When I lived in CA I evacuated twice. I know two families personally who lost everything, two different widely spaced fires, two different years. I know what it’s like to see orange spots on the ground when you are twenty miles from the fire line – that’s just the color of the light; the sky is gray but the light is orange. I have a friend who lives inside the Paradise fire zone, with thousands of forest acres around her, just blackened dead trees and soil turned to ash.
I’ve lived through the Loma Prieta earthquake and a 500 year flood. Fire is much more terrifying. Nothing scares me like wildfire.
Biggest reason why I moved. Got tired of waiting to be engulfed by flame.
“Many areas” - but was it shut off in the areas affected by these fires - before the wind storm? I know it’s going to be too early to tell at this point as the disaster is still unfolding, but eventually this is what needs to be known. Like the investigation in Lahaina has done.
If is pretty difficult to bury high voltage power lines in the granite of a mountain range. But yes, California utilities have been dilatory about burying residential power lines (despite charging customers every-increasing rates for ostensibly doing so) and shutting off power to high tension lines in heavy wind environments. I’m sure they will pay the price for that just like the last Nth times SCE or PG&E is found liable for shoddy maintenance and neglect. Also, unicorns will come down and shit rainbow sherbet tomorrow for everyones’ gustatory pleasure.
We left CA because we couldn’t afford a home. We left AZ because we couldn’t afford water.
A great niece in Bloomington CA hasn’t had power for almost two weeks because of the wind and above ground lines. We had underground utilities in our AZ community because we had no water for the power company to worry about.
It isn’t going to get better. I’m so happy I never had children.
My wife and I feel this way. Where can we go to survive all the climate change catastrophes coming? We live in a pretty good spot, but I don’t think there are many places that are 100% safe.
And yes, glad we didn’t have children. Not just because of this…for many, many reasons.
That’s because there isn’t anywhere safe anymore. Climate warming is happening and I’m fairly sure that we have passed the tipping point already.
This isn’t new and unexpected, I learned about global warming in Jr. High back in the early 70’s. I did my best to walk softly on the world and help educate people about the importance of not fucking throwing your goddamn cigarette butts out of your car window in the middle of fire season.
(We moved to WV. Plenty of water, summers are warming up but the forest fires burn themselves out safely. Everything is a trade-off. You do not want to know what they do to Margaritas back here.)
Yeah, a friend of a friend made some video of Altadena, and they think about 85% of it is gone. Another FOAF lost his home there. It is mind boggling.
I am in the East San Gabriel Valley and told a pal in Woodland Hills she could stay in my spare room if necessary. (Kenneth fire)
Fortunately, my friends in Monrovia are okay now, though one had to evacuate and neither had power or internet for a while. At least they have homes to back to.
Which means it is probably all gone. What’s left that the fire didn’t take it is highly likely smoke and/or water damage will have rendered uninhabitable. It will very likely have to be mostly bulldozed and rebuilt from scratch.
Mind boggling indeed. I live in CA with my back to steep, grassy hill that’s part of a small park. I watch it with warily and pray local morons don’t light a fire every July 4th.
When Tokyo burned down in WW2, they eventually rebuilt the city out much more durable, much less flammable materials - concrete and cinderblock rather than wood and paper. I wonder what they’ll do in L.A.
It isnt that these houses and building are composed of particularly flammable material, it’s just that they were faced with an unusual combination of flame and high wind. While most homes in CA these days are built with wood frames, the exterior may be stucco and tile roof, which are pretty resistant to flames. But a curtain of burning hot embers descending on a neighborhood at 80 MPH will mean every crevice will be vulnerable, and add to that wooden fencing is ubiquitous in CA, plus residential vegetation and landscaping, and there is probably not much that could be done to prevent this once it got going. I expect when new homes are built in LA, they will be stucco exterior and tile roofing, like before.
When Mr. brown and I were dating, he lived in various homes around north Pasadena and Altadena. We checked a fire map, and destruction came to within a block or two of a couple of the houses he rented back then. I have relatives living in south Pasadena and Alhambra, and they are choking in smoke. We live in central/northern California, and went through the same thing in 2020, when smoke from numerous fires turned the sky dark orange. We had to buy an air purifier and stay closed in with it in the living room in order to breathe.
We typically have the “smoke” season up here. Last summer was one of the lightest in recent memories but we are absolutely surrounded in National Forests so I don’t expect to experience it again. Our house has a good filter built into the HVAC system so we let the ventilation run and it keeps the house in good shape.
My La Cañada Flintridge relative was able to return home. They got lucky.
