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Home » The two most informative videos I’ve seen on water for firefighting in California

The two most informative videos I’ve seen on water for firefighting in California

The New Neo Posted on by

It can be hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff in California fire news and information. But I highly recommend listening to the following interview with Brett Barbre, who is a Yorba Linda Water District board member. He really really seems to know his stuff:

And here is another video I find highly impressive. It’s about the question of using saltwater to fight fires in California. It’s not too long, but chock-full of information:

Comments

The two most informative videos I’ve seen on water for firefighting in California — 16 Comments

  1. I like thinking this can be entirely summed up by a baseball term:

    “Unforced Error”

  3. Thanks. That was very good. I feel sorry for the very rational guy trying to get anything rational accomplished there.

  4. I have seen LA fires news footage of helicopters going to out to sea, dropping a big bucket on a cable into the ocean, filling it up, heading back to the fires and dumping the bucket of seawater onto the flames.

    Rinse, lather, repeat.

  6. Proactive. It’s a good word. But it’s been out of fashion in California for many years.

    1. Inadequate water storage.
    2. Inadequate/nom existent forest and range management.
    3. Changing the policies of fire departments from aggressive fire suppression to championing social justice issues.
    4. Not foreseeing the need for gas-fired generators to power water pumps when utilities cut the power in high winds.
    5. Forging ahead with climate change polices when those policies actually make fire risks higher.

    ‘Nuff said.

  7. BUNKER HILL, FRANKLIN, FORRESTAL, and ENTERPRISE could all testify that salt water works just spiffy in fighting fires.

    Fully involved aircraft carriers take some putting out.

  8. From what I picked up so far:

    1. LA Fire Dept was at same strength as it was with 1/2 the population.
    2. 50% of LAFD calls were homeless related.
    3. Reservoir above Pacific Palisades was empty. At least since last July, but perhaps longer per Google Maps. Contract was signed in November to fix the cover.
    4. Due to staffing shortage (perhaps due to a DEI Jihad, Covid Shot firings, and lack of hiring with academy at 50%) fire hydrants were not being checked, and support staff such as mechanics were not hired (so fire equipment was being cannibalized to keep others working). And supposedly DWP was given responsibility of hydrant checks. And extra fire equipment was sent to Ukraine. They also bought some electric fire engines. Good news is LADF is now at 8% women, up from 2%.
    5. LA DWP has been short changing infrastructure for years. Lots of pipes are over 100 years old and need replacing. Instead work is only done when they break, such as the UCLA library flooding a few years ago. This is per a retired DWP worker I know.
    6. Controlled burns in CA take 3 1/2 to 7 1/2 years to get approved. Per a propublica 2020 article only about 20,000 acres per year are done, and about 20 million need it. And the person in charge has personal liability. And it has clean air requirements.
    7. Eaton Canyon Fire seems to have been caused by Edison Power Lines. Should they have been buried? Did they have Power Line Dampeners on them? A writer at the Powerline blog noted Eaton Canyon has burned 4 times in his lifetime.
    8. The LA FD board per shipwrecked’s substack has no experience in the fire area. Seems more political hacks.
    9. Biden suggested power was cut, which is why 3 water tanks in Pacific Palisades could not be filled. I guess no generators on site, which which were later brought on site.

  9. The water situation out in California has always been fraught. If anyone out there is a fan of the classic movie “Chinatown”, they’ll remember how the fight over water rights in a key part of the plot.

    From what I’ve heard, the California authorities were ready for fire; they just weren’t ready for 100 mph winds that made the situation a hundred times worse.

  11. Re: LA Fires / Swing to Republican?

    Megyn Kelly says that her one woke friend lost her house and is voting Republican next time. That friend says that all her woke friends likewise.

    –Megyn Kelly, “Woke Failures in California Bringing Backlash to the Left After Deadly Wildfires, with Stu Burguiere”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdB1teyT6ac

    I think these fires are a 9-11 event for Angelenos and probably many Californians, especially when combined with Trump’s 2024 victory.

  12. BJ:

    Did you watch the videos?

    You can’t be ready for a California wildfire with a reservoir empty for almost a year because of repairs needed for a cover. You can’t be ready for a California wildfire without clearing brush. You can’t be ready for a California wildfire by cutting funds for fighting fires. You can’t be ready for a California wildfire by not building the dams the people voted for, and for letting the rain run off to the ocean in order to protect a smel. And you can’t be ready for a California wildfire without taking into account the Santa Ana winds, which come regularly.

  13. @ huxley – that was indeed a frightening video.
    It reminds me of the December 30, 2021, Marshall fire in Colorado, which literally came out of nowhere and burned down the town of Superior and threatened close-by areas in only a few hours.
    Unusually dry grass and high winds, powerline sparks, sounds familiar.
    We were blessed by heavy snow that put it out, but not until a lot of damage was done.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Fire

    KTLA also had this map that shows the damaged structures situation so far.
    https://ktla.com/news/california/wildfires/palisades-eaton-wildfire-damage-maps/

  14. SD on the hostage thread linked a great video of Bari Weiss at Fox News; here is a companion editorial by her Substack editors.

    https://www.thefp.com/p/paradise-lost-karen-bass-los-angeles-fires

    There’s nothing really new in it, but Weiss is still an influential Democrat in the blogosphere (unlike Jen Rubin).
    However, IMO, it still sounds like she wants competent Democrats, rather than Republicans.

    “This is a story about the failure of California to prevent, or capably mitigate, a long-predicted catastrophe, and how a state that was once a model of good governance came to prioritize the boutique concerns of ambitious politicians over the basics of what government must do.”

    Conservatives have been telling them that for decades, and they (the majority urban electorate) continued to vote for Democrats and their boutique concerns (Bari calls it their “niche ideology” in her Fox appearance).

    Elections have consequences, as another influential Democrat once said.

  15. The Free Press has a lot of good first-hand posts, as a number of their contributors live in the affected areas.

    Here is one article, by Leighton Woodhouse, which the editors call a “smart take,” followed by a selection of Letters from people who don’t agree.

    https://www.thefp.com/p/stop-blaming-politicians-los-angeles-wildires

    https://www.thefp.com/p/letters-to-the-editor-los-angeles-fires-leighton-woodhouse

    I would say Woodhouse gave a decent analysis of the natural situation faced by the cities, but he sort of gives a brush-off to the incompetence currently on display, and appears to think (as the respondents suggest) that the only solution is for everyone to move out and let nature have it all back.

    Which might happen if the building regulations are as onerous as some people have indicated.

  16. @ AF > “Which might happen if the building regulations are as onerous as some people have indicated.”

    And voila!
    A CA commenter at Turley’s website says exactly the same thing.
    https://jonathanturley.org/2025/01/12/new-hampshire-supreme-court-rejects-hate-speech-enforcement/comment-page-3/#comment-2478775

    Rebuilding will take years, again thanks to Democrat Policies. Malibu has a reclamation rule in some parts, that if Mother Nature destroys your home, you won’t be allowed to rebuild. The goal is to replace the homes with open space. Permits can take years. The construction costs have skyrocketed. Then there are the surveys and regulations. In order for one neighbor to get insurance, she was required to plant trees, but the fire department ordered her to cut the trees, because they would be too close to the structure. Regulations duel with each other, and no one wins.

    Read the full comment and another one (link below) for corroboration by a local about most of what we’ve seen in the news, with some additional “on the ground” perspectives. There is more on the Wi-fi and gas generator situation in the other comment I quoted above.

    https://jonathanturley.org/2025/01/12/new-hampshire-supreme-court-rejects-hate-speech-enforcement/comment-page-3/#comment-2478758

    Karen S says: January 13, 2025 at 4:56 PM
    I’m going to go off on a tangent, and report on the state of California, a Democrat Supermajority.

    My husband was down south working in Pacific Palisades when the fire broke out, and he and his employees got out of there in time. His friend, who was working at another location, was not so lucky. He was trapped on a narrow road, blocked when people in front panicked and abandoned their cars, trapping everyone behind them. Cops went down the line and told everyone to leave their cars and make a run for it. He made it out on foot, but his work van with his tools burned.

    Although the 5 fires were all well to the south of us, we had our power cut off for days. Luckily, we have a gas generator that we could run during the day, but we shut it off at night. We live in an area without cell service, so once the generator shut off, we had no WiFi, which we’d relied upon for texts and emergency alerts. Throughout the day, we kept getting false alarms to evacuate immediately. Once the generator shut off, I lay awake all night, eyes wide open like that character from “Clockwork Orange,” wondering if any new fires cropped up near our home.

    The following are ways in which Democrat policies either directly contributed to the spread of the fires, the inability to evacuate, or made people more helpless:
    …
    3. The Los Angeles Fire Department budget was cut by over $17 million. LA mayor Karen Bass wanted to cut that budget by over $60 million more. If she had succeeded, there would have been 16 fewer fire stations to respond to that fire.
    …
    6. Gov Newsom has banned gas generators, starting in 2028, if I recall correctly. Without gas generators, during the regular power outages, those of us on a well won’t have water. No water pump, no water. That means no water for fire crews, either, as once that large water tank is drained, they can’t access the underground water resource.
    7. Go Newsom has mandated that higher and higher percentages of vehicles be EVs in coming years. The power is regularly cut in CA, especially in rural areas, due to high wind fire hazards. No power, means no way to charge an EV, which means no escape from wildfires. There is a video of a man in a truck who found a woman sobbing on the side of the road in the middle of the fire, crying that she couldn’t start her car and escape with her 4 dogs, because it’s a hybrid.

    8. Sierra Club sued to prevent preventive burns.
    …
    California has been a super majority for decades. Republicans have zero to do with California policy.
    …
    Democrat rule is an unmitigated disaster.

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