Unimaginable Events in California (1 Viewer)

pbaldy said:
they are using air tankers that can refill their tanks by skimming across the water.
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They use those in the Mediterranean. Suspect it is fake news but a friend who lives in Mallorca swears it is true tells me they found a diver in the middle of a forest fire on the island - he'd been scooped up...

But I suspect it is based on this story from 26 years ago

The Scuba Diver

The Scuba Diver.
www.johnpratt.com
 
I suspect there are 2 other factors affecting the ability to fight these fires:
1. The demand for water, from hydrants and domestic taps/faucets, affected the availability of the water - the water system in urban areas is not designed to handle wildfires of that scale, and the demand for water exceeded the capacity to deliver - the water pressure could not be maintained- not so much the storage of water.
2. The above was exacerbated by the inability to fight the fires using airborne equipment due to the strong winds, This equipment is suited to fighting fires in inaccessible areas - but not in urban areas.
Shocking to see the destruction of property and the devastating effect on the lives of the people there.
 
Actually high wind speed was the number one factor.
 
The only folks I know who fly in hurricane-force winds are the hurricane hunters who fly out of NAS Pensacola. I knew a guy who was the radioman (an RM3) on a P3 Hurricane Hunter. The P3 is a turbo-prop airplane, not a jet. My friend Mike said he had ridden through several big storms during his time on active duty.

While it depends on the helicopter, MOST choppers are not rated to fly in hurricane-force winds. Particularly with heavy loads like a tank full of water. Therefore, as long as the winds are at that speed, I'm pretty sure the tanker choppers are in "NO GO" status.
 
AccessBlaster said:
I noticed.

If the fires were set intentionally during a high wind event, it's not climate change either.
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Even if merely carelessly set, not climate change either. At most you could claim climate change for the conducive conditions. But that is getting ahead of the story. We still need to see if investigations point to nature, accident, or arson. And the truth is, other than being typically nosy folks (inquiring minds want to KNOW), we can live with waiting for an answer.
 
The_Doc_Man said:
True, but the salt pollution of the ground would be a result. Not to mention if it fell on any cars that hadn't been melted quite yet, their finishes might not be pristine either.
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We were in Greece some years back and a hillside caught light near a town. They used two huge transporter type planes that flew over the sea and scooped up huge amounts of water, then turned and dumped it onto the fire. That went on most of the day.
 
Our nearest equivalent to this is the insistence building housing on flood plains and then wonder why the houses are regularly flooded!
 
AccessBlaster said:
Everyone knows we have Santa Ana winds and a fire danger every year, this is not something new.
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Really? You'd think it was to listen to Newsome and the Mayor who just cut the fire department budget and who had made it impossible to hire white men. Maybe white women who think they are men can replace them as firemen;) Who cares if they can't carry a hose into a burning building.

I think the Salton Sea formed when one of the southern aqueducts broke. It became a real destination for about 10 years and development blossomed. But California is always looking for places to store water. Why not build an aqueduct to feed the lake rather than let the snowmelt just run off into the sea or cause mudslides?
 
www.latimes.com

Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline and empty when firestorm exploded

A reservoir in the Palisades that holds 117 million gallons of water was offline this month for previously scheduled maintenance.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
You'd think they might schedule this for the non-fire season. I guess that is too hard for DEI hires to think through.

It is mind blowing to see block after block after block of homes burned to the ground. NOTHING left except a few trees. I feel sorry for all the disruption this will cause for years to come. Families are devastated and many will not get enough from their insurer to rebuild. They'll need to take a cash settlement so they can pay off their mortgage and move. The bureaucracy in California is second to none when it comes to obstructing building and delaying building permits. So, they victims will be out of their homes for 2-3 years at a minimum. The children need to go to school but the schools burned down also. How do you pay your mortgage and still cover your temporary living expenses for that many years? The children of the country never recovered from COVID and now thousands of California's children have to undergo this again?

Who knows how soon the rebuilding can begin but but maybe some planning needs to be done before reconstruction starts.

Can they build in fire breaks? Like - assess the direction of the prevailing winds and restrict all buildings for three blocks at various points around the city to be built of brick or concrete block and have tin or tile roofs. This won't stop embers in high winds but it should help the fire department control the spot fires. Should every house in a fire zone need a water catchment system capable of funneling water onto the roofs of all structures on the property? This "brown" water can also be used to flush toilets and water lawns to minimize the need for processed water. Should they all have at a minimum have fire retardant roofs with deep overhangs to keep sparks away from most of the building?

There should be a national contest to search for viable solutions to minimizing the damage caused by major fires in metropolitan areas. Of course, we should either ban building in the most dangerous areas or require homeowners to pay cash and self insure so the rest of us can stop trying to cover this type of loss to keep our insurance company alive. You are aware that the insurance model is to collect as much in premiums as the market will bear but to never pay a claim if there is any way to avoid it, right?
 
Regarding insurance get in first on this type of event.
Some years ago we lived in a coastal town and one night the sea cam over and flooded parts of the town. (not where we were, I'll add) . With high slightly off WSW winds and high spring tides, areas of the town would flood. Those unusual events happened maybe every 60 or 80 years, sometimes further apart.

Those who were first with their claims did by far the best. As more and more claims piled up, the insurance companies stood back a little to assess the situation and developed a policy to handle the increasing bulk of claims. Basically a standardisation and mitigation procedure really.

All of those did less well than the early birds and had to fight for every penny.
 
Cotswold said:
Regarding insurance get in first on this type of event.
Some years ago we lived in a coastal town and one night the sea cam over and flooded parts of the town. (not where we were, I'll add) . With high slightly off WSW winds and high spring tides, areas of the town would flood. Those unusual events happened maybe every 60 or 80 years, sometimes further apart.

Those who were first with their claims did by far the best. As more and more claims piled up, the insurance companies stood back a little to assess the situation and developed a policy to handle the increasing bulk of claims. Basically a standardisation and mitigation procedure really.

All of those did less well than the early birds and had to fight for every penny.
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That sounds like good advice. It's sad to see various parts of the country become uninsurable but I wish that someone could do an effective understandable readable report that shows us what was the net profit of the insurance companies before and after they pull out of some of these places. I would like to just gobble up mentally people's assertions that they are greedy, but I'm not sure that's the case. Maybe their profit margin in some of these areas was coming close to nothing I'm just not sure and would like to know
 
Isaac said:
That sounds like good advice. It's sad to see various parts of the country become uninsurable but I wish that someone could do an effective understandable readable report that shows us what was the net profit of the insurance companies before and after they pull out of some of these places. I would like to just gobble up mentally people's assertions that they are greedy, but I'm not sure that's the case. Maybe their profit margin in some of these areas was coming close to nothing I'm just not sure and would like to know
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Or maybe they jack up the rates in other areas. My homeowners and auto have shut up and it isn't because of claims. I, for one, don't want to subsidize those who live in high risk areas.
 
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I live 110 miles east of L.A. and just a short drive from the Salton Sea. And there's one thing I know for sure...there will be enough blame to go around. The politicians pissed-off the Hollywood elite and they were the one who put them in office in the first place. You don't want to piss-off the actors and celebrities here. Emperor Newsom has taken what was once a pretty nice place to live and run it head-first into the ground and when this is all over, there will be hell to pay (I hope). These people pay tax rates that are in the stratosphere and when a fire occurs in their neighborhoods, they expect water to come out of the hydrants.

We live in a +55 community and are seeing a lot of refugee friends/relatives of residents around the community.

Sincerely yours,
Retired in Palm Springs
 
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