The Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills has been effectively contained with very little damage.
Palisades is still raging. The historic home of Will Rogers which is a state park is destroyed. I went there many times as a young child. I was always confused why there weren’t cowboy and horse stuff there.
I just heard that the home of a friend from college has been destroyed.
My mother’s in South Orange County, but has lots of friends (and we have family) all around LA.
Which puts me three degrees of separation from quite a few who have already lost their (primary, secondary, or rental property) homes, and two degrees of separation from several handfuls (if not dozens) of people/families who have been evacuated.
Heartbreaking. Every time.
Until 80 mile an hour winds blowing flaming debris across a bone-dry ready-to-burn landscape comes along.
Rich or poor, entitled or disadvantaged, a charitable citizen or thoughtless airhorn…losing your home in a sudden natural disaster or unforeseeable accident is a gut-wrenching experience.
Stranger
My boyfriend’s bestie lives in Glendale, in a condo building. Somehow Glendale has been mostly safe from actual fires even with Pasadena to the west and Altadena to the east.
He’s been ok and as far as I know he hasn’t been evacuated (although I’ve heard of others in Glendale evacuated) but his co-workers have lost homes.
The number of homes in the fire overlay maps I’ve seen is astounding.
The first home lost to a person I know just happened and it probably won’t be the last. It’s the daughter of a good friend of my mom. The have been friends since before I was born. The daughter and I are within a few months of age of each other and grew up together. We were never particularly close and haven’t seen each other in years. Mom always hoped that we’d get married. Mom’s friend is still evacuated and will likely be ok.
Glendale is west of both Pasadena and Altadena (you’re probably thinking of Burbank to the west), and far enough south of the San Gabriel foothills that it hasn’t been affected by the Eaton Fire (except for air quality, of course). But it is nestled up in between the Verdugo Mountains, the San Rafael Hills, and Mount Washington with Griffith Park just across I-5. A lot of neighborhoods are built up into those foothills and mountains and they could all turn into massive conflagrations very quickly in these conditions.
Stranger
I know we joke about “thoughts and prayers” but my thoughts are absolutely with the people of LA today. I live in Cape Town which has essentially the same climate as LA (save that our summer and winter are reversed) and very similar problems of wildfires. Four years ago we had a terrible fire which forced me to evacuate my home and burned down several buildings on the campus of my alma mater. (We discussed it here.)
Being forced out of your home on short notice, not knowing if it will be there when you come back, is a terrifying experience. The destruction of places you know and love is horrendous.
Now the Kenneth Fire (west end of Simi Valley) just south of Bell Canyon and the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (the site of “America’s Worst Nuclear Accident”); shades of the 2018 Woolsey Fire that got residents up in arms over release of potentially radioactive ash. Hopefully LACFD has enough available capacity to contain before it grows much beyond the current 50 acres.
Stranger
Shit. I have a very good friend in Simi near there.
I think the evac orders are being precautionary but if they don’t contain the fire there is a lot of rough ground to burn and a nightmare for evacuation with Hurst Fire up in Sylmar and the Palisades Fire impacting any egress south. If things go bad, the only good routes are West Hwy 101 through Camarillo or ‘The Old Road’ (Hwy 126) though Santa Paula, which is mostly two lanes.
ETA; I just saw that Ventura County is requesting 25 engine strike teams (125 engines) and Los Angeles County is requesting 25 engine strike teams and 40 crews, as well as 20 earthmovers, so they are taking it very seriously.
Stranger
I just got off the phone with my friend in Simi. He mostly works from home but they haven’t had power in Simi for a few days. (They have intentionally cut power in Simi and Thousand Oaks and probably other places to avoid fallen power lines causing additional fires). He worked in Agoura Hills today and was driving back and could see the flames. He’s very safe for now and echoed what you said about the 126.
15 minutes ago my phone erupted with an evacuation warning. It’s about 20 miles to the nearest file from where I was sitting, so I ignored it. Was this foolhardy?
Got back to my office and got another notice- the evacuation order was for the Kenneth Fire (about 35 miles away). Please ignore the previous notice.
How about some specificity for these emergency notices, like “this evacuation is for the cites of”, or some sort of geographic indicator?
That far away from the fires, I’d actually prefer to get some notices on “keep out zones”, areas and roads to stay away from to make evacuations and emergency service entry easier.
Yeah, this is some of the scariest stuff I’ve seen since I was in… High school? Middle school? One of the two.
The Old Road is not Highway 126. The Old road is a freeway frontage rd that runs along I5.
Here in Alberta, the news reported that Alberta was sending firefighters and equipment to California. Other provinces have done the same.
Yeah…some idiot hit one of your Super Scoopers (amphibious airplane that was getting water from the ocean to dump on the fire) with a drone.
I’m sorry. We aren’t all idiots.
Thank you for trying.
They do and all the previous ones went to the correct geographic zones. But humans, especially those under stress, make mistakes. And so this was. Be consoled that you now know for sure you’ll get evac warnings.
Prepare your grains of salt before reading this:
Dan Abrams on News Nation is just now reporting that the Kenneth fire is believed to have been started by arson and that “police have a suspect in custody.”
True? I’ll wait to trust this till other sources confirm it. There’s been rampant speculation about arson already, and unless this supposed suspect got caught on camera, I’d be surprised –
Oh, a police officer is RIGHT NOW being interviewed and stating that “citizens” caught the alleged arsonist. “This is now officially a crime scene.” Lots of police present in the background.