Comments

LA fires — 44 Comments

1. I have little sympathy for people who repeatedly build wood houses in these areas (often from endangered wood species – like the eco-pols who fly private jets – and often with misguided government funding).

   There is a beautiful, richly diverse local tradition of stucco and masonry housing styles that complement the climate and landscape better than wooden homes.

   Masonry homes with slate or metal roofs, modern metal shutters, and fire gates are pretty fire-proof. Enough to insure that you don’t “lose everything”.

2. Ben David:

   Many of these homes are not new. In addition, the sort of home you describe is supposedly less resistant to earthquakes, which are common in California. From what I saw of the Paradise fire, almost no structure remained no matter what it had been made of. I went through Paradise with Gerard about a month after the fire.

   See also this.

3. LA mayor Karen Bass and the Democrat controlled city council cut the fire department budget for the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year. Also, the hydrant reservoir is running out of water. As the owner of the LA Times said,
   “Competence matters.”

   https://www.yahoo.com/news/la-times-owner-criticizes-mayor-190118386.html

   But … the newspaper editorial board endorsed Bass over Caruso in the last election,

4. I don’t want to say I have no sympathy. People’s lives are being ruined (or ended) and many, including senior citizens, are being displaced. I would prefer that didn’t happen to anyone. This is not a great country to live precariously in.

   But still, if Tip O’Neill was right and all politics are local…I’m in Minnesota. It’s difficult for me to have so much grace in my heart for well-off people in California, or even less than well-off people, most of whom would write me off as a racist cultist five minutes after learning I voted for Donald Trump. I know there are Republicans in California. I suspect there will be even fewer once this is all over. But for the rest of them I will say elections have consequences. When you depend on Democrats for conservation, you get empty reservoirs and deadfall lying everywhere, just waiting for a spark. And all of it to save some little animal, many of whom are lying cooked in the charred dirt right now.

   I know that’s harsh. I hope something miraculous happens and puts out the fires. And then I hope California never has to learn any more lessons. Because I know they’re not in the lesson-learning business.

5. “Jon Keeley, a senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, previously told USA TODAY climate change isn’t the only reason for the increase in large fires.”

   Greenies maniacs are embedded in the federal and many state governments, of which California is the worst.

   All hail to climate change!

   But Not Said is the real and only reasons for the blazes are 100mph winds and low humidity! Plus rugged, hilly terrain with mega- mansions aflame, making firefighting impossible.

   Yes, wind velocities up to 100 MPH.

6. What Mitchell just said which echos what I wrote on the Open Thread, and amazingly what Trump told Newsom back in 2019! Yep, not too much sympathy from me either.

7. Meanwhile back in Tibet, a 6.8-7.1 earthquake has hit north of Mt. Everest.

   –“Earthquake in Tibet kills more than 120, striking near holy Buddhist city”
   https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/china-reports-69-magnitude-earthquake-tibets-shigatse-city-2025-01-07/

8. Trump: ‘Newscum’ to ‘Blame’ for ‘Apocalyptic’ Wildfires

   Leaving dead wood all over the forests is bad Forest Management…then add in terrible Water management…then 100 mph winds. Also, block and stucco homes usually have lots of wood in them.

9. One family of relatives have evacuated their home west of the Eaton Fire, just as a precaution. They live in a canyon and there’s only one road out. There are scenes fit for a horror movie of people trying to escape the Pacific Palisades area on the only road out.

   James Woods says they had taken all possible precautions at their home. They had cut brush and installed sprinkler systems, including on paths around the property. They watched their house burn on their cell phones from their safe remote location. Saying “no sympathy” for people who have lost everything isn’t right.

   Woods does point out that the LA Fire Department has been focused on DEI and not on making sure fire hydrants have water. However, this is a Category 2 fire hurricane. Even the most efficient, prepared fire department couldn’t stop something this massive.

10. Its the Little Guy, the business owner, the maid, the housekeeper, the gardener, that is who I feel for. The Rich, not so much. Now, I don’t want them to die in the fire though.
    CO has problems too with fires. Laws have been past that helps, but when you have a track of hundreds of homes close together, nothing is going to stop a big fire.

11. I recently linked to an interview Dr. Jordan Peterson did with Pierre Poilievre. I highly recommend it.

    One aspect of their discussion that really affected me was their discussion of the natural resources Canada has and how their mismanagement negatively affects Canadian citizens and all of humanity.

    It’s an amazing puzzle that so many people can be argued into a lifestyle that limits their potential and the potential of their families, friends, neighbors and all of humanity.

    There is probably no more simple example of this than nuclear power. By any metric it is by far the safest, cleanest, most efficient and effective way to generate power. It is also a shining testament to human ingenuity and genius. It is an incredible story!

    Anyone who takes more than 2 minutes to look into the safety and efficiency of nuclear energy compared to other energy sources can understand the benefits (see the graphs linked below for examples).

    Yet, nearly 75 years after first using nuclear power to generate electricity humans still get most of their energy from coal.

    Humans figured out forest management centuries ago.
    Humans figured out river management, levies, dams… centuries ago (and were generating energy from water wheels hundreds of years ago and hydroelectric power over 150 years ago).

    All prior human societies exploited their engineering knowledge for the benefits of humanity. The impact of fires on people and property can be greatly reduced in California with knowledge humans have known for centuries, yet attempts to use that knowledge are shouted down.

    How has it come to be that those who have the knowledge allow themselves to be controlled by those who lack it?

    It’s truly a puzzle.

    https://www.lastenergy.com/blog/7-graphs-that-show-the-true-value-of-nuclear-energy
    https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/infographic-what-makes-nuclear-energy-safe

12. We lived through thew Rat Creek fire in WA in 1994. It was two weeks of having fire all around us while extinguishing embers as they lit in the grass around the house. A metal roof, sited in a meadow, and our vigilance saved it. We were lucky.

    I would not be able to do that today. So, I have sympathy for those affected by this fire.

    We have lived in California at various times a total of sixteen years. Fires have always been a part of life in California. Back in the 1950s through 1970s, there was a lot of mitigation and suppression – fire breaks, water storage, logging, clearing of underbrush, and aggressive fire departments. And people were careful. How long has it been since you’ve seen a Smoky Bear ad?

    But then the enviro-nazis began to work on their agenda. No lagging, no fire breaks, no new dams, no clearing of brush and tinder, and cut s to fire departments.
    Also, some climate change cultists’ have intentionally set fires because it has the effect of making people afraid of global warming when the fires are attributed to that. How did this fire start?

    The media are all too happy to parrot the idea that these fires are caused by global warming, when they’ve always been a part of the scene in California. What’s new, IMO, is the decision by the leftist government to cut back on mitigation and suppression.

13. J.J., all of the fires today are “under investigation” for how they started. There was a small one in Ventura at a place that often has homeless camps, and another one in Sepulveda also sounds like it might be a homeless camp. They haven’t said anything yet about the two big ones.

    Actually, I have seen new Smokey Bear ads on cable news lately: how to put out campfires safely and how to make sure trailer hitch connections don’t throw off sparks.

14. We flew into LAX last night on the way back from Maui. The scale of the fires was astounding. My daughter took a picture from her window seat. We didn’t know about them until we saw them. Then when we landed read the news.

15. Relative to my above comment, this is one of the things that bothers me about those who decry “climate change” in the face of every natural disaster yet do nothing to improve anything.

    No matter what percentage is due to human causes the climate is always going to change. That is a fact of living on planet Earth. For example, we have been coming out of an ice age for about 10,000 years. We don’t know when temperatures will plateau, nor what they will be at the plateau, nor when the cycle will revert back to cooling. And even if we did, there can be significant fluctuations within those major events (see the “little ice age” for one of many examples). Humans used to understand this and did what they could to make themselves safe.

    Amsterdam has been effectively managing life below sea level for over 400 years. You rarely hear of wildfires causing loss of life and massive property destruction in Germany, yet almost 1/3 of the country is forested! Why? Because the Germans take forest management seriously. Israelis turned an unwanted chunk of desert into an agricultural and industrial powerhouse.

    As recently as 75 years ago the general attitude among humans was innovation, industry, ingenuity. The Empire State building was built in a year!

    And this attitude was prevalent in California in abundance. Even when I graduated college, in the ’80s, California was seen as a land of progress and innovation.

    What happened to us?

16. My parents lost their retirement home in the 2003 fires in Northern San Diego County. They lost everything but their two cars and their pets, save for few things that they grabbed on the way out. There was one main road down into Valley Center – Mom went with the dogs and cats, Dad stayed with the neighbors, and watched the house burn from the safety of a big empty field nearby. They were able to rebuild, and considered themselves lucky not to have lost anything but things – not a business, family members, or pets, as many of their neighbors did. The possibility of fire was just something that we grew up, living with – and were careful about precautions, keeping flammable brush cut down… and always being aware of having to evacuate, just in case.

    There is another big fire burning now in the Angeles National forest above Pasadena, where my sister and her family live. Their house is a good long distance from the mountains, but JPL (where my brother in law works) has sent. all their non-essential personnel home.
    Usually, the winter rains have kicked in by now, and wetted down the chaparral – this is a very unfortunate dry winter, and civic mismanagement on the part of state and city officials is not helping.

17. “What happened to us?” – Rufus T.

    The environmentalists, who believe human progress is an affront to the Earth, have become a powerful and aggressive movement. It started with cleaning up the air and water, but like all ideological organizations, it soon expanded into all areas of life. It’s now a quais-religion. And it does not want to hear about common sense solutions to issues.

    IMO, the main issue that will be contested during this Trump administration will be whether or not the climate change agenda will finally be put to rest. If it isn’t, many such tragedies will continue.

18. My brother’s three children live in the Bay Area. He and his wife live in New England. They’ve been researching a place to move when they retire. California is off their list: a big reason being the wildfires.

19. December is very odd time of year for fires in CA. About every six years (I think it has to do with the La Nina / El Nino Cycles), there is barely any rain in December. Most of the time, December and January have a lot of rain. At least by California standards. The surprising thing is that there haven’t been more fires in December, The only one I can find is from 2017 in Ventura.

20. Check out the smoke & heat maps –

    https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/sector.php?sat=G18&sector=wus

    I am looking at some nuclear power stocks since the power needs for AI and data storage will hurt some local economies. But, even if they can build small plants, there is still the issue of the transmission lines and the grid. If I remember, some of the past CA fires have been the result of failing lines.

21. Kate, thanks for sharing. Truly horrible. So many people are suffering due to mismanagement of various kinds. I pray for the people affected.

22. It’s the 3rd driest start to the rainy season in 170 years following a much higher than average wet season last year, so excessive fuel. And, yes, rare to have Santa Ana winds in January. Seems these “perfect storm” conditions happen every 15-20 years. I say unpreventable, other than staying out of the hills or turning the hills into deserts.

23. It never would have happened if we weren’t all driving the wrong kind of cars and had so many cows farting in the fields.

    /s

24. J.J.

    “IMO, the main issue that will be contested during this Trump administration will be whether or not the climate change agenda will finally be put to rest.”

    I think it’s even more fundamental than this, and I think Elon and Vivek touched on the fundamental nature of the answer in the recent debate on H1B visas:

    Are we to be a theocracy (the “climate” cult), an oligarchy or a technocracy?

    Engineers, architects, scientists, doctors… were revered in our society.
    Salk, Ford, Frank Lloyd Wright and Orville and Wilbur Wright, Einstein, Fermi, Bell, Westinghouse, Carnegie… these names were known and celebrated by all Americans. Everyone of them an inventor and innovator who took big personal and financial risks. These people were in my grammar school textbooks and they were held up as people to emulate.

25. As Neo wrote about being close to people who “lost everything”, of course one must have been Gerard Vanderleun during the 2018 Camp Fire which destroyed his home in Paradise. Last summer another devastating arson caused fire burned north from Chico which is just 12 miles from Paradise. The Park Fire burned nearly a half million acres. It raced north in mid summer dry winds covering 65 miles in 2 days finally stopping on the 3rd day just 2 miles from my home. We raced to evacuate with the Kia K5 so loaded down that it looked like a low rider. We got out of here at 10:00 PM on the 2nd day watching a ridge of flames approach to the south and fully expecting to find nothing but rubble and ash on return. In this case the fire crews, a joint contingent of Cal Fire and the USFS, were successful. They also had lots of help from other places ending with the Tehama County Fairgrounds staging area in Red Bluff looking like a mini-city.

    As to living in fire prone areas, we do what we can to mitigate by removing vegetation, replacing house siding with concrete Hardi-Board, and roofs with metal. Densely packed metro areas don’t have much of a chance against 80 mile p/hour dry winds.

    And by the way, my home fire insurance was cancelled 4 months before the fire.

26. We just heard from my sister’s family (my now-invalid mother lives with them) – they have had to evacuate from their home in Altadena. I thought they would be safe enough, since their house is so far from the mountains – but the fire is sweeping into the suburbs. The Aldi just up the road from them is on fire. I am following on the fire maps and on X.
    And we in Texas are expecting freezing rain tonight. What more awaits? The New Madrid Fault going active?

27. Rufus T. Firefly:

    The Germans may take forest management seriously, but they don’t have nearly the challenges that California does: the dryness and the high winds.

28. Mike Plaiss:

    I was once traveling by car down the Pacific Coast and suddenly ran into traffic completely stopped because of a huge fire. The scope of just what we could see was enormous. Fires that large are incredible.

29. Sgt. Mom:

    That part about always being aware of needing to evacuate is so true. Gerard had woken up at about 6 AM, before Paradise was told to evacuate, and he smelled smoke outside. Because he’d grown up in the area, and was aware of possible danger even though the smell was faint and he couldn’t see any smoke or fire, he put a couple of things in his car (including his computer and cat) and drove down to Chico to his mother’s apartment. This was before the traffic on the road out got bad. Just a couple of hours later he learned that the town was gone. He went back only 3 times, and I was there all 3 times. Once was when the town first opened up a month later, to see the ashen remains of his house. The second was a little while later for a benefit concert. The third was several years later, at my request, although he had vowed not to return. After that third time he said that was it and he never went back again.

30. This is for Mitchell Strand:
    Eighty-five people died in the Camp Fire, many burned alive while trapped in their cars trying to flee. Paradise was a middle-class relatively low income retirement community in a conservative part of the state.

31. Neo — it was just something that we lived with, growing up. Mom and Dad loved the hill country – and had that ingrained awareness, always. An odor of smoke, a dun-colored cloud on the horizon, distant sirens … every sense alert and pinging.
    I remember hearing sirens and going to the top of the hill above one of our houses then, looking out over Sunland-Tujunga down below and coming back and telling Mom: “Nope, only a house. Not the hills.” and Mom replying, “Thank G*d.”
    One year – I think maybe 1975, it was the hills – a huge fire in the Angeles National Forest – as far as one could see, a line of flame coming down the hillside. Even a tornado of fire that we could see, through Dad’s binoculars- the fire setting up such a wind that we could see stuff being sucked into it.
    I thought my sister’s house was far enough into the Altadena suburb that it would be safe enough. But it’s a huge fire, and the civic mismanagement in LA gives one cause for dread.

32. I live on the Gulf coast, which means that I live with the same possibility of sudden devastation, of evacuating with the possibility that the place you left will not be there after the storm. I very much sympathize with those who live with the threat of these fires, and those who are fleeing.

    And I very much sympathize with Gerard never wishing to return. The rural landscape where I grew up (not here on the coast, further inland) has more or less been paved over and built over, the house where I grew up destroyed, the whole place unrecognizable. It’s not the same thing as a natural disaster–in fact it’s “progress” and “development”–but the place is just as lost. And I avoid going back. For family reasons I’m obliged to do so, but it’s always painful.

33. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough regarding Germany and its forests. These two articles may be informative for anyone interested:
    https://www.forstwirtschaft-in-deutschland.de/index.php?id=79&L=1
    https://www.bmel.de/EN/topics/forests/forests-in-germany/forest-strategy-2020.html

    I’m not promoting the German way as an answer for the U.S., just as an example of a country that takes land management seriously, including ensuring proper natural resources for farmers, hunters, hikers and ensuring enough timber to meet the population’s needs.

    As neo states, one of the biggest issues with southern California, perhaps the biggest, is a lack of water. Far more people live there than the current water supply can safely sustain and politicians have been negligent in addressing this for a long time.

34. The Other Chuck:

    That’s really too bad. But we all live on a planet that turns on an axis of cruelty in an orbit of pain. We could all shed tears for the rest of our lives for the sad, painful, unjust deaths we hear about. But that’s not what life is for. I’m going to leave the mourning for those 85 people to the people who knew them. Anything I could offer would be typical mawkish virtue-signalling. I’m not going to do that.

35. Re: Smokey the Bear

    Gary Snyder, the Buddhist Beat poet, wrote a lovely prose poem which posits that the Great Sun Buddha came to America as Smokey the Bear. It’s rather long so I’ve cut to the final passage:
    ______________________________

    SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA

    Wrathful but calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate
    those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander
    him…
    HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

    Thus his great Mantra:

    Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana Sphataya hum traka ham mam

    “I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND BE THIS RAGING FURY BE DESTROYED”

    And he will protect those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and
    animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians,
    playful women, and hopeful children:

    And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television,
    or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR’S WAR SPELL:

    DROWN THEIR BUTTS
    CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
    DROWN THEIR BUTTS
    CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

    And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his
    vajra-shovel.

    Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice
    will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.

    Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
    Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
    Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
    Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a
    pine tree to sit at.

    AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT

    …thus we have heard…

    (may be reproduced free forever)

    –Gary Snyder

36. “These people were in my grammar school textbooks and they were held up as people to emulate.” – Rufus T.

    You’re right. But all the advances those men brought are now taken for granted. And instead of celebrating them, many are villains to the enviro-nazis.

    The idea of anthropomorphic global warming has been a Godsend for these people. Civilizational advancement on the present scale isn’t possible without fossil fuel energy. Like good “True Believers,” they are quite sure that somehow, some way, they can eliminate fossil fuels and still maintain their present standard of living. (Hint – wind and solar) It’s purely delusional.

    I’ve been to the countries in Europe that are dominated by the Alps – Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. Their forests are very well maintained. Much like in Germany. Fires are easier to manage and less damaging in such an environment. We could certainly do well to emulate them. However, we have many more acres of forest and wildlands to manage than they do. They also don’t face the arid conditions of California, but they certainly get the big winds on occasion.

    That said, California has done an increasingly poor job of mitigation and suppression since Jerry Brown was governor in the early 1980s. Their wildfire problem has had many authors over the last45 years.

37. The Palisades is one of the areas where we design, build and remodel homes for our clients. A number of them lost their homes in this fire. We have done amazing homes over the years, but one of the ones that burned was my husband’s favorite. By no means the most expensive or “finest” home we have done, and it was remodel work over the years, not even our original design. My heart goes out to our clients but especially the ones I respect as fine people, who have kept us and the people we hire and vendors we use in business, thereby providing for us and our families. The Palisades has been a jewel of a community in Los Angeles. It’s the trees, the landscape, the views. I’ve never lived there and never will but this is a terrible loss. And yes, elections have consequences and I wish many of these lovely people had voted for the sane choice of Rick Caruso. Despite fierce winds and low humidity, I do believe things would have played out differently in terms of scope of damage with him at the helm. Alas…California!

38. But we all live on a planet that turns on an axis of cruelty in an orbit of pain.
    ==
    It doesn’t.

39. Sharon W,
    Going forward, I would love to hear your take on the insurance and rebuild issues facing the people who have lost their homes. I grew up in the Ventura area and spoke with a woman who lost her home in the 2017 fire there. She was adequately insured but said the competition for a rental home to live in and construction companies and availability of materials to rebuild was brutal – she did not foresee being back in her rebuilt home for probably five years.
    More immediately, my son in law’s parents have evacuated his childhood home in Pasadena, it was still intact as of a few hours ago and we are praying it stays that way. Sister in Silverlake is under a warning – packed and ready to go if necessary.
    One thing I saw mentioned on X is the loss of old school Los Angeles architecture. Storybook, Craftsman, houses like my sister’s 100 year old Spanish Colonial. Irreplaceable. Right now it seems trivial in light of the humanitarian cost but it really is a tremendous aesthetic loss.

40. A couple of people mentioned the insurance situation: Not the Bee had a post explaining some of the factors involved, including the observations of Bill Shipley aka Shipwreckedcrew, who is probably remembered by many people here for his writings on legal affairs, especially J6 (he represents many of the prisoners).

    https://notthebee.com/takes/report-la-residents-say-state-farm-canceled-fire-policy-several-months-ahead-of-massive-wildfire-because-of-government-mismanagement-regulations

41. Some useful information in this post about the water situation and the insurance problems.

    https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2025/01/08/wheres-the-water-gavin-n4935795

42. The view from the People’s Party of Love and Inclusion:

    https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2025/01/08/college-professor-celebrates-karma-as-conservative-actors-house-burns-n4935800

43. Getting more serious tonight (story updated January 9, 2025, 1:48 AM MST):
    https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/tens-thousands-flee-wildfires-tear-through-los-angeles-area-2025-01-08/

    The L.A. Fire Department issued an evacuation order for people in an area within Hollywood Boulevard to the south, Mulholland Drive to the north, the 101 Freeway to the east and Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the west – all iconic addresses for the entertainment industry.
    Within that area is the Dolby Theater, where the Oscars are held. Next week’s Oscar nominations announcement was already postponed by two days because of the fire, organizers said.
    Though relatively small, the Sunset Fire burned just above Hollywood Boulevard and its Walk of Fame. It would need to cross the 101 Freeway to endanger the Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory further up in the hills.
    Nearby, a structure fire claimed at least two homes and spread to brush in Studio City, live television footage showed. More than 50 firefighters extinguished the fire with no injuries reported, the L.A. Fire Department said.
    …
    The fires struck at an especially vulnerable time for Southern California, which has not seen significant rainfall for months.
    Then came the powerful Santa Ana winds, bringing dry desert air from the east toward the coastal mountains, fanning wildfires while blowing over the hilltops and down through the canyons.
    President Joe Biden, who declared the fires a major disaster, joined California Governor Gavin Newsom at a Santa Monica fire station to get a briefing on firefighting efforts.
    In his final days as president before handing off to President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20, Biden canceled an upcoming trip to Italy in order to focus on directing the federal response to the fires, the White House said.

    I have no idea why anyone thought that bringing Biden over would help the situation in any way, or enhance his legacy somehow in its final days.
    And why was he going to Italy at all?

44. @ huxley – More on the Tibet earthquakes.
    https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/focus-shifts-tibet-earthquake-survivors-search-called-off-2025-01-09/

    Summary
    More than 45,000 people moved to shelters after quake
    Chinese officials halt searches, focus on displaced, injured
    Authorities yet to announce how many people still missing
    Death toll in Tibet remains at 126, [and] 188 injured

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