Thousands flee LA wildfires

Koolau said:
This sounds so similar to the Lahaina Maui wild fires that it gives me the willies. Loss of life was something over 100. Praying for the residents of California. I hope all our members are safe.
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Big difference from Maui - resources! Yes, it's bad in California no doubt. But they have a lot more resources to recover relatively quickly.

Without judgement, I'm not sure if you heard about the New Year's explosion at a house setting off illegal fireworks in Salt Lake (Honolulu neighborhood). Three dead, dozens seriously injured. The US military had to step in to evacuate 6 burn victims to a hospital in Arizona to relieve Straub, or local burn center (and by local think the mid-Pacific basin) which has only 4 critical burn beds! Six patients were flown on a C-17 special flight across the Pacific to Phoenix! While it is reassuring that that the US military has our backs in Hawaii, it's telling that we need to depend on them!
 
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youbet said:
To whatever extent our gov't covers the cost of losses, the land should become public property and not be rebuilt on.
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They way it worked out around here after the flooding..... You think you could come take my property for $750.... Some folks would get shot.
Our Prayer go out to all effected and thanks to the 1st responders.
 
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We checked on 2 friends that are in the lighter shade of the map. They are packed and ready to scoot if it gets there. 1 of them built his house in the 70's that backs up to the park area so he's sweating it for sure. The electric company shut down the lines while 100mph winds came though... It's back on now. They said that was scary in the hills (of Woodland Hills) area.

Friends in Topanga Canyon have a mandatory evacuation. Very limited road through there if it gets bad.
 
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When I lived in Thousand Oaks, I remember sitting on my roof (wood shake roof) with a water hose putting out flying embers. That was in the 1980's. The Santa Ana winds are bad news, as we can see.
 
They have so many fires in California every year, something must not be right.
 
I've written a few times of our own loss of everything to a wildland fire living here in California. I got out wearing only my shorts, no wallet, id, glasses, etc. My wife grabbed one dog, the cordless phone and called 911 as we ran down the street trying to get away from the fire storm. Later, in court at the trial of the arsonist who set the fire, my wife's 911 call recording was played. Never had there ever been such terror in a voice as I heard in that call.
We recovered and have this in the rear view mirror of our lives. I hope and pray these victims are able to let go of the loss and focus on their families and a future where all of life's events will be sweeter and more precious that would otherwise have been.

My sister-in-law works for the Red Cross and lives in Idaho. I asked her this morning if she's going to be deployed to LA. She said eventually. Right now, the looting has been too great and has made it to unsafe for them to set up. Once that is under control, they can then come in to start their work. She also mentioned that when she was deployed to North Carolina, Florida and Texas last year, looting was not an issue. How sad to hear of this happening to this level the Red Cross can't deploy her. She said they were told the military and National Guard will be deployed to secure the area ahead of their arrival. Wow. Just Wow! Hardly a word of this on the news.
 
We live in Topanga Canyon but somewhat north of the fire. We were evacuated on Tuesday evening but in no immediate danger now. For those of you who are viewing this on TV from other parts of the country know that it is as bad as it looks and in some cases worse.
 
38Chevy454 said:
I'm sorry for them. But they are no different than the other regular people that have lost their homes and/or livelihood:
Plumber Pete, Accountant Angie, Mechanic Mike, Janitor Joe, Housecleaner Helen, Salesperson Sally, Policeman Paul, Roofer Ron, Engineer Eve, Scientist Sam, Electrician Eddie, Chef Charlie, Waitress Wendy, Busdriver Bob, ...........

You get the point. All these people need our prayers and help for recovery. I just don't get celebrity being any more special than the regular folks. I'll leave rest of my opinion off my reply.
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+1. I for one, despise overpaid celebrities, especially actors and actresses. They are no better than the regular Joes but they either have connections and got lucky, and all of a sudden they think that they are gods because of the insane amount of money that they make. I don't feel sorry for the overpaid self-entitled celebrities who lost their homes but my heart goes out to the fire fighters and the ordinary folks who lost their homes.
 
Not that is could not happen but so much to blame on mismanagement of the state. This comes from a few people we know that live there.

I pray for all in this time of terror and that lives are spared and lessons learned from these disastrous events.
 
Remember that almost half of California is Federal land. So if you think there's not enough forest management being done, please contact your Congress critters and advocate for budget increases for agencies like the BLM, USFS and NPS to make that happen.

People should also understand that there's a lot of wilderness in and very close to the edges of major cities in California and that our wilderness areas are more prone to fire than the wilderness in some other parts of the country. The natural geography in a lot of this area consists of mesas and canyons, and the Santa Anas have been pushing fires through them for eons. The Native Americans who were here first described this phenomenon, and there's a story about the early Spanish explorers calling what's now L.A. the Bay of Smoke.

Fire is a fact of life in the west and wildfire disasters have happened in most western states in recent memory -- Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and so on, even Canada. This fire is just in a more populous urban area than most of them have been. The wildland-urban interface is under more pressure here than in most other places due to the massive population growth in the last century. Despite what you might have read about people fleeing California during the pandemic, there still isn't enough housing and the population is now growing again, so we keep building both upward and outward in our cities, and that increases fire risk in and near wildland areas and affects water supply and availability. It's very hard, if not impossible, to do controlled burns and some of the other actions people have mentioned in the middle of urban areas.

And sure, Federal, state and local governments could always do more to tame mother nature. It's pretty hard to stop the wind from blowing, but defensible space is required everywhere, maybe that needs to be bigger. But then, how much space is enough when the wind is blowing at the speed of a hurricane? Many of you understand from personal experience how far the wind can carry debris. What you're seeing on TV is what happens when that windblown debris is on fire and the humidity is at 14%. We're supposedly in a one-in-hundred-years event here. I don't know what the fix is since we can't seem to stop climate change, but it does seem like there are a lot more of these once-per-century events happening everywhere.

Sorry, this got to be longer than I intended when I started this post. Thanks to anyone who read all my ramblings to the end.
 
cathy63 said:
Remember that almost half of California is Federal land. So if you think there's not enough forest management being done, please contact your Congress critters and advocate for budget increases for agencies like the BLM, USFS and NPS to make that happen.

People should also understand that there's a lot of wilderness in and very close to the edges of major cities in California and that our wilderness areas are more prone to fire than the wilderness in some other parts of the country. The natural geography in a lot of this area consists of mesas and canyons, and the Santa Anas have been pushing fires through them for eons. The Native Americans who were here first described this phenomenon, and there's a story about the early Spanish explorers calling what's now L.A. the Bay of Smoke.

Fire is a fact of life in the west and wildfire disasters have happened in most western states in recent memory -- Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and so on, even Canada. This fire is just in a more populous urban area than most of them have been. The wildland-urban interface is under more pressure here than in most other places due to the massive population growth in the last century. Despite what you might have read about people fleeing California during the pandemic, there still isn't enough housing and the population is now growing again, so we keep building both upward and outward in our cities, and that increases fire risk in and near wildland areas and affects water supply and availability. It's very hard, if not impossible, to do controlled burns and some of the other actions people have mentioned in the middle of urban areas.

And sure, Federal, state and local governments could always do more to tame mother nature. It's pretty hard to stop the wind from blowing, but defensible space is required everywhere, maybe that needs to be bigger. But then, how much space is enough when the wind is blowing at the speed of a hurricane? Many of you understand from personal experience how far the wind can carry debris. What you're seeing on TV is what happens when that windblown debris is on fire and the humidity is at 14%. We're supposedly in a one-in-hundred-years event here. I don't know what the fix is since we can't seem to stop climate change, but it does seem like there are a lot more of these once-per-century events happening everywhere.

Sorry, this got to be longer than I intended when I started this post. Thanks to anyone who read all my ramblings to the end.
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To add to this, I lived there for a good bit and 100 MPH Santa Ana winds are very untypical.
 
RetiredHappy said:
+1. I for one, despise overpaid celebrities, especially actors and actresses. They are no better than the regular Joes but they either have connections and got lucky, and all of a sudden they think that they are gods because of the insane amount of money that they make. I don't feel sorry for the overpaid self-entitled celebrities who lost their homes but my heart goes out to the fire fighters and the ordinary folks who lost their homes.
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I feel for every human being who is experiencing/has experienced this terrifying fire event, with the very real risk of loss of life and/or home. Human beings of every stripe, every occupation, and every income level experience life-threatening events the same way, and I hope the residents and the first responders get through this safely with no more loss of life. It will be a long road to healing for the entire area, and for the many, many people impacted.
 
cathy63 said:
Remember that almost half of California is Federal land. So if you think there's not enough forest management being done, please contact your Congress critters and advocate for budget increases for agencies like the BLM, USFS and NPS to make that happen.

People should also understand that there's a lot of wilderness in and very close to the edges of major cities in California and that our wilderness areas are more prone to fire than the wilderness in some other parts of the country. The natural geography in a lot of this area consists of mesas and canyons, and the Santa Anas have been pushing fires through them for eons. The Native Americans who were here first described this phenomenon, and there's a story about the early Spanish explorers calling what's now L.A. the Bay of Smoke.

Fire is a fact of life in the west and wildfire disasters have happened in most western states in recent memory -- Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and so on, even Canada. This fire is just in a more populous urban area than most of them have been. The wildland-urban interface is under more pressure here than in most other places due to the massive population growth in the last century. Despite what you might have read about people fleeing California during the pandemic, there still isn't enough housing and the population is now growing again, so we keep building both upward and outward in our cities, and that increases fire risk in and near wildland areas and affects water supply and availability. It's very hard, if not impossible, to do controlled burns and some of the other actions people have mentioned in the middle of urban areas.

And sure, Federal, state and local governments could always do more to tame mother nature. It's pretty hard to stop the wind from blowing, but defensible space is required everywhere, maybe that needs to be bigger. But then, how much space is enough when the wind is blowing at the speed of a hurricane? Many of you understand from personal experience how far the wind can carry debris. What you're seeing on TV is what happens when that windblown debris is on fire and the humidity is at 14%. We're supposedly in a one-in-hundred-years event here. I don't know what the fix is since we can't seem to stop climate change, but it does seem like there are a lot more of these once-per-century events happening everywhere.

Sorry, this got to be longer than I intended when I started this post. Thanks to anyone who read all my ramblings to the end.
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Thank you for a reasoned assessment of the challenges faced by a huge portion of the US, as well as around the world. These problems will simply become worse with population movement and climate change, unfortunately. Even in parts of Europe that haven't burned in recorded history, there are now huge challenges in dealing with the same problems.

I am quite saddened for this community by the tenor of many of the comments in this thread.
 
Biden addressed the reason why so many fire hydrants went dry, hampering firefighting efforts. He said it was because the power had been shut off, depriving the pumps needed to pump the water to the hydrants. Interesting . . .
 
Sue J said:
This morning I contacted my sister about her step daughter and her family who live in Altadena, CA. She told me they had evacuated and were staying with friends.

This afternoon their house burned down. It was a house they had been renting for a few years. Just tragic. But they are safe.
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It turns out that they had incorrect information. They went back and the house is still standing!! The block across the street is all burned but their side of the street survived.

They can’t go home yet, but what a relief for them!
 
cathy63 said:
We're supposedly in a one-in-hundred-years event here. I don't know what the fix is since we can't seem to stop climate change, but it does seem like there are a lot more of these once-per-century events happening everywhere.
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It's always easier to blame the climate than incompetence. It's a get out of jail free card. Therefore, it's far more likely that 1 in 20 year occurrences will be called 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000.
 
cathy63 said:
We're supposedly in a one-in-hundred-years event here.
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The "one-in-hundred-years" nomenclature doesn't mean the event is expected to occur once every hundred years. It means the estimated probability of occurrence each year is 1%. This compounds over subsequent years.
 
FlaMariner said:
Since you are a Californian, perhaps you can enlighten me on why the people of California continue to "hire" "incompetent leaders"?

I realize that natural disasters can happen (I am in Florida and deal with Hurricanes regularly) but seems like cutting the fire department funding, closing reservoirs, inadequate forestry management & not having operating fire hydrants would not be a good strategy for a windy, dry, mountainous, forested areas prone to forest fires?
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By way of non-political assessment, much of California is achingly beautiful, but not ideally suited to dense habitation by humans. Expensive land means dense building, even it's single family houses. The very same topography that makes it so beautiful, renders it hard to provide services, especially in emergencies. It exacerbates natural risks, like windswept flames accelerating through canyons. And it tends to turn small mishaps into major disasters.

In contrast, much of the country is flat, open and well-suited to the building of massive cities and urban conglomerations. But the weather is harsh, the scenery is uninspiring, or there are other detriments, that render it economically unproductive to build a major city. There are exceptions, such as Chicago or Atlanta. But nearly everywhere else, where we find a major city, and high real estate prices, and it being a desirable place to live... we find risk of flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires and the like.

There are of course unfortunate and subjectively foolish decisions of public policy, but even if we were wise and forward-thinking and selflessly principled and so on, disasters would nevertheless persist. Maybe not as much, but still....
 
swakyaby said:
Biden addressed the reason why so many fire hydrants went dry, hampering firefighting efforts. He said it was because the power had been shut off, depriving the pumps needed to pump the water to the hydrants. Interesting . . .
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I cant imagine that being a likely scenario in a place like LA County. Municipal water systems here in flyover country are backed with diesel generators, both at the treatment plant and key booster stations. That's simple disaster preparedness. The more likely scenario is there was just too much demand from the firefighting activities. The system can't keep up. Or perhaps the water plants or booster pump stations themselves were consumed by fire.

But if he's right, heads should roll somewhere.
 
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