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© Thomson Reuters 2025.Aerial assault aims to stem LA Palisades fire eastward spread
By Omar Younis, Nathan Frandino and Sandra Stojanovic LOS ANGELES©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
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RichardPearce
In a world where scientists identifying something as inevitably causing disasters on a new scale prompts oligarchs, including oligarchs who's obscene levels of wealth are directly fed by that something volunteering to 'reduce' themselves to 'just' being much richer than 98% of humanity to prevent those disasters, the firefighters of Los Angeles would have had a chance at stopping these fires in their tracks at the very beginning of this disaster.
But that's not the world we live in, is it.
Will the fire fighters who've made their way from the CONTINENT of North America (some of whom I have met in their moments of 'downtime' in a place under evacuation alert, crowded with the already evacuated, and blanketed in thick smoke) be able to stop these fires in their tracks when mother nature is tilting the situation in favor of the fires? Experience says no. But they will be trying to with all of their might, and they will, like the LA only fire fighters from the start, greatly reduce the scale of disaster from the calamity it could have been. And, eventually, when mother nature stops tilting the situation so far in the favor of the fire, begin to stop the fires in their tracks, and if conditions don't switch back to making that impossible for then for long enough, put them out FOR THE TIME BEING.
But until the oligarchs and the politicians and the media and the voters quit pretending that THEY are not the problem, whatever scapegoats they settle on are, those firefighters know, deeper in their bones than the exhaustion and aches of doing dangerous, back breaking work under horrendous conditions can penetrate, that it won't be long until they're gathered again, and the intervals between are getting shorter, the battles getting longer, and the disasters coming closer and closer to being calamities anyways.
Desert Tortoise
Especially if you look at what happened in Altadena, this wasn't a wild land fire as much as an urban fire. The fire was going home to home. A news channel was showing a map of the fires as they popped up in Altadena and they were hop-scotching across the city started by embers thrown off one burning home landing on another. In most cases the vegetation was not burned. The trees are still gloriously green. Brush clearance would not have prevented this . What needs to happen is for buildings to be hardened against fire. This is very doable. The things that need to be done to make the exteriors of buildings resist fire are all well known. I have incorporated most into my own home even though I do not live in an area considered to be a fire danger area. I just know from watching events in my city that a house fire on a windy day here can very easily light up other buildings. It has happened. We don't have great fire protection in our county. Our fire department is no where near as well equipped and staffed as LA Fire Dept or LA County Fire Dept. Our fire department rolls with only two fire fighters on a truck compared to a minimum of four for LA City and County. We have no ladder trucks either. But the knowledge to make buildings resist catching fire is there and needs to be widely applied. Building codes need to be changed to make these techniques mandatory in new and remodeled homes. Yeah it costs money but it is cheaper than what happens when you don't do it.
starpunk
It's a bit of both. Mt. Wilson Observatory is located on a mountain nearby and smoke from nearby forests is endangering that place too, as well as access to that facility. After all, how can astronomers do their scientific work in that situation?
Remember how bad those forest fires in Nova Scotia got last year? The smoke was so heavy that remote Montreal was engulfed in heavy smoke. Olympique Stadion barely 'poked' above all that. And it could get that way in the USA too.
bass4funk
Resist is always great, but not everyone can afford it, not every property it’s worth the time or investment to build it, in hindsight what happened, happened, it’s easier to say what or how the house should have been built, that’s not the issue. The issue is first and foremost accountability that needs to be established first, that’s growing and coming fast and hard, the rebuilding and problems that will come with it will be dealt with at a later time
wallace
The rich built their mansions with safe rooms but forgot to build them to protect against fire. The building codes need to be updated to include better fireproofing and zoning where it is unsafe to have homes.
Desert Tortoise
Any new home or business built from now on needs to incorporate the best fire hardening methods. They are not terribly expensive, especially when you are building new. I did all of this to my own home when we built it and and doing it again with a garage we are finishing. The difference in price between a vinyl window frame and fiberglass window frame with tempered glass is negligible. Same thing for the difference between a regular attic vent and one with fine mesh and a steel baffle to prevent burning embers from getting into the attic. This is rounding error in the total cost to build a home. The slab and the lumber are the big material costs. If you are putting up a new roof it needs to be certified fire resistant. That doesn't have to be expensive. Asphalt shingles can meet a Class A fire rating. Much of California already uses stucco siding but the eaves need to be sealed with stucco. That doesn't add any cost. This is all stuff I have direct hands on experience with right now. It is stuff I am doing now.
But these things need to be in the building code and need to be required on all new homes and remodels.