Palisades Fire live updates: Wildfires spread in Los Angeles, prompting mandatory evacuations, as Santa Ana winds expected to intensify

[essentialsaltes]

The property insurance companies have been having that conversation with the California insurance commission for years. It was perfectly clear from expert observation that this year or the next, a fire of this magnitude would occur.

Very likely. But realistically, no human agency could have made the situation otherwise.

 

[Chesterton]

Just leave wide swaths of land completely emptied of human habitation?
In California?
In Los Angeles?

Especially Los Angeles.

 

[BPPLEE]

There’s at least three fires (that I’m aware of) which one did you mean?

I’m sure there are large areas in California that are uninhabited

 

[BPPLEE]

Especially Los Angeles.

 

[Chesterton]

 

[Nithavela]

I’m sure there are large areas in California that are uninhabited

Not of people living in the Yosemite national park.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

They didn't plan to use seawater, when it was obviously available.

Says who?

The obvious question, though, is what did they plan for? It's the same question we were asking Texas during the big winter freeze of 2021.

They were planning for the climate to be as it always has been, when it's clear that the climate is changing for the more extreme.

This highlights my frustration with the politics of the climate change issue. The climate is, indeed changing, but the high-level federal political debate is on whether humans started--and can reverse--climate change while nobody is discussing what states and localities should be doing to endure the changing climate. At this point, the balance may have tipped beyond the point that humans can pull it back, and it's clear that there is not the global political will necessary to pull it back (it looks like we'd have to take global technology back to the pre-agricultural stage).

I'm not sure what you expect them to have had prepared for this situation. As pointed out, with the conditions, once the fires started, there really wasn't much that could be done.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

The property insurance companies have been having that conversation with the California insurance commission for years. It was perfectly clear from expert observation that this year or the next, a fire of this magnitude would occur. That's why the insurance companies pulled out; they won't insure a guaranteed total loss.

Property insurance companies have been pulling out of California because California law requires them to have enough cash reserves to pay out 100% coverage to all of their customers in the state at any given time. With the costs of real estate there, that's an astronomical amount of money.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Maybe I am using the wrong word. I mean large areas cut so the fire won’t spread, bigger than a trail or a road.

Clearing massive swaths of land in the mountains of all vegetation sounds like a great way to cause landslides and huge amounts of erosion. And that's before you even get to the logistical challenges.

 

[BPPLEE]

Clearing massive swaths of land in the mountains of all vegetation sounds like a great way to cause landslides and huge amounts of erosion. And that's before you even get to the logistical challenges.

Massive?
if you have to choose between fires and mudslides why would you build houses anywhere near there?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Says who?

Agreed. While helicopters can suck from swimming pools, the 'Super Scooper' planes need something bigger to safely draw from at 100 mph. I know they've been used in Lake Tahoe [far from the action here] but I doubt there are any lakes big enough for them to use in LA. Certainly for use in the Palisades fire, seawater was always plan A given the emergency.

 

[RDKirk]

Property insurance companies have been pulling out of California because California law requires them to have enough cash reserves to pay out 100% coverage to all of their customers in the state at any given time. With the costs of real estate there, that's an astronomical amount of money.

That's always been true. What is different now is the level of risk, which has skyrocketed. I knew the State Farm agent in Malibu. His "book of business" was no larger than the average SF agent's book of business...but it was Malibu. Consequently, he had thirty people working in his office keeping his wealthy clients schmoozed. He didn't close his agency for winks and giggles...he cried over that.

 

[RDKirk]

They should have planned for global cooling?

The US Navy has been planning for over a decade to move out of East Coast bases when it becomes necessary.

 

[BPPLEE]

Clearing massive swaths of land in the mountains of all vegetation sounds like a great way to cause landslides and huge amounts of erosion. And that's before you even get to the logistical challenges.

How California eco-bureaucrats halted a Pacific Palisades fire safety project to save an endangered shrub

The good news for the milkvetch plant is that they usually need wildfire to sprout — meaning dormant seeds now have a massive new habitat for a new crop of the rare shrub.

nypost.com

 

[essentialsaltes]

How California eco-bureaucrats halted a Pacific Palisades fire safety project to save an endangered shrub

The good news for the milkvetch plant is that they usually need wildfire to sprout — meaning dormant seeds now have a massive new habitat for a new crop of the rare shrub.

nypost.com

I don't think the wooden power poles bear the brunt of the blame for the current situation.

 

[BPPLEE]

I don't think the wooden power poles bear the brunt of the blame for the current situation.

The good news is that they can now be replaced with steel poles

 

[Chesterton]

The US Navy has been planning for over a decade to move out of East Coast bases when it becomes necessary.

I don't know what that has to do with a cold winter in Texas.

 

[iluvatar5150]

How California eco-bureaucrats halted a Pacific Palisades fire safety project to save an endangered shrub

The good news for the milkvetch plant is that they usually need wildfire to sprout — meaning dormant seeds now have a massive new habitat for a new crop of the rare shrub.

nypost.com

Sounds like the California government was trying to do what the right would want them to do.

 

[BPPLEE]

Sounds like the California government was trying to do what the right would want them to do.

The right would want them to save a plant?

 

[Vambram]

California has such programs already in place.

Restoring and Maintaining Forest Ecosystem Health and Wildfire Resilience

resources.ca.gov

I'm sure the governor of California, and indeed, governors of other Western states, would welcome an additional investment by the US congress to manage forest lands of our country.

Why have those California programs failed?