Could the Los Angeles wild fire have been prevented?

[261252]

Anyone got any ideas how the Los Angeles fire could have been prevented?

They must have seen it coming over the last couple of years because of the drought and they knew about the Santa Ana winds

The one thing that shocked me is the inability to pump water up to the fire in the hills that was burning the celebrities homes, that was clearly preventable with better pumps, bigger water towers etc.

You cannot prevent it from starting, but how about
preventing the fire from getting so out of control?

 

[Robert Mugabe]

Nobody seems to be asking or answering that question. Seems unpreventable in that climate. I remember the first time I was in LA back in July of 84 and to quote Anthony Quinn in Lawrence of Arabia. It felt like the "sun's anvil" dived into an air-conditioned restaurant to get out of the heat. There were guys doing hot tar roofing just outside on another building. I thought at the time "how can anyone live in this day after day?"
It seems inevitable that the whole lot would go up in flames with just a spark. The entire city of Los Angeles is burnt to the ground, pretty much. What kind of engineering would it take to have sprinkler pipes covering the whole city? That might help.
Other than that, people were just living on borrowed time.

 

[Zoot Allures]

My thought is a fire wall that would need a creative breakthrough outside of traditional fire breaks.

They had many years to create one, as you say, they knew it was a matter of time

Reminds me of New Orleans, they knew it was a matter of time but they did not want to spend money on a better dam , they just hoped it would not happen

Stopping those winds from carrying embers for miles would need a real genius solution

My first thought is fire proofing the roofs of the houses

While it may sound absurd, maybe they should be water bombing the homes?

 

[southpaw]

Maybe if they didn't give billions in military aid to foreign countries, they could spend some of that money on their own citizens.

Sprinkler pipes, Fire walls, water bombers, you name it. Hell, build an aquaduct to divert flood waters from hurricane prone regions. America first and all that.

 

[jalimon]

These mountains around LA should have never been developed for housing.

Exactly like the coast of Florida and especially all the Island and the Keys...All that will be flooded at some point in the near future.

 

[Robert Mugabe]

These mountains around LA should have never been developed for housing.

Exactly like the coast of Florida and especially all the Island and the Keys...All that will be flooded at some point in the near future.

As in Vancouver. British Properties being built higher and higher. There have already been a couple of incidents. On the North Shore, a house fell victim to a mudslide with people killed. Lions Bay another one. Eventually, once the root system that holds the ground together has been removed, houses are going to be mud sliding down the mountains.

 

[Robert Mugabe]

Maybe if they didn't give billions in military aid to foreign countries, they could spend some of that money on their own citizens.

Sprinkler pipes, Fire walls, water bombers, you name it. Hell, build an aquaduct to divert flood waters from hurricane prone regions. America first and all that.

Or maybe the billions they spent on their own military, with two useless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might have been better spent at home.

 

[xix]

LA always had water problems.

 

[xix]

Vet's brilliant method to protect home from wildfire

An Army vet put cheap oscillating lawn sprinklers on his roof, turned on the water hoses and fled the #PalisadesFire. When he returned, his house was still s...

www.youtube.com

 

[Ceiling Cat]

Could the Los Angeles fire could have been prevented? Yes, but at what cost? They would have had to prepare with high capacity pumps to pump water many kilometers away. Did they see it coming? They bought more water bombers and increased fire fighting crews just recently. It was the perfect storm where many factors came together. The two previous years had more rainfall than normal contributing to grass and bush growth, last summer was extra dry and the Santa Anna winds the are a regular occurrence were much stringer than usual. How do you prepare for a once in a hundred years event that may not happen, and then it may happen twice in 10 to 15 years.

 

[The Oracle]

How do you prepare for a once in a hundred years event that may not happen, and then it may happen twice in 10 to 15 years.

If the DIE loving Democrats actually believed their doomsday predictions then yes they would have taken precautions. But they don't buy their own climate propaganda spew. They did pass that bill for 50 million in Sacramento to trump proof California though...Wonder if the residents who watch there water ran out respect that move?

 

[Butler1000]

When you live in a place called Tornado Alley, or at the foot of a volcano, or on a flood plain in a hurricane area, or on a fault line, or in a drought prone area with forest and high winds......

I find it very difficult to muster up sympathy.

The residents had access to risk information. That's all I need to know.

 

[Ceiling Cat]

When you talked about predictions and precautions I immediately thought about stock market. People buys stocks and makes predictions thinking it will follow the rules. But sometimes they might be right and sometimes no .

Your analogy comparing the fire at the Pacific Palisades to the stock market is insightful, as both involve an element of probability. The residents were certainly aware of the inherent risks of living there, yet they chose to stay. Fires didn’t occur annually, and when they did, they were often quickly controlled with minimal damage. The conditions that led to the devastating fire in recent years were unique, a combination of several wet years that allowed vegetation to thrive, followed by a prolonged dry season and unusually strong Santa Ana winds to fuel the flames. expand on your analogy, the residents of the Pacific Palisades made a high-risk bet, one that paid off multiple times before the inevitable loss. They entered into the gamble with full knowledge of the potential consequences.

 

[K Douglas]

Proper forest management could have helped but I don't think it could have been avoided. Having better tools to fight the fires could have helped too but as has become very apparent, the government response was inadequate.

 

[Ceiling Cat]

Not only stock markets ! I also talked about the météo and the weather that are unpredictables .
I mean we don’t know how what is happening to the nature or in the environment where we live . Surprises happen.

As mentioned earlier, it all comes down to probability. Large financial institutions generate approximately $150,000 in pure profit per employee after expenses, amounting to an average annual profit of $8.25 billion. They achieve this level of success due to their extensive resources. In contrast, the average individual investor is content with an annual return of 10–15%. With access to far greater resources, these institutions can achieve significantly higher gains.

Consider how weather forecasting has evolved, from basic predictions in the past to today’s sophisticated systems using satellite imagery. Similarly, wildfires can now be both predicted and detected, although, like weather forecasting or stock price predictions, it remains an imperfect science. By analyzing historical data and current conditions, it’s possible to estimate the likelihood of wildfires in specific areas.

Currently, the California Department of Forestry is evaluating the use of advanced infrared cameras powered by artificial intelligence. These cameras monitor specific areas and analyze light flickering in the distance to distinguish between a genuine fire and, for example, a streetlamp flickering behind a tree. Early detection through such technologies can significantly reduce the impact of wildfires.

 

[kherg007]

It was white guys who decided to build like that in an area that was more like a desert. Blame them?

But what's particularly galling is hearing the idiot wing of the R party deciding that Federal aid to those folks be ignored or have conditions put upon them. These are the same douchebags who allow people in their states to build in flood plains and ease up on building codes in sinkhole regions and build on the ocean in Hurricane zones.
And every year when they need aid it doesn't seem like anyone is putting conditions on them receiving aid.

Thus conditions to receive US Federal aid only applies to blue states, so it seems. Well done America. Maybe blue states ought to withhold those extra tax dollars that they over-contribute to the US federal government.

 

[Zoot Allures]

A different perspective is this: while LA will get struck with wildfires and earthquakes
from a business POV, which seems the proper POV, the GDP their economy has produced over many decades is far more than the cost of the rebuild

Could it have been prevented? Yes as they saw the perfect storm coming
they just did not see it coming this year, or even in our lifetime, so they decided not to spend 100s of billions to stop the perfect storm and instead spent 10s of billions on traditional fire deployment meant to stop only imperfect storms


An excellant analogy is New Orleans. They knew it was a matter of time before they got flooded with a category 5 but they did not want to spend money on a better dam system , they just hoped it would not happen in their lifetime

It was a political decision

 

[richaceg]

Empty reservoirs (not all of 'em) did not help. Reducing funds for the FD didn't help (no matter how "small" was the reduction) Clearly for the past few years, Cali has put their focus on somewhere else...Organized theft and other crimes, Homelessness, Fentanyl addiction, housing undocumented immigrants etc etc ...now matter how the democrats spin this...this could have been prevented...they simply didn't learn their lessons from Hawaii...

 

[Zoot Allures]

Vet's brilliant method to protect home from wildfire

An Army vet put cheap oscillating lawn sprinklers on his roof, turned on the water hoses and fled the #PalisadesFire. When he returned, his house was still s...

www.youtube.com

That is my thought : stopping the wildfire is not the issue , let it burn for a few days then it will return to nature and become stronger as only the stronger seeds survive. The issue is stopping the homes burning down

They burn down because roofs catch on fire so fire proof the roofs? How much would that cost?

Nothing as it would reduce the cost of fire insurance

Can someone tell why I am wrong? It cannot be that easy

 

[corrie fan]

That is my thought : stopping the wildfire is not the issue , let it burn for a few days then it will return to nature and become stronger as only the stronger seeds survive. The issue is stopping the homes burning down

They burn down because roofs catch on fire so fire proof the roofs? How much would that cost?

Nothing as it would reduce the cost of fire insurance

Can someone tell why I am wrong? It cannot be that easy

This guy had a great idea. Only problem would be if the water supply fails. I saw a news report about a commercial system that does the same thing, I think it was somewhere in rural Ontario. The system includes a backup generator to power the water pump in case the power fails.