Thousands flee LA wildfires

rodi said:
I fully expect our insurance to double or triple at renewal this summer.

But - it's in the works to get discounts if they inspect and rate your home fire hardened.
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My insurance for my home, auto and liability were all cancelled. When Farmers informed me that I must 'harden' my home in order to keep the policy, well, photos tell the story; here's what I did. Removed almost all my landscaping when they asked only 5' from house. Removed all soffit covers and replaced with concrete board. Replaced soffit vents with fireproof vents. Upgrade fire detection systems. Coat all exterior walls with fire retardant spray coating. Etc, etc. etc. They said sorry, based on your zip code, ain't no way, ain't no how we gonna insure you. I did the legwork and found Liberty Mutual to cover me thank God.

Scraped to bare earth and covered with gravel so I didn't track mud everywhere
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Removed bark chip play ground and installed concrete pavers
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Removed lawn and laid down weed barrier and sand
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Ground around house 5' fireproof landscaping.
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Landscape firewall on the downslope side of the home. If fire comes from the canyon below, the wall deflects the heat up and over.
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Log finish stripped and fire-resistant finish applied. Notice the patio ceiling is all sealed up with 1x4 tongue and groove, not joists and places embers can lodge. Conrete 5' minimum from the walls.
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Since then, I added some shop buildings, a concrete driveway/parking area.
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Beyond the shop building, I put in a raised veggie garden. Other than the raised beds, nothing on the ground is flammable.
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rodi said:
On the topic of why can't we clear the fuel. I'm in a community that has designated open space canyons to the north and south. The canyon to the north has a "Friends of" group that fights the city on removing underbrush. The canyon isn't pristine, there is a road, a sewer line, and rail tracks... but if you want to thin the brush you will get threats of lawsuits. The local fire safe council has been pushing the city to clear brush on the city land when it is within 100 feet of structures - this pressure on the city is working to a point... the city now clears brush every 2 years... but doesn't do all of the areas identified by the biologist hired by the fire safe council.... no budget, nesting bird time restrictions, etc.

This is one local canyon with an organized group to fight clearing brush. There are at least a dozen more in San Diego - these little urban green spaces - which are nice - but need to be managed. The houses on the local canyon rim are not new - most were built in the early 60's. Fortunately, we're on the south canyon and there is a freeway - Caltrans clears the area between the homes and freeway.
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This is something I mentioned in an earlier post. The feds have the choice to spend dollars fighting court lawsuits or spend it doing some good somewhere. A few years back within 7 miles of my place, the El Dorado National Forest burned 225,000 acres. To this date, they are not allowed to remove the burned trees other than those that pose hazard to preexisting human activities. Those would be roadways, power right of ways, businesses and homes that were deemed by the fire marshal to be shut down until the trees and other fire hazards were removed.

MC Rider said:
There are thousands of square miles of it. Have fun with your weed whacker and rake. :facepalm:
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There only needs to be a fire break, not the whole forest turned into groomed landscape, but I have a feeling you already knew that. Managing forests is much more scientific than simply whacking and racking. :facepalm: ;)
 
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swakyaby said:
My home exists along a greenbelt that turns brown every summer. My city hires a goat herder with 200-300 goats to munch the brown grass down in the greenbelts. Seeing them reduce the fire fuel around the city brings a smile to my face.
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You could get some yoga in with them at the same time perhaps?

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@ skipro33, I remember that fire in El Dorado forest, it was terrible. Your fire clearance around your home goes above and beyond. There were 2 homeowners I saw in burned out areas (in Paradise, CA and in southern CA) whose homes were spared while their neighbors lost everything. Coincidentally, they both had fire sprinklers installed on the roofs of their homes, and they turned them on when embers began flying through the air and they had to evacuate.
 
skipro33 said:
There only needs to be a fire break, not the whole forest turned into groomed landscape, but I have a feeling you already knew that.
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Yes, that was sarcasm. I watched the plane and helos dropping water and retardant from my house 2 or 3 times last year. They nipped those in the bud. Not so with the Borel fire which was not far away.
 
rodi said:
This is one local canyon with an organized group to fight clearing brush. There are at least a dozen more in San Diego - these little urban green spaces - which are nice - but need to be managed. ..
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This is baffling. Brush isn't aesthetically beautiful. It's not exactly the gardens of Versailles. From your description, the clearing would be done with no cost-impact to the neighbors. And the cleared areas won't be used for new construction, billboards, warehouses etc. In other words, I struggle to see the down side, putting myself in the shoes of the "organized group". How do they benefit, from not-clearing?
 
Serious question: do they do prescribed burns in California? We do those all the time in the Southeast forests. They are important for fire control but also simulate natural fires for rejuvenation.
 
We had an overgrown wash going through our Scottsdale Az condo development. 6 unit buildings. About 30’ from the overgrowth. A resident voiced her concern at an HOA meeting that the overgrowth was unsightly. Board did nothing. She came back next month and said that it was a fire hazard. The board had the vegetation removed, leaving only a few nicely trimmed palo verde trees. Board didn’t want fire hazard mention in the meeting minutes without doing something about it.

Our area was far more concerned about fire hazard than any beauty that the vegetation might provide. There was vegetation being removed weekly in our neighborhood.
 
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Diogenes said:
This is baffling. Brush isn't aesthetically beautiful. It's not exactly the gardens of Versailles. From your description, the clearing would be done with no cost-impact to the neighbors. And the cleared areas won't be used for new construction, billboards, warehouses etc. In other words, I struggle to see the down side, putting myself in the shoes of the "organized group". How do they benefit, from not-clearing?
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It's not just aesthetics. Clearing too much brush harms wildlife and causes landslides. I don't know the exact situation in rodi's canyon, but there are federally protected endangered species in a lot of places and that affects how much clearing can be done.

Also, the native vegetation along the coast is all brush with just a few small mesquite and oak trees. We are not talking about old growth forest in this part of California. Clearing the brush means that you have acres of bare dirt that then has to be paved over or covered with gravel or non-native plantings such as ice plant. Otherwise during the next rainy winter, all the homes at the top of the canyons will end up at the bottom. Google Palos Verdes if you want to see some photos of what that looks like from another part of L.A. County.
 
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Cathy63 is right - the issue is the wildlife habitat. There are two state/local land use designations that apply. It is designated part of the MSCP (multi-species conservation plan) and MHPA (Multi habitat protection area). FWIW - I am in no way suggesting these canyons be cleared of all vegetation. Just thinned. Especially within 100 feet of structures. I enjoy walking in these canyons. There has to be a balance.
 
JoeWras said:
Serious question: do they do prescribed burns in California? We do those all the time in the Southeast forests. They are important for fire control but also simulate natural fires for rejuvenation.
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Who's they? State and local officials aren't allowed to do controlled burns on the majority of the wilderness land because it belongs to the Federal government.

Also, a lot of the CA wilderness isn't actually forest as you might think of it in your area, with brush growing under large trees, so prescribed burns might not be the right strategy.
 
rodi said:
Cathy63 is right - the issue is the wildlife habitat. There are two state/local land use designations that apply. It is designated part of the MSCP (multi-species conservation plan) and MHPA (Multi habitat protection area). FWIW - I am in no way suggesting these canyons be cleared of all vegetation. Just thinned. Especially within 100 feet of structures. I enjoy walking in these canyons. There has to be a balance.
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I completely agree with you that there has to be a balance and some clearing is necessary. When I just reread what I wrote I realize it may have sounded like I'm against any kind of clearing or defensible space, and that is definitely not what I meant.
 
cathy63 said:
Who's they? State and local officials aren't allowed to do controlled burns on the majority of the wilderness land because it belongs to the Federal government.

Also, a lot of the CA wilderness isn't actually forest as you might think of it in your area, with brush growing under large trees, so prescribed burns might not be the right strategy.
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I dunno, just asking. In the southeast, it is a mixture of public and private. The public lands always have prescribed burns, many with signs posted as a kind of demonstration to remind the private owners to do the same. Many private land holders have burns also because they know it can protect their asset.

I'm not trying to stir up anything. If prescribed burns don't work out West, I apologize. They are important in the East.
 
"They" do plenty of prescribed burns in the Sierra Nevada. When the mountains are covered in snow is not the time though. A few weeks ago Watch Duty showed dozens of them. They is the USFS and BLM, which is Bureau of land Management in this case. BLM manages huge areas of land, but mostly if not all in the west. You can find USFS and BLM online. There is a ton of info. If you are
"Back East" you may not know much about BLM.
 
Our little village is a FireWise enrolled community. All the homeowners know if/when a fire comes down canyon that they are toast. I was a wildland firefighter and did property assessments for neighbors. Some wanted a lot of plant material removed, some just wanted wildlife and privacy as it was.

On the ponderosa I have cowboy/rattlesnake fencing around the homestead of about an acre. I keep brush and tall grass 15 feet outside the fence and 20 feet inside, Sounds good but I let anything else go wild. I have a walking deck with sprinklers ready to go, metal roof, metal hay barn. We have a courtyard with wood fencing that I can take off where the fence attaches to the home.

Living 1/2 mile from a wilderness makes firefighting difficult as power tools, vehicles are not usually allowed. Also a natural started fire may be left to burn.

There is a men's group that does service work for those who need help. The US Forest service also has some grant money knowing that a village fire could spread to the forest and the wilderness.

Stay Fire Safe david
 
Firefighters from USFS, BLM, CalFire, and all kinds of other Depts cooperate and help each other in the big fires. They took over Camp 9 here for a couple months last year. People from Canada and Mexico are on these fires too.
 
cathy63 said:
It's not just aesthetics. Clearing too much brush harms wildlife and causes landslides. I don't know the exact situation in rodi's canyon, but there are federally protected endangered species in a lot of places and that affects how much clearing can be done.

Also, the native vegetation along the coast is all brush with just a few small mesquite and oak trees. We are not talking about old growth forest in this part of California. Clearing the brush means that you have acres of bare dirt that then has to be paved over or covered with gravel or non-native plantings such as ice plant. Otherwise during the next rainy winter, all the homes at the top of the canyons will end up at the bottom. Google Palos Verdes if you want to see some photos of what that looks like from another part of L.A. County.
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Maybe I'm misusing the term, but to me, "clearing brush" basically means mowing the lawn. I used to live in a hillside residential area in northcentral LA. Once a month or so, a hired crew would roam across the hillside, with weed-wackers and lawn mowers and the like. The worked around the trees, where by "tree" we mean any woody plant taller than maybe 10 feet... and they'd cut the rest, to where it looked like a sparse beige residential lawn, Western style. It wasn't unsightly and it certainly wasn't bare. In fact the even manicuring was visually pleasant and uniform. And one supposes that the roots of the remaining "trees" aided the soil-stability on the hillside.

As for wildlife, there were plenty of hawks and coyotes... much to the dismay of our former cat (rest in peace).
 
In the canyon I referenced - the city does clear *some* of the area that is overgrown. It is typically leaving mature bushes, perhaps cutting them back, and removing the dead sections - They do remove entirely someo of the grasses that are non-native species (pampas grass, etc.) They remove the dry/dead scrub... No lawnmowers, but weed wackers.... But a lot more of it is pole saws and chain saws.

There's a video on our city's website:
San Diego Brush Management
 
Once the fires are extinguished, sooner or later, it will rain and with it mud slides. I really can't see this area being restored in several lifetimes. Those who lost their homes may have to come to grips with that when they attempt to open permits to rebuild, realize that they can't and now the land becomes pretty much worthless when it used to be some of the nations most expensive.
 
By Andrew Barker, Editor at LinkedIn News

The death toll from the Los Angeles wildfires climbed to at least 16 people on Saturday as firefighters battled four active fires, per the LA county medical examiner. Flames threatened homes in Brentwood and Encino, forcing evacuations. The Palisades Fire – the largest of the blazes – spread east to Mandeville Canyon, approaching Interstate 405. More than 37,000 acres have burned, destroying or damaging 12,000 structures, according to Cal Fire. Strong Santa Ana winds are expected to return Monday night through Wednesday, raising the risk of new fires, the National Weather Service said.
 
Things are not looking good for Encino and Tarzana.
 
Looters are getting clever in spite of National Guard troops activated. They looters are dressed up as firefighters and other first responders to gain access.
 
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