Somewhat OT: LA Fires

[Wentzville]

Amazing (and not in a good way) seeing what is happening in Southern California with the wild fires. Just last night they had a fire start in Hollywood Hills but it sounds like they were able to get it under control reasonably well. What's most mind blowing is that the winds on Monday and Tuesday were nearing 100 MPH. It's basically a hurricane with fire instead of rain. With winds that strong, there is no way for the fire fighters to stop it spreading.

[Dicktar2023]

The legendary Santa Ana winds.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... rcna186961

[edwin drood]

There were a couple of journalists reporting who grew up in Pacific Palisades. Their description of the community reminded my of my hometown of Kirkwood MO - a mix of beautiful homes of the affluent and much more modest houses. A town center with groceries, barbers, boutiques, etc. It's totally gone.

Other ramifications: the incoming administration is planning mass evictions of undocumented aliens to coincide with attempts to clean up and rebuild in the LA area. Those don't jibe. Second, the concept of home insurance in SoCal may be over. And not just there, but the financial burden will surely be spread around the rest of the country. Expect your insurance to go up no matter where you are. Very, very sad indeed.

[Dicktar2023]

There were a couple of journalists reporting who grew up in Pacific Palisades. Their description of the community reminded my of my hometown of Kirkwood MO - a mix of beautiful homes of the affluent and much more modest houses. A town center with groceries, barbers, boutiques, etc. It's totally gone.

Yeah...I think Palisades has a few more reflecting pools than Kirkwood, but it's a tragedy nonetheless.

[Pink Freud]

Seeing a two-story house collapse upon itself, sending a fireball of windblown embers flying up further into the Hollywood Hills was just terrifying. I've been on those narrow, serpentine streets above Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards, trying to make my way up to the legendary Ennis-Brown House (Frank Lloyd Wright's massive Mayan textile-block concrete castle). There are times you can't tell if you're on a residential street or in someone's alley.

Plus, so many of those homes' driveways are gated, and surrounded by lush vegetation, which is pure fire fuel during this long drought with dry, warm Santa Ana winds. How on earth those people will be able to get out, or even for the city and state to get relief vehicles up there and close enough to fight house fires is nightmarish. Now the city has to contend with serious damage to their utility infrastructure of power lines, gas and water pipes, and contaminated water sources. Also, the broadcast and phone towers atop Mt. Wilson are in danger from the creeping fires.

In Pacific Palisades, I see that 69% of State Farm's customers there had their house coverage dropped by the company last year despite not making any claims. Too risky to insure. We'll see more of that nationwide. Insurance companies are not in business to protect you and me. They're in business to make huge profits through high monthly premiums, high deductibles, and denied or reduced claims. In this case, they'll lowball catastrophic house fire claims by saying "Hey you still have the valuable land in that location-location-location." There's a reason most city skylines' tallest buildings are banks and insurance companies.

The actor Miles Teller lost his house. Tragically ironic, since he starred with Josh Brolin in "Only the Brave", the profile of the 19 doomed Granite Mountain Hotshots wildland firefighters of Prescott AZ who were incinerated in a box canyon flash fire in nearby Yarnell in 2013, exactly one month before I moved there. There's a scene in the movie where Teller, a newbie Hotshot, is taken to a hilltop to view the vast expanse of pine trees extending as far as the eye can see. Brolin, this captain, asks him, "What do you see?". Teller says "Beautiful views." Brolin says, "I see fuel."

All these years in northern AZ, where every lightning storm means forest fires, we've frequently smelled the wafting scent of distant controlled burns, thinning out that explosive "fuel" so that the inevitable fires don't become infernos.

[edwin drood]

Just watching the news and one of the Super Scooper planes, the twin engine planes capable of skimming a lake or ocean to pick up water, was grounded because one wing was damaged by a civilian-flown drone. Too many idiots. Police are looking for the moron now.