Multiple Wildfires Rip Through Los Angeles Amid Historic Winds
Apocalyptic scenes in the greater LA area as Santa Ana winds reaching hurricane-like force drive uncontrollable brush fires.
Wildfires are ripping through Los Angeles County, fanned by hurricane-strength wind gusts as firefighters struggle to combat the blazes. The winds showed no signs of letting up early Wednesday and may intensify in the hours ahead, as conditions remain extremely difficult for firefighters. The Palisades Fire, which broke out near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, has burned at least 2,921 acres, forcing at least 30,000 people to evacuate. The Eaton Fire, which erupted to the northeast, has burned an estimated 1,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders for over 52,000 residents. In the north, the Hurst Fire grew to 500 acres in just four hours. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency and said early Wednesday that more than 1,400 firefighters, first responders and officials have been deployed “to combat these unprecedented fires in LA.”
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Major fires burning in and around Los Angeles are fanned by widespread gusts of 50 to 80 mph and zones of gusts in the 80 to 100 mph range. The strongest winds have been occurring at higher elevations of mountains and foothills, in canyons and around passes.
Gusts in and near the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains:
103 mph at Marshall Peak north of San Bernardino
90 mph in the mountains east of Santa Clarita
85 mph at Henninger Flats northeast of Pasadena
83 mph in Burbank and northern Rancho CucamongaMalibu Hills wind speeds over the past several days. (weather.gov)
In and near the Santa Monica Mountains98 mph in the Malibu Hills
84 mph at Saddle Peak north of Malibu
75 mph at Corral Canyon Park west of Malibu
In and near the Santa Ana and San Jacinto mountains94 mph in Fremont Canyon east of Anaheim
84 mph at Keen Ridge south of Idyllwild
Aside from the very real danger to humans here, there’s another story that will get buried for months but is critical to how this plays out – the same major insurers who have dumped homeowners in Florida because if hurricane risks have also dumped California homeowners due to fire risk. That’s an economic disaster waiting to compound the wildfire damage.Report
If you can’t offer a policy at a price that people will buy and cover the losses, you don’t offer a policy. As in Florida, so in California.Report
They could do just that but it would result in a slight drop in year over year profits, which is what they see as their fiduciary responsibility. No just returning a profit, but returning maximum profit every quarter and thus every year. Because eventually if they follow the road they are on they won’t exist as an industry.Report
If by “do just that” you mean offer a policy that charges a premium that doesn’t cover their losses and pass those losses on to other customers in safer locales by way of higher premiums (and eventually get out competed by insurance companies that don’t and go out of business) or go out of business through rank insolvency. I… uh… kind of see why the insurance companies are electing to not “do just that”. They don’t have “subsidize people to live in flooding and forest fire prone locations” in their mandate nor do I think they should do so. Nor do I think should we do so.Report
Remember when Texas had a horrible winter and Ted Cruz immediately got on a plane to Mexico?
Mayor Bass is off in Ghana.Report
1) She was already out of the country as part of an official delegation of US officials attending the inauguration of Ghana’s President. Which means she didn’t flee the disaster as it was unfolding.
2) She is apparently headed back and will be in LA shortly if she isn’t already.
These things are not the same, and pointing them out as if they were looks trollish.Report
“Looks?”Report
Since Jay is more concerned with aesthetics it seemed an appropriate word.Report
Let’s face it, it’s not like the mayor could actually do anything but hold a press conference explaining that this is the fault of global warming and has nothing to do with forestry or reservoir levels or anything like that.
It’s President-Elect Trump’s fault, after all. He doesn’t believe in Global Warming, you know.Report
You just can’t stay in a single train of thought can you?
Yes these wires are “caused” by global warming in that the areas where they are occurring are hotter and dryer for more time per year. To the extent that forestry practices and reservoir levels are a contributing factor, those things are controlled by agencies she is not in charge of so she couldn’t have directed them to do anything beforehand.
And yes, if these fires are still going or new ones pop up after he takes office he will bear blame. I’m struggling to understand why you folded him into a conversation about what you see as her bad behavior however.Report
Her bad behavior? What bad behavior has she engaged in? Seriously, name a *SINGLE* thing that she did wrong!
You can’t!Report
You drew the analogy with your OP. Perhaps you should own it.Report
“Own?”Report
Personally, I think that this is the culmination of years and years and years of mismanagement and misplaced priorities.
Blaming the current person would be to blame only one of the bad actors.
This catastrophic failure goes back decades and is the result of dozens of decisions and misplaced priorities.
You know the whole “that’s not a silver bullet!” criticism of any given policy proposal to fix something?
There is not one person who can be blamed.
Though there will probably be a couple who will be scapegoated.Report
Yeah, we only found out about the fires last night at 5PM or so.
And Ted Cruz came back in a hurry too! And nobody talks about that!Report
They don’t talk about it because fleeing DURING the disaster was the bad part. Which the Mayor of LA didn’t do.
Again – these things are not the same. They are not “well you have to understand …” nor are they “Whatabout ….” They don’t resemble each other beyond two career politicians traveling.Report
Is the argument that no elected official should ever go anywhere because disasters could happen at any moment, or that she hasn’t come back quickly enough?Report
The argument is that Republicans can’t be bad because Democrats do things that look the same if you squint hard enough.Report
“Argument?”Report
I think that the argument is that the point of elected officials is to stand there when bad things are happening and say “it’s not my fault, it’s the fault of the other party”.Report
You “think” that’s the argument? It’s your argument; you should know one way or the other.Report
It’s an argument that would exist without me.
It’s an argument that bubbles up from time to time, after a massive failure of government, without any of my input or assistance at all.Report
So you aren’t making an argument on your own responsibility; you’re just channeling the universe?Report
Predicting.
Did you see the Sky News segment below, by the way?Report
Are you telling me JB is trolling?
No….Report
Sky News peppered Mayor Bass as she returned to the US.
Report
Someone dug this one up:
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Fruits of global warming and Cali’s decades of NIMBY housing policy. It’s gonna suck.Report
Isaiah Taylor has a harrowing insight into one of the things that brought us here. In response to being asked if it’s true that California was sued to prevent controlled burning, he answers:
My thought was that the best time to have begun heading off this particular fire would have been in 2012.
This is about something that was prevented from happening back in 2007.
I’d be interested in hearing from one of our more environmentally-compassionate folks about whether this fire was greener than the controlled stuff would have been.Report
This was the outcome. The law triumphs over common sense, once again.
“I cannot bring myself to believe that a Forest Service decision to cut brush and use controlled burns to reduce forest fire danger near urban areas is arbitrary and capricious. And I cannot quite bring myself to believe that the categorical exclusion in this case, covering less than one half of one percent of federal land, will have a cumulative impact on our environment requiring years more research, analysis and report writing before we do anything to protect people from forest fires. As a matter of common sense, cutting brush and using controlled burns on parcels no larger than 1,000 acres and 4,000 acres respectively seems most likely to have the cumulative impact of reducing the catastrophic effect of forest fires on people.
Nevertheless, the government’s brief does not point us to anything in the record that supports my intuitive view. The best I can find in the record is some scattered bits that were written after the categorical exclusion was made, saying that the categorical exclusion is not expected to contribute to adverse cumulative impacts on sensitive wildlife species. The briefs and record control, and the government has made no serious attempt to show us why the categorical exclusion was not arbitrary and capricious or that it gave the required “hard look” at the categorical exclusion before promulgating it. A judge’s duty is to decide the case based on the law and the record, not his personal policy preference. I am therefore compelled to concur.”Report
I also seem to recall a new article on the state utility DEFERING miniatous on powerlines and instead giving it to shareholders, which, when those lines sag / fail start fires. Not sure if that issue was resolved or if it’s still being battled in the courts.Report
A grim read and zero comfort to people who have been displaced, but Mike Davis’s Ecology of Fear from the dark ages of 1998 predicted exactly this and offers good insight into how fuel to power these fires accumulates and how the pressure of land development wins out over knowledgeable stewardship of the land.Report
This is one of the things that needs to be fixed.
It strikes me as trivially true that the environmental harms that come from a controlled burn are smaller than the environmental harms that come from a wildfire.
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Trump has decided in infinite predictability to use the fires to launch against NewsomReport
Can I attack the mayor?
The Mayor is a Democrat, so… no.
Can I attack the Governor?
The Governor is a Democrat, so… no.
Can I attack the State Government?
The State Government is overwhelmingly Democrats, so… no.
Can I attack the President of the US?
The President of the US is a Democrat, so… no.
What about the President-elect?
*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*Report
Unfortunately no one has convinced you that your trolling is not quite as clever or convincing as you think it isReport
How transparent do you think attempting to make these LA fires about Donald Trump is?
I am pretty sure that you think that partisan dems will nod their heads.
I am pretty sure that you think that partisan repubs will sputter in outrage.
What I can’t wrap my head around is that your take is that swings will agree that it’s about Trump rather than about the people who actually have their hands on the steering wheel at the moment the Palisades burned down.
Do you really think that they’ll agree with you?
Because I don’t think they will. I think they’ll ask “how in the hell is this about Trump?”Report