Pretty funny.

Adam Carolla Perspective on Rebuilding
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Hit the nail on the head. When I lived in Boulder, I knew so many contractors who said fuck it, they stopped trying to get work there. That deep liberal city made it so impossible to get anything done. I'm sure CA is worse. The people there will likely just give up on rebuilding and move elsewhere.
 
Here’s an idea. I bought each my kids one of these went they went off to college. Maybe they can make them bigger. Like the size of the flags to cover football fields. Then have planes drop them over the forest.

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