SoCal Fires - Paradise Lost?

[Luv2play]

2 minutes ago, Marc in Calif said:

You seem to forget that by far the largest user of water in all of California is Big Agriculture -- which feeds the nation and not just California. Local population changes won't decrease the need for agriculture exports. 

... agriculture uses about 80% of the state's developed water (water that is controlled and managed). The California Department of Food and Agriculture says California grows over a third of the country's vegetables and about three-quarters of fruits and nuts.

Canada is also a large consumer of California fruits and vegetables. And our population now exceeds California’s, which I just saw from the population graph above. 

Edited January 10 by Luv2play

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

4 minutes ago, Marc in Calif said:

You seem to forget that by far the largest user of water in all of California is Big Agriculture -- which feeds the nation and not just California. Local population changes won't decrease the need for agriculture exports. 

... agriculture uses about 80% of the state's developed water (water that is controlled and managed). The California Department of Food and Agriculture says California grows over a third of the country's vegetables and about three-quarters of fruits and nuts.

I agree.  I was merely responding to the fears of others who mentioned California's growing population will exasperate California's water conditions

Edited January 10 by Vegas_Millennial

[+ augustus]

These fires could have been mitigated had CA officials enacted urban forest management practices, built reservoirs closer to sprawling cities like LA and improved the LA water delivery system (like hydrants). A large percentage of CA's annual rain and snowmelt is released into the ocean because there is nowhere to store it. Yet, every fire season brings the same complaints and almost zero action from state officials - year after year. Climate Change is being used as an excuse to avoid accountability.  Water tanks are not designed for such mass-scale wildfires.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

2 minutes ago, augustus said:

A large percentage of CA's annual rain and snowmelt is released into the ocean because there is nowhere to store it.

And in some cases, reservoir capacity remains unused as rain and snowmelt must be released to the ocean anyway for environmental habitat concerns.

[+ augustus]

Just now, Vegas_Millennial said:

And in some cases, reservoir capacity remains unused as rain and snowmelt must be released to the ocean anyway for environmental habitat concerns.

Save the fish and kill the humans.

[Marc in Calif]

17 minutes ago, augustus said:

These fires could have been mitigated had CA officials enacted urban forest management practices, built reservoirs closer to sprawling cities like LA and improved the LA water delivery system (like hydrants). A large percentage of CA's annual rain and snowmelt is released into the ocean because there is nowhere to store it. Yet, every fire season brings the same complaints and almost zero action from state officials - year after year. Climate Change is being used as an excuse to avoid accountability.  Water tanks are not designed for such mass-scale wildfires.

Yes!

And where were all the rakes? That's what I want to know!

[pubic_assistance]

This isnt the first time water management was the culprit in suffering maximum devastation during a fire. 

Do any adults run these counties ? 🤔

Seems pretty obvious that adequate access to water for fire prevention is a given when you live adjacent to naturally occurring wild fire areas. 🔥

Who are these incompetent managers of the public works ? You are literally within a few miles of an ocean and you ran out of WATER ???

[mike carey]

It's not at all clear that lack of water availability was the main factor in the destruction. Those fires in that wind were probably unstoppable. In addition to water, you need firefighting personnel and equipment, and the scale of the fires was such that no feasible amount of either was ever going to be available. Sea water can be used by fire fighting aircraft, but there's no way that anyone would have built reservoirs to fill with sea water just in case it was needed on the ground, and aircraft were not being used due to the winds on at least one day, and those winds (or at least the sea-state they created) would have prevented fixed wing (and probably rotary wing) firefighting aircraft from taking on water from the sea anyway,

[+ augustus]

28 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

Do any adults run these counties ?

No.  NYC gets plenty of rain (about 50 inches a year) yet has built 3 water tunnels over the past century up to 125 miles from NYC in upstate New York to ensure adequate water supplies are available to NYC.  

[MikeBiDude]

26 minutes ago, mike carey said:

Sea water can be used by fire fighting aircraft

The first overnight of the Pacific Palisades Fire, there were no aircraft in the air, fixed or rotary wing. The winds were too strong at 80MPH +. When daylight broke they did resume flight operations.

They used both sea water, and reservoir water. Fire trucks were using home pool water where possible.

[BSR]

2 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

And how would you do that?

Rainwater harvesting is impossible without rain.

Harvesting water from the air is impossible when the humidity is virtually nonexistent?

I realize that you're probably looking to place blame on someone or something. Maybe you can start by blaming human civilization for global warming and climate change.

How silly of me to forget the axiomatic truth that climate change is the fundamental cause of every single problem on the planet:  functional illiteracy, workplace discrimination, the Kardashians, etc.

California hasn’t built a single new reservoir since 1979, when the state’s population was 23 million.  Today’s population is 39+ million.  Plenty of the annual Sierra Nevada snowmelt simply runs into the ocean to save the delta smelt, a fish nobody really cares about but some people like to pretend.

All the major factors that caused this tragedy — drought, high winds, dry chaparral — have plagued Southern California for decades.  State and local leaders (would love to name names, but no politics) have betrayed the people in devastated areas because they failed to proactively take on these chronic issues.  These same failed leaders are the first to scream, “but climate change!”  Oh, shock.

Edited January 10 by BSR
Wording

[Lotus-eater]

The amount of fuel for fires needs to be reduced, which means more controlled burns and brush clearance. People are lazy, so they need to hire some of these guys to clear brush:

Edited January 10 by Lotus-eater

[BSR]

2 hours ago, MikeBiDude said:

In Pacific Palisades, much of the local water supply comes from large storage tanks up on hills. Gravity provides the water pressure. The tanks got drained faster than new water could get pumped uphill because of all the hydrants getting used. This is also why there is a “boil water” or use bottled water in the area…back pressure could be putting “bad” water into the system.

There just simply isn’t enough water pressure to maintain the water for this kind of event, maybe that will change.

The winds are the demon in this situation more than enough water.

If state & local governments fix the water-pressure problem after this tragedy, that means they could have proactively fixed it beforehand.  The risk of massive wildfires is hardly new.

[+ sniper]

There simply isn't enough water pressure because there isn't enough water, period. They're going to need to dig a new river or something to "fix" the problem.

[Marc in Calif]

2 hours ago, BSR said:

California hasn’t built a single new reservoir since 1979, when the state’s population was 23 million.  Today’s population is 39+ million.  

Wrong, of course! 🙃

And your precious reservoirs and dams are now outdated systems of water storage because of increasing drought, dwindling snowpacks, and excessive evaporation. Billions of gallons of water are lost to evaporation each year. Build new ones and these problems will continue. And Big Agriculture will still demand and use 80% of the water in them.

2 hours ago, BSR said:

Plenty of the annual Sierra Nevada snowmelt simply runs into the ocean to save the delta smelt, a fish nobody really cares about but some people like to pretend.

Define "plenty" in percentage of actual total snowmelt that goes into the ocean. Then describe the systems of water transportation that are requred to get all of that wasted Sierra Nevada snowmelt into your reservoirs.

2 hours ago, BSR said:

All the major factors that caused this tragedy — drought, high winds, dry chaparral — have plagued Southern California for decades.  

Drought and high winds? Wow! You're talking about what's predicted by the models of climate change. 👏 💯

As the climate continues to change, many historically wet areas are likely to experience increased precipitation and increased risk of flooding, while historically dry areas are likely to experience less precipitation and increased risk of drought.  As a result, since the 1950s, some regions of the world have experienced an increase in some types of drought, including western North America, southern Europe, and much of Africa.

For decades? Probably forever. Since California history has been documented, there have been droughts (abnormally dry, moderate drought, severe drought, extreme drought) in 1841, 1863–1864, 1895–1896, 1917–1921, 1922–1926, 1928–1937, 1959–1961, 1971–1972, 1976–1977, 1987–1992, 1999–2004, 2006–2009, 2012–2016, 2020–2022, and 2024–2025.

Over the past 25 years, the increasing frequency of drought is also predicted by models of... wait for it... climate change. 

____________________

4 hours ago, BSR asked:

... why did California fail to prepare for drought?

____________________

But you still haven't answered my question:

3 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

And how would you do that?

Rainwater harvesting is impossible without rain. 

Harvesting water from the air is impossible when the humidity is virtually nonexistent?

Reservoirs to keep @augustus's little hydrants full of both water and pressure aren't the answer for the reasons I've mentioned above.

So let's see it. Write your detailed blueprint for California's water problems as a detailed cost/benefit analysis. I'm sure the world's fifth-largest (soon to be fourth-largest) economy will benefit from your plan. 

You can easily attach your files to your next comment. 👏📂📂📂👏

[mike carey]

I won't add a moderator's note here, just a post to note that we could pontificate for ever about the long term causes of increased fires in and out of the usual season, and long term state-wide management of water supplies, but the here and now is that there is disaster unfolding in LA, and that, and the recovery from it should be our focus for now.

[BSR]

4 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

dwindling snowpacks

Whenever someone writes a stevenkesslaresque post, I can respond to only one point at a time.  Dwindling snowpacks?

California ties 1952 record for all-time Sierra snowpack
(the article refers to the winter of 2022-23)

Oops, I read @mike carey’s post just now … I’m reading preliminary reports that at least one of the fires was set by an arsonist.  Criminal gangs are taking advantage of the evacuation to loot houses, but unknown if the gangs are the arsonists or are just taking advantage of fires set by someone else.

But I’m sure the looters’ fundamental motivation is that they’re angry about climate change (sorry, I couldn’t help myself, teehee).

Edited January 10 by BSR
Trying to be good

[+ augustus]

58 minutes ago, BSR said:

But I’m sure the looters’ fundamental motivation is that they’re angry about climate change (sorry, I couldn’t help myself, teehee).

You are probably right LOL.

[+ augustus]

I don't know how these people are going to recover.  The insurance companies saw this coming and have been bailing out of CA.  Insurers had already scrapped hundreds of thousands of policies and limited coverage in wildfire-prone areas.  What type of insurance premiums are they going to be paying now?  20k, 50k a year?

[+ Pensant]

Police have arrested a suspected arsonist in the Kenneth Fire, near Calabassas. Tragic.

[Luv2play]

4 hours ago, augustus said:

I don't know how these people are going to recover.  The insurance companies saw this coming and have been bailing out of CA.  Insurers had already scrapped hundreds of thousands of policies and limited coverage in wildfire-prone areas.  What type of insurance premiums are they going to be paying now?  20k, 50k a year?

I just read in the NYT that Californians pay the lowest insurance rates in the country, a median rate of $2,200 or thereabouts. In Pacific Palisades, it was $4,500 or thereabouts. (I'm recalling from memory) 

It also noted that many households had been dropped from private coverage in the last few years and were now covered by the more limited state insurance plan, which is also covered by the insurance industry.

Obviously this fire is going to result in more losing coverage privately and probably sharply increased rates for those who can still get the private coverage. Re-insurers will see to that.

I think this has implications for many other areas which up to now have been deemed low risk of wildfires such as Pacific Palisades.

[samhexum]

Comedian Pete Lee did not cancel his booking on the Tonight Show last night, the day after his house burned down.

 

 

Edited January 10 by samhexum
To maintain the incredibly high standards I have established here

[Lotus-eater]

4 hours ago, Luv2play said:

I think this has implications for many other areas which up to now have been deemed low risk of wildfires such as Pacific Palisades.

Pacific Palisades was not considered low risk. According to the W$J, "The Fair Plan [the state's home insurer of last resort] has grown rapidly in some of the areas most affected by the latest fires. In Pacific Palisades, for example, its number of residential policies increased 85% to 1,430 in the 12 months through September, up from 773 a year earlier, according to the plan’s website. That is more than double the 40% increase for the state as a whole." (W$J, 1/10/2025, A4)

I'm waiting for another rich, Luigi-type from Pacific Palisades to shoot a "greedy" executive for cancelling a home insurance policy.

Edited January 10 by Lotus-eater

[BSR]

55 minutes ago, samhexum said:

Comedian Pete Lee did not cancel his booking on the Tonight Show last night, the day after his house burned down.

 

 

This guy was great.  I loved the bit about sounding like a pulling straw, LOL.  He reminds me of what Joan Rivers used to say:  “I make a joke about everything because if you can laugh, you can cope.  Done!”

Edited January 10 by BSR
Typo

[Luv2play]

1 hour ago, Lotus-eater said:

Pacific Palisades was not considered low risk. According to the W$J, "The Fair Plan [the state's home insurer of last resort] has grown rapidly in some of the areas most affected by the latest fires. In Pacific Palisades, for example, its number of residential policies increased 85% to 1,430 in the 12 months through September, up from 773 a year earlier, according to the plan’s website. That is more than double the 40% increase for the state as a whole." (W$J, 1/10/2025, A4)

I'm waiting for another rich, Luigi-type from Pacific Palisades to shoot a "greedy" executive for cancelling a home insurance policy.

Quoting from the NYT “measured against home values, insurance costs are cheaper in Palisades than in 97 percent of US postal codes.” There are a number of reasons for these low rates but I shouldn’t have cited low risk being one of them.
 

The regulatory environment appears to have been the largest reason. Going forward it appears to me that high risk areas are no longer going to be shielded by rules that invite moral hazard. 
 

Of course billionaires can always self insure and don’t need insurance on their homes since they have no need of mortgages. It means though that communities such as Pacific Palisades won’t be the home to mere millionaires or those who are house poor.