We just witnessed what happens when fire fighters don’t have access to water to fight these fires. Safe to assume LA will now fix those issues?
SoCal fires
- Thread starter lawpoke87
- Start date
You just witnessed what happens when wildfires combine with 60-70 mph gusts. Little to do with water availability. More water might have helped some houses / areas, but wouldn't have drastically changed the outcome.
Pretty sad when Al Jazeera has better reporting than whatever news outlet you get your news from...
Why did the fire hydrants run dry?
The rescue efforts in Palisades were hindered by low pressure in the water supply at elevated areas.Los Angeles receives its water supply from 114 tanks in total, all of which were fully filled before the fires. However, the three water tanks in the elevated Palisades were unable to be refilled due to high demand.
On the morning of January 8, Janisse Quinones, the chief executive of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, told reporters that water tanks in Palisades had been depleted.
“We pushed the system to the extreme,” she said, adding that “four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”
The fire started in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood at 10:30am (18:30 GMT) on Tuesday, according to Cal Fire. Two of the one million-gallon tanks, located at an elevation in the Palisades, ran out late on Tuesday.
By 3am (11:00 GMT) on Wednesday, the third tank had also run out, Quinones said. Water reserves were located at a lower elevation, which made it difficult to refill the high-elevation tanks.
P.S. Do conservatives all get talking points circulated the day these things happen? You sound exactly like Elon who enjoys lying and misinforming constantly.
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Ironically, you know what would have helped in this situation and alleviated energy problems for California at the same time?
Pumped hydro energy storage. You could have used the upper reservoir for firefighting. There's no way Hollywood stars would allow that land to be used for that though.
Pumped hydro energy storage. You could have used the upper reservoir for firefighting. There's no way Hollywood stars would allow that land to be used for that though.
When the LA Fire Chief says city officials failed the fire fighters and people of LA I tend to believe her. Hate it for the people who lost everything . Hopefully those people will lose their jobs over this failure.
I’m also saddened by how many of these fires were intentionally set. What’s a matter with people today?
The fire chief is understandably upset about budget cuts and staff reductions, which she has a right to be.... but this was not a condition which a single municipal fire department was going to fight alone anyway.
The LA Water & Power Department are the ones responsible for filling hydrants. What it looks like is they did the best they could, but ultimately it's very hard to pump water to certain elevations in enough quantity in a short period of time to satisfy demand (with existing infrastructure)
Meanwhile... Republicans plan on withholding aid at a federal level.... NEVER AGAIN WILL I ALLOW ANY OF YOU TO BITCH AND MOAN ABOUT A DEMOCRAT WITHOLDING AID TO A REPUBLICAN STATE'S HURRICANE, FLOOD, FIRE, ICE STORM VICTIM ETC....
Interesting article in the LA Times argues brush and kindle isn’t the real culprit but housing density and building codes. House density certainly played an issue in not being able to get water to those higher elevations.
It does seem dumb to rebuild all these mega homes in areas where the topography makes it virtually impossible to defend against fires like we just witnessed. Especially with public funds and with the knowledge that people will likely to continue to intentionally set these fires in such areas.
www.latimes.com
It does seem dumb to rebuild all these mega homes in areas where the topography makes it virtually impossible to defend against fires like we just witnessed. Especially with public funds and with the knowledge that people will likely to continue to intentionally set these fires in such areas.
Inconvenient truths about the fires burning in Los Angeles from two fire experts
For years, renowned fire experts Jack Cohen and Stephen Pyne have tried to shift the conversation on fire prevention strategies. This week’s destruction, they say, could have been minimized.
www.latimes.com
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Read that article a day or two ago. Agreed that the topography and the building codes don't help.Interesting article in the LA Times argues brush and kindle isn’t the real culprit but housing density and building codes. House density certainly played an issue in not being able to get water to those higher elevations.
It does seem dumb to rebuild all these mega homes in areas where the topography makes it virtually impossible to defend against fires like we just witnessed. Especially with public funds and with the knowledge that people will likely to continue to intentionally set these fires in such areas.
Inconvenient truths about the fires burning in Los Angeles from two fire experts
For years, renowned fire experts Jack Cohen and Stephen Pyne have tried to shift the conversation on fire prevention strategies. This week’s destruction, they say, could have been minimized.
My advice to folks? Move Middle to Eastern Montana. Kind of barren, but mountains nearby. No real floods. Manageable fire districts. No hurricanes. No Tornadoes. Few Ice Storms. Blizzards are manageable. The only thing those people "worry" about is Yellowstone exploding.
We’re all probably F’d if Yellowstone explodes. They just get it over with a little sooner
Build Back Better/infrastructure bills:
too many social programs,
not enough on Structure
some of that money could have, should have been spent on Fire Prevention projects .
Agree.
I say this as someone who is a big supporter of prescribed fires and has had to evacuate my home in the past because of wildfires. And someone whose town has previously burned with over 300 homes lost:
Prescribed burns are under a microscope lately and for good reason. There have been several large fires that got out of control recently that started as prescribed burns, including the one that burned 300 homes in my town. We need to do them, but the general public is rightfully wary. Not sure what the answer is, but it is also true for this situation that prescribed burns in what amounts to a suburban area were not likely to ever happen anyways. The urban-wilderness interface is always going to be problematic, and it's also beyond reason to expect the state to have a good handle on non-native brush buildup in these same areas due to private property rights and the sheer scale of the issue.
As for water management and fire fighting budgets... These are things which make nice soundbites for political blame and maybe they made some difference. But it is extremely unlikely that these fires would have been stopped anyways. Best case scenario is buying a little more time for evacuations. That's not nothing, but nobody should be under any illusions that the size and scope of these fires is exclusively due to mismanagement. A municipal water supply was not designed for fighting 1000 house fires simultaneously. It kind of can't be. Fire hydrants went dry because of course they did. It's deigned for putting out a house fire, or even a neighborhood. It's not designed for putting out a 38,000 acre wildfire that is burning 100 neighborhoods simultaneously.
Leads me to the question….knowing the history of wildfires in these areas, why does the city allow houses to be built in such a density knowing they don’t have the infrastructure in place to protect those homes from a Santa Ana wind fire event? I’m specifically talking about those elevated areas they were unable to pump water too.
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Exactly. They know exactly what their fire management capacity is and they’ve waived it. Repeatedly. It’s almost like politics influenced science*
You are asking why the city allows people to build in fire prone areas? I mean, you could ask the same question for cities along the Gulf Coast during hurricanes.
Ultimately, expecting the city fire infrastructure to rescue you from a situation like this is pretty foolhardy, and anyone building or buying there ought to know that. Heck people have been complaining about insurance prices and insurance companies dropping them in some of these areas for years. It is not some sort of shocking political failure that this happened. It's been expected. The market demanded these areas be developed and so, little by little over several over decades, they were. The insurance markets certainly knew the risks, and people knew (or should have known) that it was a serious risk, but they bought there anyways. Caveat emptor.
It's a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to all affected. They took a known risk and lost, but that doesn't mean I don't empathize with them or that I think anyone deserved it. Same if your house gets hit by a hurricane on the Florida coast.
