SoCal Fires - Paradise Lost?

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 4:41 PM, BSR said:

Droughts have chronically plagued Southern California since (I’m guessing) forever.  If this most recent drought is to blame for waterless fire hydrants, then the question becomes why did California fail to prepare for drought?

Your question is based on false information about fire hydrants and not enough water. False.

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 4:18 PM, Luv2play said:

I assume that the fire hydrants have little to no water because LA has been suffering an extreme drought for the last year. In contrast to the previous two years of extreme rainfalls. Unfortunately those two years only served to create lush vegetation which then dried out this past summer to create fuel for the wildfires. 
 

The fact remains southern California doesn’t have enough water for its still expanding population, which is putting additional stresses on the water system. With climate change proceeding apace, things are only likely to get worse. I’m not sure if anyone has a solution to the problem. Time will tell. 

This is not correct. The low rainfall since spring has nothing to do with water in fire hydrants. 

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 4:36 PM, Marc in Calif said:

It's very easy to find logical causes for the currently low water levels (and water pressure) to control the fires:

• Extreme demand for water from five simultaneous fires in the local area (quadruple the usual demand)
• Demand for firefighting on the ground because high winds prevented aerial firefighting
• Fire hydrants not built to control large fires
• Summer drought plus extremely low rainfall in this "rainy season"

Yes to the first three, but the drought is relevant only to creating the fuel for fire, not to fighting it.

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 4:44 PM, Vegas_Millennial said:

Considering that southern California gets much of its water from northern California via the California Aquaduct, it is very appropriate to consider the total state population numbers.  More demand on the water system in the northern part of the state affects the southern part, and vice versa.

Nope. Water from Northern California has nothing to do with water for firefighting in Southern California.

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 4:49 PM, 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.

Nope. Ag water-use is certainly an ecological issue, but it is irrelevant to Southern California firefighting.

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 5:00 PM, 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.

Utter nonsense. Climate change is the cause of this epic “hurricane of fire.” Period. Forest management is an irrelevant distraction.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

12 minutes ago, Peter Eater said:

Nope. Water from Northern California has nothing to do with water for firefighting in Southern California.

In any given year, at least 30% of Los Angeles' water comes from the Northern Sierra Mountains, which is located in Northern California.  Los Angeles does not keep that water separate, using it only for indoors while relying on other sources for fire hydrants.

See graph below:  the "Los Angeles Aquaduct" water comes from Owens Avenue in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The Metropolitan Water District gets a majority of its water from the Colorado River.

Sorry I couldn't find a more recent chart.  It was the first graph that appeared on my Internet search, and I didn't want to take any more time supporting this point.

Edited January 16 by Vegas_Millennial

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 5:38 PM, pubic_assistance said:

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 ???

This is false. 

[Peter Eater]

On 1/9/2025 at 5:57 PM, mike carey said:

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,

Thank you for this. It corrects many of the uninformed guesswork posts.

[Peter Eater]

2 minutes ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

About 30% of Los Angeles' water comes from the Northern Sierra Mountains, which is located in Northern California.  Los Angeles does not keep that water separate, using it only for indoors while relying on other sources for fire hydrants.

Wrong. Northern California water has zero to do with this disaster.

[Peter Eater]

On 1/12/2025 at 3:59 PM, Lotus-eater said:

"Nobody likes “price gouging,” but choices are always between alternatives. How else but higher prices are we going to decide who gets the short supply? The alternative to rationing by price is rationing by waiting in line, or by political preference. Or by who you know.

Paying higher prices is a reduction in your real income, and nobody likes that. But with less to go around, our collective real income is lower, no matter what the government does about it. The government can only transfer resources, not create them. And all the fixes to price gouging make the shortage worse, by discouraging people to cut back on demand or bring in new supplies.

Yet the cultural and moral disapproval of price gouging is strong. Going back thousands of years, people (and theologians) have felt that charging more than whatever they had gotten accustomed to is immoral, especially if the merchant happened to have an inventory purchased in an earlier time. This “just price” moral feeling surely motivates a lot of the anti price-gouging campaign. Economics has only understood how virtuous price gouging is in the last 250 years" (The Grumpy Economist)

Price gouging after a disaster is illegal in California. It is a crime to raise prices more than 10% within 30 days of the disaster’s official end, determined by the state, and the fires are still burning. 

[Peter Eater]

On 1/12/2025 at 4:03 PM, pubic_assistance said:

Does California also control the cost of dinner at Lawry's.

Last I checked, private property is still private. None of anybody business what you charge. It's always a sellers market in a crisis. Any bad Karma will bite you in the ass separately from unconstitutional emergency declarations.

Incorrect. If what you suggest were true, rather than simply an unsupportable rightwing philosophy, we wouldn’t have things like building codes. We do. 

[Peter Eater]

On 1/12/2025 at 5:21 PM, augustus said:

But doubling the price?  It's unconscionable in an emergency.

It is also a crime.

[Peter Eater]

On 1/13/2025 at 12:30 PM, GTMike said:

I appreciate the sentiment and applaud the effort.

But there are some perspectives that might be helpful to provde some context from someone who lives in LA and was in an evacuating warning area.

For anyone who would like some information regarding some Fire related facts in California at the large macro level. Like discussion of budgets, water reserve systems etc.. you can PM if you like and I can provide a link.

Regarding some context specifically to things that happened in Palisades and Eaton Fires specifically there's been ad hoc comments about a range of things and certain elements wanting to take tid bits of information and trying to oversensationalize for specific unrelated cynical purposes.

There's way too many examples to discuss but I'll mention a couple.

1) "Fire Hydrants" had low and little water pressure and/or were dry in some areas. Yes some firefighters commented about that in local news. That was used as outrage. Not saying that it isn't a problem but the initial assertion was that the LA system screwed up.

Fyi, Wildland firefighters don't use Hydrants they use water tenders. The fire hydrants in city infrastructure isn't built to fight fires that large, but yes of course hydrant's water supply is obviously absolutely critical.

But was inconveniently not emphasized (in some quarters) was in that particular situation much of the reason hydrants of the few in question were low for firefighters was from an unusual surge of residents initially trying to hose down properties, at the same time Commercial buildings with smoke detectors their internal systems automatically kicked-in to drench building interiors, coupled with a large swell from residents as they appropriately evacuated, but also turned on gardening sprinkler systems full blast. All totally understandable!

Not assigning blame at all but that contributed to some local fire hydrants "being low pressure" when firefighters were battling.

Just pointing out that many took the low pressure in isolated areas as something representative of grossly negligent all over versus potentially understanding a confluence of other complexities. (And yes personally I have many many friends who lost homes in these and other areas.)

2) I'll also add another example related to the assertion that the City was ill equipped and incompetent by not immediately putting up Airborne helicopter assistance with water drops.

I'll just add for perspective that Firefighters from neighboring areas privately tell people that besides the fact that it was absolutely too dangerous to fly those helicopters in 60mph - 90mph Hurricane gust like winds. (Personal side note, i had significant wind damage to property).

In their professonal opinion not only was it absolutely too dangerous, it wouldn't have been in any way effective regardless that first night.

They gave this example;

a) Imagine trying to direct your piss onto a specific object on the ground.

b) Now add that your pissing out of a window more than two stories up.

c) Now add that the window you're pissing out of is moving in 3 dimensions upwards, downwards, laterally and diagonally.

d) Now add this is all being done in ~80mph winds.

Have you ever spat outside your window when driving fast down the freeway? Did it hit the ground intact?

It would have been as they said "pissing in the wind". 

Now yes let's focus on recovery.

 

Most excellent. Thanks for this.

[Peter Eater]

28 minutes ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

In any given year, at least 30% of Los Angeles' water comes from the Northern Sierra Mountains, which is located in Northern California.  Los Angeles does not keep that water separate, using it only for indoors while relying on other sources for fire hydrants.

See graph below:  the "Los Angeles Aquaduct" water comes from Owens Avenue in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The Metropolitan Water District gets a majority of its water from the Colorado River.

Sorry I couldn't find a more recent chart.  It was the first graph that appeared on my Internet search, and I didn't want to take any more time supporting this point.

Common knowledge. That cut-and-paste has been making the social media rounds, but it is irrelevant to the current disaster.

[Peter Eater]

The misinformation (and in a few notable cases, disinformation) being posted here is unfortunate, especially as the disastrous emergency continues to unfold. So far, I have 11 friends whose homes have been destroyed. There are likely to be more. 
 

[Peter Eater]

Under California law, price gouging protections kick in during a state of emergency and generally bar landlords, hotel and motels from charging more than 10% more than what they were charging or advertising before the crisis. 

The protections were set to expire in February, but Gov. Newsom issued an executive order today that extends them in L.A. County until March 8. 

Since the fires broke out last week, a wave of landlords have raised rent on their properties well beyond what the rules allow, including increases of more than 50%, according to online listings. 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

3 hours ago, Peter Eater said:

False analogy. An illegal resident from, say, Ireland living in California does not create remotely similar harms to price-gouging during an ongoing disaster. 

On the contrary.  That Ireland man is taking up housing that could be used by the victims of the tragic fires.  The Irish, in this case, are part of the problem driving up rents. 

 "... WE DON'T WANT THE IRISH!!!" 🍀 

 

Edited January 16 by Vegas_Millennial

[marylander1940]

7 minutes ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

On the contrary.  That Ireland man is taking up housing that could be used by the victims of the tragic fires.  The Irish, in this case, are part of the problem driving up rents. 

 "... BUT WE DON'T WANT THE IRISH!!!"

 

They're paying rent just like everyone else who doesn't own. 

 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

3 minutes ago, marylander1940 said:

They're paying rent just like everyone else who doesn't own. 

 

Yes, which is in tight supply because of the fires tragedy and subject to price gouging restrictions that aren't working 😢 

Edited January 16 by Vegas_Millennial

[Peter Eater]

 

[marylander1940]

2 hours ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

Yes, which is in tight supply because of the fires tragedy and subject to price gouging restrictions that aren't working 😢 

Your first statement sounded like you were blaming them or implying they're living for free.

 everyone works his ass off in CA, I wish other parts of the country had the same work ethic!

[marylander1940]

2 hours ago, Peter Eater said:

 

Thank you for posting this! 

We should always remember how important is Hollywood for this country!

[TonyDown]

A friend of mine once told me "Altadena is your spirit animal,"  that I should move there.

Even though I live along the coast I was always headed up there to join with friends.  

Now my friends' homes are gone.   One mentioned she had already planned to de-clutter, and so that's been checked off her list.  Another admitted this will start a new chapter in his life.  I'm glad they are able to process their losses, bit by bit.  They are living in hotels.  I trust they will all be able to work through whatever awaits.

I was in shock Wednesday when the news started coming that their homes were gone.  I realize it's time to say goodbye to what was.  I'm very sad.

 

 

[Lotus-eater]

3 hours ago, Peter Eater said:

Price gouging after a disaster is illegal in California. It is a crime to raise prices more than 10% within 30 days of the disaster’s official end, determined by the state, and the fires are still burning. 

Which, like all price controls, is precisely the problem. It's a short-term, feel-good policy that creates perverse incentives that end up making shortages worse (e.g., "greedy" landlords can refuse to rent until the "price-gouging" limitations expire before increasing rents, which means more people will be unable to find housing in the meantime). It then tends to stimulate more bad government interventions (more price controls, subsidies, etc.) to try to fix the supply problems that it itself has created. While good, the deregulation is limited to the affected areas and the price controls will make it more difficult to attract the labor and materials for faster rebuilding.