California wildfires

[xuenchen]

@ IdeomotorPrisoner:

Sorry but all the tangents in the World won't stop the Pol incompetence and money funneling corruption.

There's no proof of any climate changes causing these fires or anything else.

 

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

More this...

I may be a Californian, but Chargers couldn't win me over, and LA didn't even have a team the years I lived up there. So I kept the NFL team I moved here with.

Cardinals Send humility

So proud of my playoff missing, 8-9, inconsistent, drunk driving organization that got swept by the Seachickens again.

Perfect gesture from a gracious host. We're all gracious hosts right now. Usually it takes a Dodgers game to get so many Angelenos in our hotels and spending money here.

[KrustyKrab]

The winds are slightly diminished... for 4 or 5 days. Then another moderate to strong Santa Ana event begins. With the current one ramping back up in the next few hours.

This is just beginning. And there's nothing you can do to prevent a fire moving up to 15 mph in 80-100 MPH winds gusts.

Paradise always has a price. Florida knows this well. And like them this state will come together, not tolerate opportunistic criminality (mostly) and be fucked by insurers in the end.

I thank this thread for not immediately focusing on the budget cuts to the LAFD and doing the false dilemma thing.

No failure to claim when there's no chance to begin with. People just don't understand Santa Ana/Diablo wind fueled fires at their worst. People don't understand how futile the most equipped fire departments efforts are. No preparedness is enough for The Palisade and Eaton fire.

They tired, but the amount of water needed and manpower needed is not achievable by any infrastructure anywhere. No hydrant system has the capacity for these fires. And we don't need conservative America being angry at our liberal politicians alleged failures.

The fire chief might have said budget cuts would hamper a large scale response a month ago, but even a 10x increase of funding isn't saving Palisades or Altadena in retrospect. It defines false dilemma and is ignorant to the fires abilities.

It's like there's no real concern, but instead its an excuse to criticize wicked California again.

Please don't let conservative media (Looking at you Fox) try to instill an anger vs our liberal policies on this. You don't need to roast the California demon this time. They can just stop politicizing an event they have remedial first hand knowledge in.

I hate to bust your love fest that the left has done no wrong but there’s a lot of information that’s come out that doesn’t really favor your narrative. It’s not just conservative people speaking out against the incompetence but LOTS of democrats too. It’s not just a FOX thing as you keep repeating.

You mentioned earlier and may have edited it out that they’re only down a couple of fireman, that’s not true. The Fire Chief herself outed the incompetence and need for years now of more firemen and more stations, she said they’re 16 stations shy of what they need and at least a couple of hundred firefighters shy of what’s needed. She also pointed to other faults that were not being addressed. Unbelievably they knew for a while that many of the hydrants were down and had no backup. And from what I’ve read the list goes on from there. These are not conservative or FOX talking points 33.

You also mentioned this wasn’t fire season and it absolutely is. Santa Anna’s happen between September and May in CA’s colder months, ripe for starting fires. Not a time to be draining your reservoirs and leaving city’s without water to fight fires. That is a failure on this government which just happens to be all Democrat. I know you always toe the line for them but they failed spectacularly, they’re even admitting to it, well many are anyway while others are playing the blame game. It definitely isn’t all about climate change as some are saying, that’s nothing but an excuse for their failures.

Budget cuts certainly didn’t help their cause and focusing on their DEI lens as the head of the Water Department put it, is just more of their political games and nonsense that doesn’t help anyone.

I agree that no matter what they had for resources it would be difficult to be prepared for this. Although, the fact they didn’t have any redundancy built into their infrastructure is a huge failure of city and state. They were given millions if not billions in 2014 to build more reservoirs, they didn’t do that, they also didn’t build the stations they needed. Lots of things that could’ve been done that would’ve affected the outcome of this fire weren’t done.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

Just Indulge me, if they had sufficient funding. Were not short staffed, and had every reservoir filled or hydrant working, what would have changed?

We'd still have a burned Palisades and Altadena. Still would have lost the fight. Even the best funded fight. While we will never know, I think it's irrelevant to the outcome that happened, and something that needs to be addressed after the fact.

Fires for Southern California are in September through December and may pop back up in May. Never seen a major fire event in January in 18 years. Usually mudslides are right now.

From Google AI.

The region sees about 10 Santa Ana wind events a year on average, typically occurring from fall into January.

It's outside normal climate behavior to have the pressure centers set up like The end of the monsoon in January.

The climate plays a greater role than a even a woefully underfunded LAFD. It's a shame this happened in a drought after record rainfall, it really is.

Blame the atmospheric rivers. It refilled the lakes, flooded farmland, and then dried out during the HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD.

No matter what circumstances LAFD was in, and I think even if they had a full reservoir, the outcome and loss isn't lessened the slightest bit.

Like covid after it was out, nothing done or not done would change the seemingly deterministic outcome.

LA was always going to burn to the same ravaging extent.

All the water in the world and hundreds of extra firefighters isn't doing shit if you can't stay positioned in an offensive position against the fire. It's a false dilemma because nothing was stopping it.

So while LAs inadequacies may be fact and without debate, and put under a retrospective microscope, it's not changing the outcome, nor would it have.

So it's once again, "misinformation". LA being inept and the fire being beyond ability to stop can both be true simultaneously.

And maybe the Chief will get her funding back? Maybe scrutiny will get new stations built? Hydrants up to code?

Good on her if she does, but it's wasn't changing the outcome damage-wise to any large degree.

She's in a better position because her city failed her department, because if hey didn't, she would be getting roasted as the DEI hire that was unqualified to lead in the crisis when everything still burned.

Because the same thing would have happened. No matter the preparedness people are still running down a hill and jumping in the ocean to escape it.

The inadequate support the city gave her is better saved for the congressional inquiry.

[KKLoco]

I’ll simplify all this:

The fire chief is a champion!

The Mayor is a moron.

[KrustyKrab]

So while LAs inadequacies may be fact and without debate, and put under a retrospective microscope, it's not changing the outcome, nor would it have.

You don’t know that, that’s an assumption on your part. There’s a lot of city and state failures attached to this one. If they had built what they said they would 11 years ago I’ve no doubt it would’ve changed the outcome.

I know how LA works I lived there for many years through the 80’s and 90’s, was there during the riots and saw what a cluster f that was. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen LA in ruin. Leadership has always been a joke there. LA/CA has always been known for mismanagement of funds for decades while they funnel money for their favorite new chew toys.

For instance they had a 180 million allocated in the budget for “social justice art” and 100 million budgeted for “ transgender cafe’s”. Money that would’ve been much more beneficial for the FD that was having their budgets cut, that’s gross mismanagement of funds to say the least, pure stupidity but that’s the kind of mentality CA gov has and has had for decades. JS

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

I think I can.

80 to 100 MPH wind gusts, hillsides coveted in dead brush. They said it moved fast enough for people to need to run from it. In Altdadena it burned through 20 blocks in less than an hour at one point.

It wasn't going to be anything but woulda shoulda coulda from the outset. Blame placing. While their funding SHOULD be looked at, it wouldn't have changed much. Not like they would have been able to knock it down before it spread out of control. And at that point, c'est la vie.

There's no mobilization for even 1985 Califonia. Even the best run Califonia. Even back during the record gun violence homicide California of the 80s/90s when major cities were still largely republican run would it have been any better.

There's no ground to be gained once it's starts. By the time a first unit can arrive its beyond confronting.

While running out of water didn't help, and a full reservoir would have been nice, the speed at which sustained 40-50 MPH winds, gusting to near 100 moves fire is not benefiting from 100% more firefighters and unlimited water. They were on their own. It was too windy to even fly.

It's good to bring up their funding issues, but it's sorta ignorant to the speed of it all even to think the impact was at all critical to a 2% cut in funding operating and 16 too few stations, and inoperable hydrants.

[putnam6]

Just Indulge me, if they had sufficient funding. Were not short staffed, and had every reservoir filled or hydrant working, what would have changed?

We'd still have a burned Palisades and Altadena. Still would have lost the fight. Even the best funded fight. While we will never know, I think it's irrelevant to the outcome that happened, and something that needs to be addressed after the fact.

Fires for Southern California are in September through December and may pop back up in May. Never seen a major fire event in January in 18 years. Usually mudslides are right now.

From Google AI.


It's outside normal climate behavior to have the pressure centers set up like The end of the monsoon in January.

The climate plays a greater role than a even a woefully underfunded LAFD. It's a shame this happened in a drought after record rainfall, it really is.

Blame the atmospheric rivers. It frefilled the lakes, flooded farmland and then dried out during the HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD.

No matter what circumstances LAFD was in, and I think even if they had a full reservoir, the outcome and loss isn't lessened the slightest bit.

Like covid, from the moment China let it out, it was always going to end up an endemic disease that never goes away. And nothing done or not done would change the seemingly deterministic outcome.

LA was always going to burn to the same ravaging extent.

All the water in the world and hundreds of extra firefighters isn't doing shit if you can't stay positioned in an offensive position against the fire. It's a false dilemma because nothing was stopping it.

So while LAs inadequacies may be fact and without debate, and put under a retrospective microscope, it's not changing the outcome, nor would it have.

So it's once again, "misinformation". LA being inept and the fire being beyond ability to stop can both be true simultaneously.

And maybe the Chief will get her funding back? Maybe scrutiny will get new stations built? Hydrants up to code?

Good on her if she does, but it's wasn't changing the outcome damage-wise to any large degree.

She's in a better position because her city failed her department, because if hey didn't, she would be getting roasted as the DEI hire that was unqualified to lead in the crisis when everything still burned.

Because the same thing would have happened. No matter the preparedness people are still running down a hill and jumping in the ocean to escape it.

The inadequate support the city gave her is better saved for the congressional inquiry.

I don't think anybody is saying the fires wouldn't have happened but could it have slowed it down allowing those killed an opportunity to escape? 


It's difficult to believe the FireChief would be so adamant about being under-budgeted if she were wrong, she brought all of this up a month ago if not longer, how many fire trucks can be fixed in a few weeks for 17 million dollars?

Hell didn't a Palisades Shopping area get saved because the owner hired a private firefighter team and a few tankers full of water?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati...584894007/
 

LOS ANGELES − Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing political heat from across the city and beyond as catastrophic fires continue to burn for the fourth day.
The fires have killed at least 10 people and burned nearly 25,000 acres in the Los Angeles region as of Friday, though not all the blazes are under Bass' jurisdiction. Among the ones that are include the biggest: the Palisades Fire, which broke out Tuesday and rapidly consumed thousands of homes as residents fled for their lives. It had burned more than 20,000 acres as of Friday afternoon and has wreaked havoc since it ignited.
Bass is facing criticism over two issues in particular: a funding cut to the Los Angeles Fire Department in the fire-prone region and the timing of a diplomatic trip to Ghana as dangerous fire conditions loomed.

 
"LAFD’s operating budget did get reduced by $17.6 million - part of that reduction included 61 total positions (civilian) being eliminated," the city's controller's office said in comments sent to USA TODAY accompanying the documents.
A report from the fire department sent to the mayor and city council in December says: "These budgetary reductions have adversely affected the Department's ability to maintain core operations."
The fire department report states that a $7 million reduction in overtime funding "further exacerbated operational challenges across key bureaus" including those that deal with wildfire management and air operations.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

I don't think anybody is saying the fires wouldn't have happened but could it have slowed it down allowing those killed an opportunity to escape? 


It's difficult to believe the Fire Chief would be so adamant about being under-budgeted if she were wrong, she brought all of this up a month ago if not longer, how many fire trucks can be fixed in a few weeks for 17 million dollars?

Hell didn't a Palisades Shopping area get saved because the owner hired a private firefighter team and a few tankers full of water?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati...584894007/
 

If only everyone could afford private firefighters to focus solely on their property and nothing else.

I'm sure if the LAFD had a ratio of one committed team for every property; schools, churches, libraries, and the lot could have all been saved.

But that's exactly what's needed to save a property. A committed team with unlimited water to focus solely on that one property. Even 500 firefighters protecting 500 houses with all the water they can use isn't enough.

Still says more about the violence of the fire to me.

I think the fire chief is so adamant because she is right (about the underfunding), but also using it to make sure no FD heads roll in the obligatory aftermath.

[quintessentone]

Yes, both sides are right and also wrong. What really matters here? Not our opinions I can say that much.