I spent more time watching the news on the fires than I should have.
Saw an interview with a man whose house burned to the ground a third time during this fire. Was amazed he had rebuilt it twice in the same place. And, of course, he intends to rebuild.
Heard a report claiming that many of the homes lost were not insured because of the insurance companies which stopped writing homeowner’s policies in California, and not enough insurers willing to write in CA.
Too many thoughts triggered which divert from my best wishes for the victims.
As for the winds, California brush fires come with the winds and air drops are always problematic. The Navy has assigned 10 helicopters with drop capability which have not been usable.
This should not be surprising.
Here in NH there were brush fires today in Derry and Windham.
The fire in Derry started at a construction site.
Both controlled quickly in spite of blustery winds.
Our Texas warehouse is now closed and no carriers are reportedly operating in the Dallas area.
Our Tennessee warehouse expects to be closed tomorrow and we’ve just been notified our South Carolina warehouse will close at noon Friday due to the weather.
As of this morning:
Winds have died down, so it’s now safe for scooper planes to get water from the ocean, and for helicopters to fly over the inferno to drop the water. 5 people recorded dead so far.
However, winds are expected to increase to dangerous levels again tonight, which means no helicopters. All of the larger LA Basin, which includes Orange County (where I live), Riverside, and all adjoining areas especially mountains, is under extreme fire warning.
TV stations have preempted all local programs for 24/7 fire reports.
Fires closest to me are still 30 miles away, but there’s no guarantee with the winds.
When I woke this morning, I became aware of the Sunset fire which was threatening the Hollywood Hills last night. I can’t believe how relieved I felt when the news report said it was under control.
An extremely interesting article, indeed, with a copious amount of information proffered from a variety of resources.
Not the least of which, @ least to my way of thinking, are certain of the observations from experts such as the quoted Greg Pierce of the Water Resources Group of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment & Sustainability - but I do look a bit askance @ this particular quote:
I wouldn’t disagree that there’s been very little substantive conversation re: the LADWP perhaps being ill-prepared for a ‘perfect storm’-like situation such as this ongoing horrific tragedy, afore it occurred - but, in contrapose, I would suggest that there could well be something to the notion that one of the primary motivations for the widely-reported refusal of coverage, by insurers, to so-many of the affected homeowners might be rooted in the RAA (“Risk Assessment Analysis”) results such corporate behemoths build into their business plans.
Basically, I thought I knew how water hydrants–nay, entire water supply systems–worked…until today. I learned a lot from that article about hydrant placements, water pressure, and more. Honestly, now have some hydrant-related concerns to raise locally.
If any one can learn from these “perfect storms” and prevent or at least minimize any devastation at all in the future, let’s do that thing. It at least honors the tragic sacrifices that victims have made (same with mountain hurricanes, highway blizzards, accidental fireworks ignitions, what have you).
Plus the quick evacuation checklist was so enlightening. Very happy to share resources with this amazing community!
Here’s something I learned today about the shortfall in CA. Apparently a lot homes, and obviously businesses have fire suppression sprinkler systems in them. They all went off and they kept going off to the point where the pipes melted and it was wide open city pressure in countless buildings.
Homes that didn’t have sprinkler systems had toilets, and sinks, and dishwashers, and washing machines, and water for their refrigerators. They all have plastic pipes going to them. They all melted and the water just ran and ran and tapped out the system / pressure.
A lot of homes have PEX for their water pipes. Plastic… Melted…
Depending on the age of the building, some of the buildings in CA will have automatic shut off valves for water and gas. These types of valves were being put in place because of earthquakes but would work in fires also. One of our sons worked on those systems for a while out there.
The problem lies with the older building and the infrastructure supporting them not being updated.
We have a home that is just shy of 100 years old. Our little city just went through last year and update the water meters so all of ours will report to the city if the line is running wide open or constantly is running at any volume (even small). Pretty sure our new ones can shut themself off and the city has remote control also. Our electric company is installing meters currently that they can read and control remotely. The electric company is doing this because it was proven that their lines started the largest fire in our state last year.
Yet the one thing they don’t do is to maintain a good fire break (free of vegetation) around their properties when they live in the fringe areas up against the Los Angeles Forest. Not to mention the areas where the homes are only 8 feet apart which makes it even harder to keep flames from jumping house to house.
And these same homes in the areas of these fires are also the same homes that get hit with mud slides and land slides when they get too much rain.
We listen to them say that they were going to get rid of some of the red tape so that people could rebuild faster. We wonder if some of that red tape might be the codes that would help put/keep the right infrastructure in place to help mitigate some of these natural disasters.
As did the metal lines … the heat was that intense.
Thank you for the update. I hope that you continue to stay safe.
I belong to an organization whose members collect vintage musical instruments. A few members live in Southern California and the last we heard they are safe. One member lives in the Woodland Hills area. Another member (actually a museum) is in Sylmar area. They posted on Facebook that the museum is currently closed. There are a huge number of restored antique cars at the museum with many over 100 years old.
At least one more that I know of. Since she hasn’t posted about the fires, I don’t want to mention names. I tried to send you a message but it didn’t go through.
What’s happening in CA is so devastating. None of my family out there has been affected as they are in south Orange county, Corona and Long Beach. I do have family in the SVF, but they are fine. The pictures and videos I’ve seen are heartbreaking and devastating. I’ve experienced wildfires in the area when I lived in Orange County, but i can’t even imagine what people are going through. And eff the insurance companies that canceled their policies prior to this devastation.
Thankfully the winds have died down.
