Soĺ Cal fires

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67/6barracuda said:
I hear a lot of grumblings about forestry management in California its non-existent because of regulations and tree huggers.

I’m not trying to poke the bear here but after years of years of fires. I think it’s time for folks to try something different. Not deforestation but control burns and selective cuts of forestry management. Importantly clearing dead fall, under cut the brush, clear fire breaks. Plenty of states do this it’s nothing new.

It shouldn’t be a cataclysmic event every time the wind blows. They’re all about green energy, but I’ll be damn if the California gov just lets the state burn down for politics. It’s easier to ask for federal funding. It’s getting out of control vote everyone of those bastards out.

Prays for those affected.
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67/6barracuda said:
It’s simple really forestry brings in engineers that map the problem areas. With the topographical data they design fire breaks and fire damns so that the forest is compartmentalized in segments. Then the commissioned forestry teams go in and control burn designated areas out side the dry season to burn out the dead fall and brush. This helps with germination of new growth and burns off all the mess that has a potential to catch up. It’s been done. Time to pull out the old play books.
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Oh please, your only purpose with this post IS to poke the bear.

It's completely obvious you know absolutely nothing about wildland fire OR the ecology or topography of Southern California. Being ignorant of all of those things, you don't have enough information to jump on the political bandwagon on this. Your controlled burn observations have merit in some fuel model types, but make zero sense in SoCal. They're not applicable in any way, and anyone that understands fuel types, SoCal, or wildland fires should know that.

The areas that are currently burning in SoCal are 100% brush. There's no "forest" to speak of, it's chaparral. Chaparral goes from new growth to 50% dead material in about 7 years, and it's an oily type of brush to begin with. Chaparral has evolved to burn, and burn exactly like it is right now. The problem is that there are houses in the way. If you look at old burn scars, you'll see that areas of the Palisades fire burned less than 4 years ago. In order to keep that area "managed" as you say, you'd have to burn 100% of the unpopulated areas of Socal every 2 years. Anything short of that and with a wind event like is happening at the moment the fires that are happening now would be possible. It's not realistic on any level. Fire breaks? It jumped the PCH without any difficulty. There's video of lifeguard shacks on the beach burning. Think about that.

The other aspect of this is the weather. The winds in SoCal right now are sustained over 70 mph in most places, and are gusting over 100 mph. Even if there had been rain this winter, it wouldn't really matter. That brush will carry fire in 70 mph winds when it's' raining out.

I've fought fire for over 25 years now. I've fought wildfires in SoCal, and lived there for a handful of years as well. Unless you can stop the wind, you can't stop events like what are happening right now. You can't fight fire in the winds they were having yesterday and last night. Maybe some houses can be saved, but the main body of fire will do whatever the hell it wants in wind, humidity and fuel moisture levels the last few and next few days.

go-fish said:
I could go on about this. The earth WILL burn itself if we don't. If the land is left unmanaged the natural fire regime will return and get on a natural cycle of burning every few years to decades. The reasons we should manage forests are dictated by urban sprawl, mountain communities, and wildland-urban interface. Also, if we are going to be putting these fires out when they are small to try to PROTECT these spaces we are actually doing the worst thing for them. Since the inception of public land management we have been setting ourselves up for mega fires that burn down complete towns. What I mean is we PREVENT the fuel loading from getting cleaned up, THEN, a spark and high winds will burn the rest eventually.
Prescribed Fire, Logging, Tribal land management allowed to be controlled BY the tribes, AND letting the fires burn while being managed for a dual purpose of medicinal fire and control. The 'Let Burn" policy need to stop being demonized. In this case it is too late. The fires they should have let burn last May but put out causes fires like the Palisades Fire.
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You know better than this. You know those fuels are not anywhere near the type of fuels you can manage with prescribed fire. And you know that with the winds that are happening now it wouldn't matter what kind of fuel was on those hills, they'd burn. I know you can look at the old burn maps, parts of the Palisades fire were burned off just a few years ago. You're going to hold control burns over all the unincorporated areas of SoCal every spring? Get real.

I know you've literally seen it with your own eyes, a neighborhood is a continuous fuel model with 70 mph winds. Some of those areas that burned are nothing but streets and houses. If stucco houses with tile roofs and green, watered landscaping is carrying fire there's nothing from a fuel management perspective that's going to solve the problem. 70+ mph winds, single digit humidity, and one spark will burn down neighborhoods without any brush or "forest" present.
 
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67/6barracuda said:
It’s simple really forestry brings in engineers that map the problem areas. With the topographical data they design fire breaks and fire damns so that the forest is compartmentalized in segments. Then the commissioned forestry teams go in and control burn designated areas out side the dry season to burn out the dead fall and brush. This helps with germination of new growth and burns off all the mess that has a potential to catch up. It’s been done. Time to pull out the old play books.
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100%

Dart Frog said:
First let me start by saying my heart goes out to anyone dealing with wildfire. I come from three generations of oregonians so I understand the tragedy probably better than most. It just makes me wonder why we spend billions of dollars creating bombs and huge militaries then totally get our asses kicked by wildfire that basically destroys everything in its path. And leave others to pick up the pieces of other natural disasters I could go on and on but I won't.
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The same simpleminded thought process is used for both Military Industrial Complex and the new frontier they've coined "Fire Industrial Complex". It is in fact the same companies getting into the Fire Industrial Complex, like Raytheon, BAE, Colson Aviation, .......
Tragedy has been industrialized and profited from. Billions are made in fire every year. You know who gets shafted with low pay and cancer? I had to ask myself, do I really want to be the very lowest valued asset in wildland fire? The Federal firefighters are disposable, so they think. A huge brain trust has left the fire service in the last 5-10 years.
 
TT5.9mag said:
The fire near him started at 6:15 this morning. He wouldn’t have known about it last night.
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Uh oh. Maybe I need to give him a call.

I couldda SWORE I had his number. Now I caint find it. Dammit all.
 
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72bluNblu said:
And you know that with the winds that are happening now it wouldn't matter what kind of fuel was on those hills, they'd burn. I know you can look at the old burn maps, parts of the Palisades fire were burned off just a few years ago. You're going to hold control burns over all the unincorporated areas of SoCal every spring? Get real.
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We just have some miscommunication. We had community defense projects in EVERY single neighborhood and town that butts up against the Cleveland National Forest. We got it done in SoCal.The Cleveland boasts proudly about having the fewest number of fires that needed the BDF OR the Angelas NF for mutual aid. We got the stops. It can be done.
 
I just took a call from my mother (88 years old), and she reminded me that she has first cousin's who live somewhere in or near Altadena (I met them only once, about 30 years ago). She called to say she hasn't been able to reach them (she called to ask me for ideas), and while she didn't have an address on-hand, she did say that she and my dad (90 years old) are "on it", and that they would keep me up to speed on what they learn/find.
 
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67/6barracuda said:
It’s simple really forestry brings in engineers that map the problem areas. With the topographical data they design fire breaks and fire damns so that the forest is compartmentalized in segments. Then the commissioned forestry teams go in and control burn designated areas out side the dry season to burn out the dead fall and brush. This helps with germination of new growth and burns off all the mess that has a potential to catch up. It’s been done. Time to pull out the old play books.
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Ok… that a rational response
Don’t get me wrong Im not anti logging . In Idaho we have been practicing better selective logging but it wasn’t always that way.
As fishman said fire is pert of the natural process. Sometimes you just can’t stop it nor should we all the time.
Here is what I am looking at right now. And all the protections you mentioned have been in place . It burned this summer ….

image.jpg
 
RustyRatRod said:
Uh oh. Maybe I need to give him a call.

I couldda SWORE I had his number. Now I caint find it. Dammit all.
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I sent him a text earlier today. Haven’t had a response yet. I know some phone companies are having issues, and the fire is only listed currently at 30 acres, so I’m not too worried yet. If I hear from him I’ll let you know
 
I'm afraid we are going to get massive wildfires in a decade or so here in Western NC after the destruction that Helene caused in our forests. There are hundreds of thousands of trees down so far back in the mountains that it would be impossible to get them out. The majority of those places, you have 2 choices in terrain....straight up or straight down! I'm sure the Firefighters that deal with wildfires have plans for areas like that, but God be with them!
 
go-fish said:
We just have some miscommunication. We had community defense projects in EVERY single neighborhood and town that butts up against the Cleveland National Forest. We got it done in SoCal.The Cleveland boasts proudly about having the fewest number of fires that needed the BDF OR the Angelas NF for mutual aid. We got the stops. It can be done.
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You could have paved a 6 lane highway around Pacific Palisades and it would't have made a lick of difference in those winds. Again, it roared right over the PCH like it wasn't there.

Half the Cleveland is actual desert, and compared the Angeles the exposure to homes is exponentially lower. That's a whole different ball game. The fire danger TODAY in the Cleveland is "moderate", that should tell you something. Again, you should know enough about local influences, fuel types and neighborhood interface to know that comparing the Cleveland National Forest to Pacific Palisades yesterday isn't a legitimate comparison on any level. Despite being geographically close, the methods that work for fuels and structure protection in the Cleveland aren't completely applicable to Pacific Palisades. That's why it's such a joke when people come out after these fires and say things like "fuel management" like it means the same thing all the time, when the reality is that it's different from one side of the ridge to the next, from one fuel type to another, and population density absolutely limits what can be done without making it an "environmental" issue at all.

You could have had the same destruction in Pacific Palisades without it starting in the wildland at all, a single structure fire could have taken out entire neighborhoods. Most of those houses lost yesterday weren't burned down by embers from the wildland, they were burned down by embers from their neighbors house.

Let's stop politicizing this, because so far none of the suggestions have ANY merit at all for the areas most of those fires are burning in.
 
hey you filthy animals!

me and the mopars and the gatitos are good. everybody is safe.

woodley fire is super close, but winds are at my favor. it's being reported as having been knocked down and considered contained.

the hurst fire is several miles to the north and east of me. i have the evacuation warning, but it's level 1 and sounds like the path is up and away from my area.

thanks for all the concerns, PM's, texts and disturbing pics y'all sent (you know who you are)!
 
junkyardhero said:
hey you filthy animals!

me and the mopars and the gatitos are good. everybody is safe.

woodley fire is super close, but winds are at my favor. it's being reported as having been knocked down and considered contained.

the hurst fire is several miles to the north and east of me. i have the evacuation warning, but it's level 1 and sounds like the path is up and away from my area.

thanks for all the concerns, PM's, texts and disturbing pics y'all sent (you know who you are)!
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Yeah gotta take care of them gatitos. Gatita was Kitty's high school Spanish class name. lol
 
junkyardhero said:
hey you filthy animals!

me and the mopars and the gatitos are good. everybody is safe.

woodley fire is super close, but winds are at my favor. it's being reported as having been knocked down and considered contained.

the hurst fire is several miles to the north and east of me. i have the evacuation warning, but it's level 1 and sounds like the path is up and away from my area.

thanks for all the concerns, PM's, texts and disturbing pics y'all sent (you know who you are)!
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What did that Woodley fire burn? Looks like it's right in the middle of town.
 
Unconventional said:
What did that Woodley fire burn? Looks like it's right in the middle of town.
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it's down in the basin/park area. there's some farms and the golf course and outdoor recreation over there.

but yeah, it's basically in the middle of town hemmed in by the 101 & 405. if that gets out of control it's a bad situation, it's very dense down there just across the freeways. good that they've got it contained.
 
junkyardhero said:
it's down in the basin/park area. there's some farms and the golf course and outdoor recreation over there.

but yeah, it's basically in the middle of town hemmed in by the 101 & 405. if that gets out of control it's a bad situation, it's very dense down there just across the freeways. good that they've got it contained.
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I thought that was probly the case. I knew there was a park somewhere near there.
 
It’s crazy because my house almost burned down three weeks ago. Due to a idiot neighbor, dry brush and a cigarette bud. Luckily me and my brother woke up in time and slowed it down until the fire department came.

These fires are out of control on the mountain side I can see it all from my backyard. I’m lucky to be 12 miles south from Pasadena. People are looting and filming the fires on their phones instead of checking up on people and helping.

Horrible day.
 
Slantsix64 said:
ASSHOLES are looting and filming the fires on their phones instead of checking up on people and helping.
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FIXED

Glad you were able to save your place. Stay safe and after all this let’s hang out you’re not far. Spring Fling?
 
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