Lessons from a wildfire

[timbernomad]

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?

If the slash was a product the loggers were interested in buying, we'd usually sell it to them. In some parts of the country there are purchasers for different biomass products, but not everywhere. Where I work, the loggers wouldn't take that stuff even if we gave it to them (there are times when we can't hardly give away live sawtimber trees). So we send firewood cutters up there to try to make a dent when possible.

On a topic more related to the current fire - I used to work with private landowners on WUI-related stuff. For all the work we did, it felt like we weren't even making a dent when you consider the scale of these landscapes. It was really discouraging work to be honest.

 

[Billinsd]

With your education and 34 years of experience, what was the failure in the system? Why won't people ever know the truth?

I don’t know anything about the master plan, the maintenance, or operation of the system. Any system would be pushed to the limit or past it. It could be a lot of things. I will ask a bunch of my consultant contacts that work for LA Water and Power to get their opinion. People will never know the truth because the government will cover up any mistakes they made and the consultants will cover their golden goose that gives them contracts and vice versa. Government bureaucrats go back and forth between consulting and being government bureaucrats. It’s cronyism to another level. The government/consulting industry, like the military industrial complex is rife with corruption, waste, and incompetence. It’s awful and it’s appalling. If people understood the waste, and incompetence of the unelected bureaucrats and the danger they put them in, people would be at city hall with pitch forks. People in LA are furious and they should be! I’m extremely disillusioned with the civil engineering/government complex and anxious to retire quickly.

 

[IdahoBeav]

Maybe it was before you were born? Not as many structures as LA, 3,000 structures and 2,000 homes. At the time it was the largest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history. https://news.caloes.ca.gov/looking-back-on-the-cedar-fire-20-years-later/#:~:text=Among them was the Cedar Fire, which,Diego County, burning more than 270,000 acres

I have an aunt that has been teaching at Scripps Ranch HS for almost 30 years. I was down there visiting the year before this fire. These LA fires are already at almost 4x the number of structures, and it’s in a much more urban and densely populated area. The Cedar Fire was a very different situation with more recently developed subdivisions and far more undeveloped open space.

 

[Billinsd]

These LA fires are already at almost 4x the number of structures, and it’s in a much more urban and densely populated area. The Cedar Fire was a very different situation with more recently developed subdivisions and far more undeveloped open space.

The LA fires are almost at 4X the Cedar fire to a large degree because the LA infrastructure failed and the San Diego infrastructure did not. The Cedar fire hit many subdivisions with tiny lots with big houses lined up like dominoes. The infrastructure held, the water transmission lines held and none of it failed.

 

[IdahoBeav]

The LA fires are almost at 4X the Cedar fire to a large degree because the LA infrastructure failed and the San Diego infrastructure did not. The Cedar fire hit many subdivisions with tiny lots with big houses lined up like dominoes. The infrastructure held, the water transmission lines held and none of it failed.

It’s a very different setting, though. The infrastructure in NW LA is much, much older, as are the structures, and it’s far more dense. A hillside subdivision in Blossom Valley is much different than Brentwood.

 

[Billinsd]

It’s a very different setting, though. The infrastructure in NW LA is much, much older, as are the structures, and it’s far more dense. A hillside subdivision in Blossom Valley is much different than Brentwood.

The infrastructure is older in LA, and a hillside subdivision is more open in Blossom Valley, which is very rural, however the subdivisions in Miramar and Scripts have much much closer housing like LA. I was involved in both subdivisions. La Jolla is much more like NW LA and it’s old. What’s different in San Diego, which is as old as LA is that virtually ALL of San Diego’s infrastructure has been updated, almost all of the water infrastructure, 99%. Even in the very oldest areas. Even the poorest, crummiest, oldest areas in San Diego APPEARS to have better water infrastructure than some of the wealthiest areas of LA.