7 ms·

You’re a fire management expert? What did LA do wrong?

gibsonf1 2y ago
1. Santa Ynez Reservoir right above Palisades was empty for the past year, depriving fire hydrants of water. (State incompetence) 2. La City defunded fire department removing 100 fire trucks from service due to maintenance. (City Incompetence) 3 Severe fire warnings reported days in advance of the fire. Rather than take precautions and position fire trucks and equipment etc as was done in the past, the Mayor flew off to Ghana. (City Incompetence, Fire Department incompetence (but partly because of cut budget) 4. Forest maintenance has been stopped. (State incompetence) Competent management is needed or even worse can be expected in future.
- electrondood 2y ago
  re: point #1, the fire command team captain himself refuted this disinformation in an interview with Musk. I don't know about the other three offhand, but it's absurd to claim that state and local governments in California are somehow not taking fire risk seriously. Do you seriously think that the state that has annual wildfire season just happens to be "incompetent" when it comes to preparing for wildfires?
  - gibsonf1 2y ago
    How does the statement of "not taking fire risk seriously" explain the fact that the Santa Ynez Reservoir was and still is empty, and is a primary uphill source of water for those fire hydrants, or that the mayor defunded the fire department and left for Ghana after getting extreme fire danger warnings?[1] Because Santa Ynez was empty (for the past year), water was supplied from downhill water sources and the pressure needed dropped off to the point there was no longer any water out of the hydrants. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Palisades,+Los+Angeles,+CA/@34.0722353,-118.5697901,441m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x80c2a37a08897a89:0x4f7c6b3e45e83223!8m2!3d34.0467365!4d-118.546434!16zL20vMDI3bDRx?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDExNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Palisades,+Los+Ang...
    - manishsharan 2y ago
      you seem to be asserting that you know more than the Fire Chief.
      - gibsonf1 2y ago
        I'm asserting that anybody saying anything has nothing to do with the actual facts. I just offered you a 2025 aerial view of the reservoir designed to provide water at pressure to hydrants that is empty, for example. The Fire Chief warned about the effects of the defunding. [1] [1] https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2024/24-1600_rpt_bfc_12-17-24.pdf https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2024/24-1600_rpt_bfc_12...
    - zo1 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - kristjansson 2y ago
      > [1] Look, it's known that reservoir was empty, but it's a covered reservoir. You're looking at the the _cover_. That image tells you nothing about the state of the reservoir at the time. > primary uphill source of water for those fire hydrants was 3x 1M gallon water tanks. Hydrants were gravity fed until the tanks ran out (8-15 hours into the firefight), at which point water tankers supplied responding companies.
- doug_durham 2y ago
  This is nonsense disinformation. Citations? This wasn't a forest fire so forest management isn't an issue. California makes massive investments in wild lands maintenance. It hasn't "stopped". Also most forest land in California is Federally owned. Perhaps our incoming president will invest some money in maintaining the peoples forests. This disaster deserves better responses.
  - gibsonf1 2y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean about forests not involved: "The fire was first reported at about 10:30 a.m. PST on January 7, 2025, covering around 10 acres (4.0 ha) of the mountains north of Pacific Palisades" [1] California spending money has nothing to do with the outcomes in reality. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades_Fire
    - saltcured 2y ago
      I imagine they're rejecting the word "forest" to describe the landscape there. Locals would reserve the word "forest" for the coniferous zone of much higher elevation mountains. For example, the fire that destroyed Paradise, California some years ago was what we would all consider a forest fire. The wild areas near Malibu and Pacific Palisades are more a mixture of chaparral and hilly grassland. There may be some oak trees scattered about, but it feels like more trees exist in the private home landscaping than in the actual wild areas.
      - kristjansson 2y ago
        Exactly, and management of chaparral is even less straightforward forward forest.
- kristjansson 2y ago
  1. Santa Ynez may have helped, however (a) you're still limited by the flow rate of the main to withdraw from the reservoir, but more critically (b) the situation was already well out of hand before any hyrdants ran dry and (c) Eaton had so such issues with hydrants, but a substantially similar outcome. 2. 'defunded' -> about a 2% reduction. Also it's not 100 fire engines, 100 appartus, which covers ambulance, command cars, etc, and it's not clear what exactly is waiting for maintainence. 3. The Mayor doesn't drive fire engines. LAFD and LACoFD prepositioned according to their models, per the chief. 4. most of the LA fire wasn't forest, but chaparral, which is lower, scruby-er, brushy-er terrain. It tends to burn on a 30-50 year cycle, but burning too much more often destroys the ecoology entirely. Indeninous practice and some research[1] suggest small patch-burning; others (NPS) avoid prescribed burns in chaparral in favor of natural fire and structure defense. So it's not clear that there's an unambiguously better management practice than "its gonna burn sometime" combined with aggressive brush clearance and defense around structures. re: 2/3 Los Angeles (City mostly, but also County) clearly need a bigger fire department, with more people, stations, and equipment. But the specific complaints are ticky-tacky at best, and (AFAIK) no one asserts that a differnt pre-deployment, or a few more engines in service would have changed anything but the margins. I will say LAFD letting their first shift go off-duty as scheduled while LACoFD kept their shift on is an unfortunate unforced error. re: 4 USFS (and maybe Cal Fire too? not sure). did halt prescribed burns in October 24 in the face of opposition on liability and air quality grounds. Hopefully the LA fires drive people to reconsider their resistance to prescribed burns, and creates the necessary risk-bearing structures for Cal Fire and USFS to actually perform them. [1] https://www.fs.usda.gov/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr058/psw_gtr058_6b_dougherty.pdf https://www.fs.usda.gov/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr05...
  - gibsonf1 2y ago
    Not sure why you would want to make excuses for management incompetence. Do you agree that if Santa Ynez reservoir had been full as it should have been, that there would have been no issues with fire hydrant water flowing for the Palisades? Also, do you agree that in the case of private providing of water during the fire, that an entire mall was saved because of that? [1] Do you agree that a mayor who promised during the election that she would not travel out of country, that then does travel out of country after extreme fire warnings, is not ideal? [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14280517/Palisades-village-mall-saved-rick-caruso-la-fires.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14280517/Palisades-... Water is quite important for fire fighting. Why spin this, the facts are just too clear this time. Even if you support the entire governmental structure involved ideologically, do you really want to trust them with your life at this point?
jMyles 2y ago
If you actually want to know the answer to this question, this is a wonderful and well-researched book on the topic. https://tendingthewild.com/tending-the-wild/ https://tendingthewild.com/tending-the-wild/
- kristjansson 2y ago
  It's a bit older, but see also [1] for a great survey of research on the topic. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Before-Wilderness-Environmental-Californians-Anthropological/dp/0879191260 https://www.amazon.com/Before-Wilderness-Environmental-Calif...

1. Santa Ynez Reservoir right above Palisades was empty for the past year, depriving fire hydrants of water. (State incompetence) 2. La City defunded fire department removing 100 fire trucks from service due to maintenance. (City Incompetence) 3 Severe fire warnings reported days in advance of the fire. Rather than take precautions and position fire trucks and equipment etc as was done in the past, the Mayor flew off to Ghana. (City Incompetence, Fire Department incompetence (but partly because of cut budget) 4. Forest maintenance has been stopped. (State incompetence) Competent management is needed or even worse can be expected in future.

electrondood 2y ago
re: point #1, the fire command team captain himself refuted this disinformation in an interview with Musk. I don't know about the other three offhand, but it's absurd to claim that state and local governments in California are somehow not taking fire risk seriously. Do you seriously think that the state that has annual wildfire season just happens to be "incompetent" when it comes to preparing for wildfires?
- gibsonf1 2y ago
  How does the statement of "not taking fire risk seriously" explain the fact that the Santa Ynez Reservoir was and still is empty, and is a primary uphill source of water for those fire hydrants, or that the mayor defunded the fire department and left for Ghana after getting extreme fire danger warnings?[1] Because Santa Ynez was empty (for the past year), water was supplied from downhill water sources and the pressure needed dropped off to the point there was no longer any water out of the hydrants. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Palisades,+Los+Angeles,+CA/@34.0722353,-118.5697901,441m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x80c2a37a08897a89:0x4f7c6b3e45e83223!8m2!3d34.0467365!4d-118.546434!16zL20vMDI3bDRx?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDExNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Palisades,+Los+Ang...
  - manishsharan 2y ago
    you seem to be asserting that you know more than the Fire Chief.
    - gibsonf1 2y ago
      I'm asserting that anybody saying anything has nothing to do with the actual facts. I just offered you a 2025 aerial view of the reservoir designed to provide water at pressure to hydrants that is empty, for example. The Fire Chief warned about the effects of the defunding. [1] [1] https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2024/24-1600_rpt_bfc_12-17-24.pdf https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2024/24-1600_rpt_bfc_12...
  - zo1 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - kristjansson 2y ago
    > [1] Look, it's known that reservoir was empty, but it's a covered reservoir. You're looking at the the _cover_. That image tells you nothing about the state of the reservoir at the time. > primary uphill source of water for those fire hydrants was 3x 1M gallon water tanks. Hydrants were gravity fed until the tanks ran out (8-15 hours into the firefight), at which point water tankers supplied responding companies.
doug_durham 2y ago
This is nonsense disinformation. Citations? This wasn't a forest fire so forest management isn't an issue. California makes massive investments in wild lands maintenance. It hasn't "stopped". Also most forest land in California is Federally owned. Perhaps our incoming president will invest some money in maintaining the peoples forests. This disaster deserves better responses.
- gibsonf1 2y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean about forests not involved: "The fire was first reported at about 10:30 a.m. PST on January 7, 2025, covering around 10 acres (4.0 ha) of the mountains north of Pacific Palisades" [1] California spending money has nothing to do with the outcomes in reality. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades_Fire
  - saltcured 2y ago
    I imagine they're rejecting the word "forest" to describe the landscape there. Locals would reserve the word "forest" for the coniferous zone of much higher elevation mountains. For example, the fire that destroyed Paradise, California some years ago was what we would all consider a forest fire. The wild areas near Malibu and Pacific Palisades are more a mixture of chaparral and hilly grassland. There may be some oak trees scattered about, but it feels like more trees exist in the private home landscaping than in the actual wild areas.
    - kristjansson 2y ago
      Exactly, and management of chaparral is even less straightforward forward forest.
kristjansson 2y ago
1. Santa Ynez may have helped, however (a) you're still limited by the flow rate of the main to withdraw from the reservoir, but more critically (b) the situation was already well out of hand before any hyrdants ran dry and (c) Eaton had so such issues with hydrants, but a substantially similar outcome. 2. 'defunded' -> about a 2% reduction. Also it's not 100 fire engines, 100 appartus, which covers ambulance, command cars, etc, and it's not clear what exactly is waiting for maintainence. 3. The Mayor doesn't drive fire engines. LAFD and LACoFD prepositioned according to their models, per the chief. 4. most of the LA fire wasn't forest, but chaparral, which is lower, scruby-er, brushy-er terrain. It tends to burn on a 30-50 year cycle, but burning too much more often destroys the ecoology entirely. Indeninous practice and some research[1] suggest small patch-burning; others (NPS) avoid prescribed burns in chaparral in favor of natural fire and structure defense. So it's not clear that there's an unambiguously better management practice than "its gonna burn sometime" combined with aggressive brush clearance and defense around structures. re: 2/3 Los Angeles (City mostly, but also County) clearly need a bigger fire department, with more people, stations, and equipment. But the specific complaints are ticky-tacky at best, and (AFAIK) no one asserts that a differnt pre-deployment, or a few more engines in service would have changed anything but the margins. I will say LAFD letting their first shift go off-duty as scheduled while LACoFD kept their shift on is an unfortunate unforced error. re: 4 USFS (and maybe Cal Fire too? not sure). did halt prescribed burns in October 24 in the face of opposition on liability and air quality grounds. Hopefully the LA fires drive people to reconsider their resistance to prescribed burns, and creates the necessary risk-bearing structures for Cal Fire and USFS to actually perform them. [1] https://www.fs.usda.gov/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr058/psw_gtr058_6b_dougherty.pdf https://www.fs.usda.gov/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr05...
- gibsonf1 2y ago
  Not sure why you would want to make excuses for management incompetence. Do you agree that if Santa Ynez reservoir had been full as it should have been, that there would have been no issues with fire hydrant water flowing for the Palisades? Also, do you agree that in the case of private providing of water during the fire, that an entire mall was saved because of that? [1] Do you agree that a mayor who promised during the election that she would not travel out of country, that then does travel out of country after extreme fire warnings, is not ideal? [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14280517/Palisades-village-mall-saved-rick-caruso-la-fires.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14280517/Palisades-... Water is quite important for fire fighting. Why spin this, the facts are just too clear this time. Even if you support the entire governmental structure involved ideologically, do you really want to trust them with your life at this point?

jMyles 2y ago

If you actually want to know the answer to this question, this is a wonderful and well-researched book on the topic. https://tendingthewild.com/tending-the-wild/ https://tendingthewild.com/tending-the-wild/

kristjansson 2y ago
It's a bit older, but see also [1] for a great survey of research on the topic. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Before-Wilderness-Environmental-Californians-Anthropological/dp/0879191260 https://www.amazon.com/Before-Wilderness-Environmental-Calif...