California Wildfires

[[DHT]Osiris]

Fuel (chaparral) is literally 1/3 of the Fire Triangle (Fuels, Oxygen, and Heat). What is your point exactly?

Fire triangle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I'm totally aware that the winds being close to 100mph makes a lot of firefighting tactics next to impossible but ignoring dry fuels as a (partial) cause of this seems to be going down the wrong path here. Fuels reduction being taken seriously at the state and federal level is one of many things that need to change.

His point is, in 70mph winds, everything is 1/3rd of the fire triangle.

When vehicles in the middle of the street are being reduced to scrap metal, chaparral is not your problem, everything is.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I'm unsure how to parse this, TBH. How do I know it isn't your excuse to not care about the consequences of your actions?

Oh, I take action. Reduce footprint, plant trees, recycle, all that jazz. I just acknowledge it's not going to make a difference.

 

[Zorba]

Oh, I take action. Reduce footprint, plant trees, recycle, all that jazz. I just acknowledge it's not going to make a difference.

Individually it won't, but when enough people do it adds up. People have made an impact to carbon emissions with LEDs, solar panels, buying EVs, etc. Just like people have made an impact by buying SUV and Trucks and growing the size of their houses.

 

[Brainonska511]

Individually it won't, but when enough people do it adds up. People have made an impact to carbon emissions with LEDs, solar panels, buying EVs, etc. Just like people have made an impact by buying SUV and Trucks and growing the size of their houses.

But if I blame all carbon emissions on oil companies (who produce things we use all the time), I don't have to take any responsibility for my personal choices.

 

[Pens1566]

Charlie Kirk wants the IOC to relocate the 2028 Olympics (which is not going to happen) to punish Los Angeles for letting black people be firefighters instead of white men.

Far-right activist: Strip LA of the 2028 Olympics as punishment for not stopping wildfires

Far-right youth activist Charlie Kirk demanded that Los Angeles be stripped of the right to host the 2028 Olympic Games over not being able to hold back this week's devastating wildfires, The Daily Beast reported on Friday.“The Los Angeles Olympics should be cancelled,” Kirk posted to X. “If you...

www.rawstory.com

Charlie Kirk racist meltdown blames wildfires on lack of 'white men' firefighters

In a racist and bigoted tirade on Thursday, conservative influencer Charlie Kirk blamed the California wildfires on lesbians and a lack of "white men" firefighters."California has been the petri dish," Kirk bellowed on his Thursday podcast. "It has been the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the...

www.rawstory.com

Anyone ask why is a dipshit like Charlie Kirk a thing? This simpleton explains quite a few things about the Maga cult - the racism, sexism, transphobia, ethnonationalism, admiration for authoritarian states, opposition to birthright citizenship, even why guys like Ramaswamy pal around with them.

It’s because they want a caste system where everything from your socio-economic opportunities to your basic human rights are determined by the circumstances of your birth and are fully immutable.

And they want it because it’s the only way mediocre shitheads like Charlie Kirk are capable of maintaining any position of authority or getting people to pretend to like them.

My guess is, at some point, there was an affirmative action type of thing for waterheads and he just rode that wave to the top, never looking back.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Individually it won't, but when enough people do it adds up. People have made an impact to carbon emissions with LEDs, solar panels, buying EVs, etc. Just like people have made an impact by buying SUV and Trucks and growing the size of their houses.

Barring a deus ex machina invention or politician, the scope is too far gone at this point to make a difference. During the Paris climate accord in 2015, we were on track to hit 1.5c in 2040, and the agreement was designed to try to limit the effects of climate change to that number.

We hit it last year, a mere 9 years after the agreement, 16 years ahead of schedule. We're so boned, most people don't even have a concept for how bad it can get.

We would have to literally stop all carbon emissions tomorrow, and start extracting co2 with mythical alien tech, and we would still see worsening climate effects for a few decades.

 

[Greenman]

Seriously, why the fuck does it matter to 99.999% of the population where it came from? The idea that if it came out of the lab the response to it would've been/should've been different is stupid.

Lab security should be improved regardless and gain of function research should be highly regulated regardless. The fact Trump somehow convinced people that because it might have come out of a lab that we didn't need to take it seriously makes no sense.

Of course it matters where it came from, and how it got started. If your family was killed by a reckless driver and you were told the drivers name wasn't important would you accept that? China was doing shit that had an immediate and extremely detrimental effect on the entire planet, it absolutely matters to every single person alive today.

 

[Brainonska511]

Of course it matters where it came from, and how it got started. If your family was killed by a reckless driver and you were told the drivers name wasn't important would you accept that? China was doing shit that had an immediate and extremely detrimental effect on the entire planet, it absolutely matters to every single person alive today.

The wet markets were the bad thing, and they were well known to be a bad thing for potential pandemics. No need to invent a fantasy to be mad at.

 

[Zorba]

Of course it matters where it came from, and how it got started. If your family was killed by a reckless driver and you were told the drivers name wasn't important would you accept that? China was doing shit that had an immediate and extremely detrimental effect on the entire planet, it absolutely matters to every single person alive today.

How did it matter one bit to the public health response? Sure it matters for future prevention and maybe "punishment," whatever that might look like. But it's origin didn't matter at all for our response once it hit the states. Trump and his friends only pushed the origin story to distract from his horrible response to it.

 

[K1052]

Not a whole lot makes me pick up the phone to my rep and senators but I am going to be on the horn every fucking day demanding that if is how the Rs want to play it then I do not want them voting for one single dime of hurricane relief ever again.

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lfmyljtlrs2m

 

[Oric]

I have no idea. That would be something for an engineer to figure out. It could be that it can't be done at all. We have a couple of examples of what doesn't work very well, seems like a starting point.

The problem is either addressed or ignored. My hunch is it will be addressed through administrative means as that's the cheapest option.

On a metropolitan city like LA, even if you fill 1.000 fire trucks and 1.000 planes with fresh water twice, you only use 0,5% of daily fresh water usage of the city. (All calculations are metric so I am not sharing)

 

[Greenman]

The wet markets were the bad thing, and they were well known to be a bad thing for potential pandemics. No need to invent a fantasy to be mad at.

The options are "it just happened", or the nearby lab doing gain of function research on the virus fucked up. I bet pretty long odds it was the lab.

 

[Brainonska511]

The options are "it just happened", or the nearby lab doing gain of function research on the virus fucked up. I bet pretty long odds it was the lab.

So on one side, we have: 1) prior cases of zoonotic infections from wet markets (including the original SARS outbreak); 2) all the initial cases centering around the market and not the lab 30 km away; 3) DNA evidence from swabs taken from the market supporting links to the COVID-19 virus.

On the other side, we have Greenman's gut feelings.

Yes, zoonotic viruses do "just happen". However, because we know those things are possible, we can take steps to prevent them from just happening, like shutting down the fucking wildlife markets that were known to be sources for this kind of stuff for nearly 2 decades!

And the source of the virus doesn't change the public health response. The Trump administration fucked up, and the lab leak bs has only been pushed to distract from that mess.

 

[K1052]

And the source of the virus doesn't change the public health response. The Trump administration fucked up, and the lab leak bs has only been pushed to distract from that mess.

This is the core problem with most people latching on to a lab leak. It is in service of excusing US response in the form of the President going on TV and saying stuff like "Stop the testing!".

Anyway in either scenario the Chinese were doing irresponsible things that led to a bad outcome. I'm not sure how that functionally matters besides the point above.

 

[Zorba]

On a metropolitan city like LA, even if you fill 1.000 fire trucks and 1.000 planes with fresh water twice, you only use 0,5% of daily fresh water usage of the city. (All calculations are metric so I am not sharing)

Filling doesn't really mean much, one hose can use up to 250 gpm. If you are running 500 hoses, that is 125,000 gallons per minute. Some very quick hand calcs show that you'd need a 6 foot diameter pipe just to supply that type of flow assuming you were pretty close the pressure source. If you are a few miles away, it would need to be quite a bit bigger.

Now also consider a normal house has a 3/4” water meter. Assuming a typical water pressure of 120 psi, a fully exposed house line would flow about 165 gpm. Burn down 1000 homes and that is going be another 165,000 gallon per minute load on the system. Small businesses typically have a 1" so they go up to about 300 gpm.

Water systems are not designed to fight wildfires with urban firefighting techniques. And it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to have contracts with the thousands of tanker trucks in the LA area to be pressed into tendering service than to upgrade and maintain a water system for urban wildfire fighting.

 

[brycejones]

This is the core problem with most people latching on to a lab leak. It is in service of excusing US response in the form of the President going on TV and saying stuff like "Stop the testing!".

Anyway in either scenario the Chinese were doing irresponsible things that led to a bad outcome. I'm not sure how that functionally matters besides the point above.

conservatives care less about doing the right thing vs someone must be punished in some way if a bad thing happens

 

[Greenman]

On a metropolitan city like LA, even if you fill 1.000 fire trucks and 1.000 planes with fresh water twice, you only use 0,5% of daily fresh water usage of the city. (All calculations are metric so I am not sharing)

I'm not sure what your point is. The fire department stated that there was a lack of water at some of the hydrants that hampered the fire fighting effort. That's infrastructure issue. The same thing happened years back in the Oakland hills fire.
The systems are designed to supply X amount of water at X number of locations under X pressure, I would assume that design didn't account for a fire storm and every hydrant being in use.

I'm still unclear as to what the argument is here. The place burned to the ground, it's time to look at what happened and take some measures to mitigate it happening again. That could be as simple as telling everyone that rebuilds "you're on your own", all the way up to declaring the entire area unbuildable. I don't know the answer, but I know what the options are, and I've already stated my guess as to what will be done. I'll check back in a year or two and see if I was right.

 

[MrSquished]

Elon Musk gets exposed at a fire command briefing. The question is, why the fuck is he even getting briefed in the first place?

Gavin Newsom Slams Elon Musk for 'Exposing' His Own 'Lies' Over Water Shortage

California Governor Gavin Newsom just called out Elon Musk, accusing him of exposing himself over his own lies about a water shortage amid the L.A. wildfires -- saying it all went down during his own live-streamed briefing with a fire command member.

www.tmz.com

 

[Zorba]

I'm not sure what your point is. The fire department stated that there was a lack of water at some of the hydrants that hampered the fire fighting effort. That's infrastructure issue. The same thing happened years back in the Oakland hills fire.
The systems are designed to supply X amount of water at X number of locations under X pressure, I would assume that design didn't account for a fire storm and every hydrant being in use.

I'm still unclear as to what the argument is here. The place burned to the ground, it's time to look at what happened and take some measures to mitigate it happening again. That could be as simple as telling everyone that rebuilds "you're on your own", all the way up to declaring the entire area unbuildable. I don't know the answer, but I know what the options are, and I've already stated my guess as to what will be done. I'll check back in a year or two and see if I was right.

If these areas are allowed to rebuild, the water system probably does need some basic hardening, like remotely operated shut off valves or hydraulic fuses in meters. I doubt it'll make a huge difference, but are relatively low cost, and could help prevent just bleeding the system dry.

Lack of proactive building codes against natural disasters always drive me nuts. Here in Oklahoma it has been shown repeatedly that wind rated garage doors massively reduce damage from tornadoes, but they aren't required, neither are hurricane clips, or other roof hardening. All fairly cheap to install in a new house, but pretty expensive retro fits.

 

[IronWing]

Despite the losses, as far as I can tell from this distance, Cal Fire has done a hell of a job responding to the fire storms. They had their shit together and hit the ground running with everything they had.

 

[NWRMidnight]

The options are "it just happened", or the nearby lab doing gain of function research on the virus fucked up. I bet pretty long odds it was the lab.

If only the US had people in place to monitor and watch for such things.. oh wait.. we did.. until Trump took office and eliminated the program that had the people doing that.

 

[Paratus]

Folks need to understand that a large enough natural disaster will generally take out the water supply.

The big freeze we had in Texas caused enough pipes to burst that water pressure dropped. That meant the known leaks in the system were no longer at positive pressure and allowed ground water to leak backwards into the system requiring boil notices.

Fires, hurricanes, freezes, earthquakes and other natural disasters can all cause loss of pressure by destroying enough end user infrastructure that overall system pressure drops due to uncontrolled leakage.

 

[K1052]

The big freeze we had in Texas caused enough pipes to burst that water pressure dropped. That meant the known leaks in the system were no longer at positive pressure and allowed ground water to leak backwards into the system requiring boil notices.

Yep, all kinds of stuff burst from water mains to sprinklers systems to pipes inside homes/businesses. Stuff just isn't buried deep enough or insulated enough because it "never gets that cold here". Of course the vast majority of homeowners have no idea where their water meter is or how to shut off the supply from the street.

 

[Zorba]

Yep, all kinds of stuff burst from water mains to sprinklers systems to pipes inside homes/businesses. Stuff just isn't buried deep enough or insulated enough because it "never gets that cold here". Of course the vast majority of homeowners have no idea where their water meter is or how to shut off the supply from the street.

I remember seeing videos from the Texas freeze of water just gushing in the background and the person talking about how they couldn't get a plumber or something or other and I'm just going nuts thinking "Shut off your damn water." It blows my mind that people will sit in a flooding house making Tik Tok videos but won't think to look up how to shut off their water supply.

 

[NWRMidnight]

I'm not sure what your point is. The fire department stated that there was a lack of water at some of the hydrants that hampered the fire fighting effort. That's infrastructure issue. The same thing happened years back in the Oakland hills fire.
The systems are designed to supply X amount of water at X number of locations under X pressure, I would assume that design didn't account for a fire storm and every hydrant being in use.

I'm still unclear as to what the argument is here. The place burned to the ground, it's time to look at what happened and take some measures to mitigate it happening again. That could be as simple as telling everyone that rebuilds "you're on your own", all the way up to declaring the entire area unbuildable. I don't know the answer, but I know what the options are, and I've already stated my guess as to what will be done. I'll check back in a year or two and see if I was right.

there really are only two real solutions to prevent something like this to happen under these "perfect storm" conditions, which is a rare accurance, and the end cost being substantial to implement and maintain.. 1) firehydrants would need to be put on seperate water lines thru out the city, with nothing else on them, which also would require their own seperate water supply, infrastructure, etc. and/or 2) every house has a remote shut off installed that either activates automatically during a fire, where the shut off mechanism, and water line to it, are fire proof, and/or has a remote shut off that can be activated by the city, or fire department. They would have to be tested, maintained, but could still malfuction during a fire. Of course, that is if you have no issues with available water sources. There are many places around the country that have build restriction and/or unable to build becase there is a freeze on water permits because some areas have limited water sources.