Wildfire ‘24

[Cono Este]

You guys are thieves. Robbing people blind in taxes to fund your social experiments. It’s personal to us who applied to the FD and had deal with that bullshit. Half my life guard academy couldn’t save themselves in the water let alone anyone else. Meanwhile we turned away NCAA swimmers and lifetime surfers. I call that murder.

You guys are finished. One domino after another is falling.

Now you’re hiding the truth.

[Skistack]

I hear all these people blaming Newsom, the mayor and fire chief, DEI etc etc. These people are so stupid.


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I truly feel sorry for people who have to frame everything that happens into a political context. What a sad way to live your life and view the world.


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[MagnificentUnicorn]

Cono, get help. This fire has nothing to do with us stealing anything or your lifeguard academy. You’re going off the deep end.

This fire happened because of development in an area with extreme fire hazard because of fuel , topography and wind. It’s unavoidable.

It has zero to do with DEI and “woke” policies.


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[PB]

What's a defensible space with 50+ mph winds? Three mile perimeter?

[liv2ski]

You guys are thieves. Robbing people blind in taxes to fund your social experiments. It’s personal to us who applied to the FD and had deal with that bullshit. Half my life guard academy couldn’t save themselves in the water let alone anyone else. Meanwhile we turned away NCAA swimmers and lifetime surfers. I call that murder.

You guys are finished. One domino after another is falling.

Now you’re hiding the truth.

To be filled with so much hatred to be totally irrational? You need professional help.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Please don't quote Cono.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

What's a defensible space with 50+ mph winds? Three mile perimeter?

100 feet. Ground clear of debris, fire resistant plantings with vertical and horizontal spacing. That along with minimal or non-existant cantilevers, overhanging decks, eaves and rain gutters. Add in fire resistant roofs, cladding and window shutters and a house can be pretty secure against wildland fires.

[fomofo]

The Santa Anas Joan Didion

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sand storms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night.

Nobody tells it quite like Joan. Been thinking about Slouching Towards Bethlehem lately, and also, probably like a lot of people, The Second Coming. The Second Coming, indeed. God help us help ourselves.

Here come those Santa Ana winds again.

[MultiVerse]

100 feet. Ground clear of debris, fire resistant plantings with vertical and horizontal spacing. That along with minimal or non-existant cantilevers, overhanging decks, eaves and rain gutters. Add in fire resistant roofs, cladding and window shutters and a house can be pretty secure against wildland fires.

Structures built with fire resistant materials, defensive landscaping, and fire resistant detailing stand a far better chance of surviving a flashover event but those things will not make a house fireproof. Those things will make a structure more "resistant" to fire but not "secure" from fire. Going beyond fire-resistant requires materials like reinforced concrete or stone:

[Meadow Skipper]

What's a defensible space with 50+ mph winds? Three mile perimeter?

This, barely. And the winds were over 60 mph.

Winds like that will carry large burning brands and hold them against a building, especially in the eaves, overhangs, and wooden decks/shutters etc. until those things ignite.

[warthog]

Structures built with fire resistant materials, defensive landscaping, and fire resistant detailing stand a far better chance of surviving a flashover event but those things will not make a house fireproof. Those things will make a structure more "resistant" to fire but not "secure" from fire. Going beyond fire-resistant requires materials like reinforced concrete or stone:

Still standing, but you are never getting that smell out of everything I would think.

[Meadow Skipper]

Still standing, but you are never getting that smell out of everything I would think.

There’s a tipping point. I was working on fires in the Bitterroot Valley some years back and talking to a homeowner whose house mid slope in pretty dense woods had been saved. But the trees all around were burnt matchsticks and the ground cover was all ashes. He told me that he guessed he was happy that the place was saved, but really the way the area looked after the burn wasn’t what he wanted to live with.

[fomofo]

5 more years of experience since this.

With deadly wildfires becoming more prominent in California, Caldwell said building fire-proof homes is a primary focus of the project, as well as a learning process.

“Each time you build, you learn a little bit more on how to do it better,” said Caldwell.

One building technique they are looking at is installing glass systems in the windows that place the glass panes farther apart from each other. This will help prevent the panes from exploding when they expand from intense heat, he said.

Garage doors, another weak point on homes, can be equipped with steel plates that cover and protect the door in the event of a fire. Another system will install water pumps onto the flat roofs of homes that will flood the roofs in the event of a threatening fire.

“There’s different techniques that we’re learning as we go through the process,” he said. “I’m sure we have a lot more to learn.”

https://www.sierrasun.com/news/makin...ition-at-tahoe

[plugboots]

Here’s a picture from my deck in Oct. 2015. The fire was coming directly at us. If the wind was stronger, or there were more structures and/or trees between the house and the fire, our house would’ve burned.
I have friends who were dodging flaming chunks of wood at their house during the Napa fire. The KMart there burned and it’s not a wood structure, and it’s surrounded by a ginormous parking lot.
So, sure, some things can help, but if it’s windy enough, and there’s enough shit to burn that the wind can fling…

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

"Defensible" means able to be defended. Your house or neighborhood is a lot less likely to get triaged out if FF's can feel comfortable with making a stand, or deflecting a fire (bump and run). Some areas are deathtraps no FF will go into if it's hot - if the Palisades fire happened in Laurel or Rustic canyon, the resident death count would have been in the hundreds if not thousands.

[warthog]

There’s a tipping point. I was working on fires in the Bitterroot Valley some years back and talking to a homeowner whose house mid slope in pretty dense woods had been saved. But the trees all around were burnt matchsticks and the ground cover was all ashes. He told me that he guessed he was happy that the place was saved, but really the way the area looked after the burn wasn’t what he wanted to live with.

Yup, same here. Lots of built up structures survived, but you are surrounded by devastation. Nice to have somewhere to live, but it will be years and years before it feels like a neighborhood again. I wonder if they make a way to airtight the house. Ours is pretty airtight as long as the Ac is off. I am sure the wind blown smoke makes its way in through roof vents, standpipes, etc. though. I would also imagine that making an insurance claim on smelly furniture and clothing and bedding is pretty tough with all the devastation around. Must be quite a catch 22.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

We got evacuated in 2008, and the fire came pretty close but we got lucky. 12 years later (after we moved) a fire burned over our neighborhood and half the houses on our street were destroyed. I had pushed the brush way back on our property, at least 150 feet on the state forest side, and our house was one of the ones that survived as the new owner maintained that space. We visited up there a couple of years ago and it's now a moonscape. I don't think I could deal with that.

[Bunion 2020]

^^^ The clean up from this event is going to be monumental and think of all the toxic shit that has been essentially blasted into the environment everywhere that burned over. Sure some will be sterile but all with have to be treated as if it is toxic. Rebuilding is far over the horizon right now.

And as much a believer I am in defensible space, the initial push was a fire hurricane with winds 80-100 mph. I am not aware of any urban interface ever being tested like this other than Lahina or this

The wind-driven Marshall Fire erupted into the most costly wildfire in Colorado history on December 30, 2021, evolving in one hour from a grass fire into a suburban firestorm that destroyed 1,084 homes and seven commercial properties as it swept into the Boulder suburbs of Louisville and Superior.

We use the word unprecedented a lot, maybe too much but this certainly fits. And it isn't like it was a surprise: https://www.nbcnews.com/weather/wild...isk-rcna186525

Jan. 7, 2025, 5:29 AM MST / Updated Jan. 7, 2025, 1:37 PM MST
By Patrick Smith and Kathryn Prociv

Millions of people across Southern California are under a red flag warning as a dangerous windstorm fanned blazes in the Los Angeles area, including the Palisades Fire, which has triggered evacuations and burned hundreds of acres.

A "Particularly Dangerous Situation" red flag warning has been issued for 19 million people in the region, including metropolitan Los Angeles. That class of warning is issued "in rare situations when long-lived, strong and violent tornadoes are possible," according to the National Weather Service.

The National Weather Service issued a critical fire risk alert for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, with the storm beginning Tuesday afternoon and peaking early Wednesday. Winds will be above 60 mph, and gusts could reach 80 mph to 100 mph in mountains and foothills. The fire threat is expected to stick around through Friday.

Warm and dry Santa Ana winds and very low humidity have created the perfect conditions for spreading fire, triggering repeated red flag fire warnings, and authorities are taking no chances.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he would pre-emptively mobilize state resources to tackle the storm, including assigning 65 fire engines, seven water tenders, seven helicopters and 109 specialized workers.

[plugboots]

Stuff grows back.
9 months diff.

[Bunion 2020]

^^^ that is what I loved about working in the Frank Church Wilderness. Every year huge decadent swathes of old forest would burn, sometimes to mineral soil and a year or so later it looked great.

But that was trees and shrubs and grasses, not asphalt and plastic. Vibes to those in LA.

[evdog]

Winds like that will carry large burning brands and hold them against a building, especially in the eaves, overhangs, and wooden decks/shutters etc. until those things ignite.

This. Also, all the leaves and debris that can accumulate over time or from the current event's high winds are a great source of ignition from embers.

In the San Diego fires in 2003 and 2007 a lot of houses burned when blowing embers entered houses through vents that did not have proper screens. Many of these were far outside the active fire perimeter.


My boss lived in Scripps Ranch and his street was along the boundary of the Cedar fire. His and a couple others were the only houses on the his street that didn't burn. While he was happy to not lose everything, he said their was also a bit of envy as everyone else on the street built nice new houses and bought all new stuff.

And yeah, dealing with the smell of smoke probably sucked. I saw a notice from the City of Pasadena yesterday asking people to not use blowers to clean up dust, since it can contain toxic materials.

[nickwm21]

I’m not sure if this has been discussed in this thread but I’ve seen media of a few houses that have survived due to passive / fire resistive design - one being on that main strip in Malibu with everything around it gone… I’ve also seen people who have (either DIY or pro install) had agricultural sprinklers installed on their roofs with high flow trash pumps in sucking their pools… One in particular clearly saved their home. It’d be interesting to see if that stuff becomes more commonplace moving forward. Maybe that’s the solution to the insurance problem… No more T111 and big eaves in these zones… must have external fire suppression… etc…


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[ötzi]

That’s actually been the general topic for the recent part of the thread.

Not sure the FD would favor all houses having water-based suppression systems, that could cause more water pressure problems for them.

[plugboots]

That’s actually been the general topic for the recent part of the thread.

Not sure the FD would favor all houses having water-based suppression systems, that could cause more water pressure problems for them.

Not sure water was involved w/ this one:


https://www.mansionglobal.com/amp/ar...sades-9f93b307

[ötzi]

[emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji637][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji640]][emoji639][emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]]][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]Not sure water was involved w/ this one:


https://www.mansionglobal.com/amp/ar...#91;emoji639]]

Thanks, that’s interesting. It seems like at least a few people in all this area must have tried to fire-proof their homes but I’m not hearing about other homes surviving.