Lessons from a wildfire

Huntindog45 said:
like i said above...find a community in the world that can try and fight 10,000 structure fires at once and not lose water pressure... the lakes are full. it wasnt because of lack water. the infrastructure just could not keep up
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Or try to find a community (liberal, conservative, or even unicorn moderate) that agrees to up their taxes to the level needed to pay for every needed emergency response detail needed to fight our more and more frequent 100year catastrophes.
 
CorbLand said:
One would think it should be easy but I can tell you, as someone who deals with contractors, getting them to come back and do things is a giant pain. We had contractors walking away from retainage payments because they could go to the next job and make more money.

I dont deal with the environment side but I can tell you that one reason we like to contract out as much as possible is because it is far easier to deal with one company for the good and bad. In your case, it is probably far far easier to contract logging company to cut the trees than it would be to allow every Tom, Dick and/or Harry to go cut the trees. Simply from an enforcement and monitoring stand point. With contracts, you can set the rules and if the rules arent followed, its one person to point the finger at. If you open it up, even with rules, who do you blame if they arent followed?

I would be curious to know why they pile and burn it versus allowing a logging company to sell it. Just to clarify, are they burning everything cut or are they just piling and burning slash?

Not saying its right, not saying its the way that it should be done but sometimes, and more times than not, people are their own worst enemies.
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Have to retain more then if that's an issue. We work 5 states with contractors everywhere, don't have that problem.
They burn everything. Piles are the size of half a football field 12' high dozens of piles.
 
Some good points made here already about how these fires differ from a "typical" wildland fire. Regarding the availability of water in the Palisades fire, as was already stated this wasn't an issue about availability of water so much as infrastructure and storage of water for firefighting. For the most part the water mains are all located at lower elevations and are used to fill storage tanks at higher elevations. It's the head pressure created from these tanks that "pushes" water up to hydrants at higher elevations (rather than mechanical means like pumps). When the output of water from those tanks exceeds the input of water to maintain that head pressure, then hydrants at higher elevations won't be charged (pressurized). The only thing you can do is wait for the tanks to refill enough to restore head pressure or use pumps to move water uphill. Standards for the capacity of these storage tanks is based on fire fighting operations that last hours, not days as was the case in LA.
You each can be the judge as to whether current elected officials should be held accountable for the sins of their predecessors in terms of urban planning and permitting (building). What they must be held accountable for is their decisions on recovery and rebuilding. They will have the ability to make changes that could limit the size of new home construction (4500 sq ft vs. 8500 sq ft) to improve set backs and defensible space. They will have the ability to require steel construction vs. wood construction and materials used for roofing, all viable means to minimize fire risk. They will have the ability to reduce the number of building permits issued because there will be a number of home owners that choose not to rebuild. But this cuts into their revenues generated from building permits and property taxes. Will they be willing to do this in the face of criticism and outcry from wealthy donors to their campaigns. The pessimist in me thinks we already know how this plays out. I hope I'm wrong.
My thoughts and prayers are with those small business owners that have lost their livelihood and the home owners that lost their homes and can't afford to stay at the Ritz Carlton while they rebuild or relocate.
 
I lived in inland So Cal for 21 years. We were evacuated more than once. It's hard to wrap your head around the situation until you feel the Santa Ana winds which hammer in with around 10% humidity. Once a fire starts you're pretty much SOL and praying it doesn't start leaping through communities. Three seasons there fire, rain, mudslides.
 
Wildfires are a part of nature, it's been going on for millennia, makes way for new growth, as nature intended. You can put off the inevitable, for a while, but as the the mature tinderbox increases, so will the result. Putting up houses in the path, and expecting someone else to stop it, is asking a bit much. Life has risks, and nature will find a way, to do what it does.
 
I’m on the fence of wanting to go down there due to the pure chaos fighting fire in So Cal brings. Seems the media has more rights than fire personnel down there. My gear is packed and in the truck regardless.

The amount of politics over these fires is unreal. Elected presidents Musk and Trump can’t seem to grasp simple things about firefighting and really aren’t supporting the cause. You cannot stop a fire in the caliber of these winds until they die down. I know a few dozen folks on the frontlines currently and have seen footage from their eyes and wonder how some can be on hotshot crews down there. Homes are so closely stacked together in those subdvisions that you can hear your neighbor a few doors down fart.

Insurance companies not only in California, but Idaho and Montana as well are dropping clients like flies that don’t have defensible space around their houses.


No matter where you live, it’s the homeowners responsibility to be fire wise. Clear your brush and burn it during a good time of year, burn your property every few years with advice/help of the local state office or Fire Department, and possibly have a plan with sprinkler lays you can deploy before you, loved ones, or neighbors evacuate. At the very least if you have a water source the fire crews can throw a high pressure pump into, that’s a plus, If you’re place isn’t defensible and your neighbors place is, I’m going to focus on saving your neighbors first.
 
.204smokechaser said:
I’m on the fence of wanting to go down there due to the pure chaos fighting fire in So Cal brings. Seems the media has more rights than fire personnel down there. My gear is packed and in the truck regardless.

The amount of politics over these fires is unreal. Elected presidents Musk and Trump can’t seem to grasp simple things about firefighting and really aren’t supporting the cause. You cannot stop a fire in the caliber of these winds until they die down. I know a few dozen folks on the frontlines currently and have seen footage from their eyes and wonder how some can be on hotshot crews down there. Homes are so closely stacked together in those subdvisions that you can hear your neighbor a few doors down fart.

Insurance companies not only in California, but Idaho and Montana as well are dropping clients like flies that don’t have defensible space around their houses.


No matter where you live, it’s the homeowners responsibility to be fire wise. Clear your brush and burn it during a good time of year, burn your property every few years with advice/help of the local state office or Fire Department, and possibly have a plan with sprinkler lays you can deploy before you, loved ones, or neighbors evacuate. At the very least if you have a water source the fire crews can throw a high pressure pump into, that’s a plus, If you’re place isn’t defensible and your neighbors place is, I’m going to focus on saving your neighbors first.
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Around here if you're outside of hydrant range you have to have on site water storage sufficient to meet code along with the interior sprinkler system. Doesn't do a lick of good if you have trees up against your house though like you said.

Not much could be done about these fires, but its not like it hasn't been common knowledge this kind of event could happen and infrastructure could have been upgraded in order to help in a worst case scenario. More storage, pumps, generators, separate systems from domestic, buried power lines, etc. My house in BFE has buried power...but our area is fire conscious as well.
 
Alpine4x4 said:
Around here if you're outside of hydrant range you have to have on site water storage sufficient to meet code along with the interior sprinkler system. Doesn't do a lick of good if you have trees up against your house though like you said.

Not much could be done about these fires, but its not like it hasn't been common knowledge this kind of event could happen and infrastructure could have been upgraded in order to help in a worst case scenario. More storage, pumps, generators, separate systems from domestic, buried power lines, etc. My house in BFE has buried power...but our area is fire conscious as well.
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The power lines are a big one. Curious to see what the fire investigators find that started many, but I know power companies outside of calfornia are starting to de energize lines in wind events and also de energize lines before fire personnel are engages on the ground.

Also, I am not up to snuff on zoning regs, but that plays a huge part in why so many of these subdivisions are burning. Should they be allowed or have been allowed to build in some of these areas? Nope.

Should people in other states have the right to complain when their house burns down when they live in a boxed canyon with very little ingress/egress and fire resources are engaged on that fire to the best of their ability? Probably not.
 
.204smokechaser said:
The power lines are a big one. Curious to see what the fire investigators find that started many, but I know power companies outside of calfornia are starting to de energize lines in wind events and also de energize lines before fire personnel are engages on the ground.

Also, I am not up to snuff on zoning regs, but that plays a huge part in why so many of these subdivisions are burning. Should they be allowed or have been allowed to build in some of these areas? Nope.

Should people in other states have the right to complain when their house burns down when they live in a boxed canyon with very little ingress/egress and fire resources are engaged on that fire to the best of their ability? Probably not.
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That's our current house build. One way in and out, boxed in, no hydrants. We know the risks. We also will be creating defensive lines, building upon existing logging roads to strengthen them as lines, and of course have all the code to follow. Our district is all volunteers and our neighbor is one. We have a water trailer we will have parked there for more water as well. We're also zoned R20 so homes aren't stacked on top of each other. We are defensible, other older builds without the new infrastructure are not though around us.
 
Gonna be a huge transfer of wealth here. Investors will swoop in and make an offer for people to walk away. Just like Maui. It's not incompetence. It's orchestrated.
 
Where are all of those people going to go after they get their insurance settlements? Sounds like an easy way out of a $hi+ sandwich if you're looking for a way out. Tens of thousands of homes burning up, maybe hundreds of thousands of people displaced will probably make all of our home values increase.
 
LFC911 said:
Where are all of those people going to go after they get their insurance settlements? Sounds like an easy way out of a $hi+ sandwich if you're looking for a way out. Tens of thousands of homes burning up, maybe hundreds of thousands of people displaced will probably make all of our home values increase.
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And our local rural quality of life decrease.
 
LFC911 said:
Where are all of those people going to go after they get their insurance settlements? Sounds like an easy way out of a $hi+ sandwich if you're looking for a way out. Tens of thousands of homes burning up, maybe hundreds of thousands of people displaced will probably make all of our home values increase.
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Great. Further crushing an already horribly overburdened housing market. Hopefully none of them know about MT. Haha


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