Bob Clearmountain home and studio destroyed by Palisades fire | he and family are safe

[Waxx]

For those who say i don't know cali, that is true, but i do know Italy and Portugal, where we have a similar climate and similar problems. And there the removal of easy burning trees like ecalyptus took a lot of the risks away. Both countries (but also Spain and France) are activly removing the Ecalyptus trees (and some others) to avoid the big fires and it works. In Portugal it's even mandatory by law to remove those trees at least 50m from any building.

The problem with those trees is that they act as fire starters. A little spark is enough to light them and they burn very fast because of the vegetable oil it contains. Sparks of the buring trees enlights the next tree and so the fire can go very fast and violent. Frieds who have a property in Portugal had to remove them by the gouverment, and were very happy they did comply (but left the oak and olive trees). A bushfire went trough their region, but stopped at their yard because there was no easy fuel anymore, only open land with some oak and olive trees that don't burn, or not as easy at least. It saved their home and crops largely.

And it's a well studied and known issue.

And about the climate change, there is so much study work done, maybe not in Cali, but about the general systems of desertificaton, and bushfires is the tool for nature to get there. Like someone said, Southern california is largely desert, and what is not will be soon by that raising of temerature and the lack of rain. It's the same mechanism that makes big parts of Spain and Portugal into a desert, and is also affecting the south of Italy. Climate zones move north, and the sahara desert is expanding above the meditarian sea now, and the same is happening in the southern USA...

 

[DanielT]

For those of you who are affected, take care. Terrible. Looks like hell has broken open.

Solution for the future. If this is going to be the way it is going to be with fires in the future, there is not much else to do but either live somewhere or make sure to have extremely wide areas next to densely populated areas where there are no trees or bushes or anything that can catch fire. Perhaps a rather extreme measure, but what else is there to do? Trees and vegetation near densely populated areas but with extremely many firefighters, water-bombing aircraft and so on on standby?

 

[Soandso]

For those who say i don't know cali, that is true ...

Definitely you don't know Southern California and compound the situation when make multiple mistakes conflating other places on the map with this particular ecosystem. The particular mountain range and foothills are naturally more brush covered than forested with trees. And what trees there are up there are certainly not eucalyptus.

"Postwar building boom… led to the development of many properties closer to the hills" which spread up "canyon like streets" since the areas have always been desirable. When fires break out in this region "powerful winds careening through the area ... funnel the hot fire" to homes built in the foothills. Then embers are lofted to the lower elevation buildings' roofs and landscape vegetation/trees.

These are not level terrain brush or pasture fires and these high winds have arose for millennium. There aren't many large acreage home lots left and being mostly single family houses' are generally close to one another.

All extraneous inclusion of climate change talking points is irrelevant to these Southern California fires. Attached is an article screen shot my rephrased quotes come from about this SoCal type of fire which pre-dates any contemporary Sahara/Span/Portugal/Italy climate zone alarmism.

 

[JSmith]

Opinion | As a Climate Scientist, I Knew It Was Time to Leave Los Angeles

After the Bobcat fire, the area no longer felt safe.

www.nytimes.com

JSmith

 

[Old_School_Brad]

Heartbreaking stuff, just terrible.

View attachment 419996


JSmith

Wow!

 

[Waxx]

as we like science:

Evidence - NASA Science

Takeaways The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia. Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking...

science.nasa.gov

 

[A Surfer]

Don't start talking science about climate change. Even in this community I find a surprising degree of scepticism and distancing from the evidence.

 

[antcollinet]

I would put a moratorium on (apparently) controversial topics - at least while people are still dying, still running from wildfire, and still seeing their homes and communities burned to nothing.

Perhaps when it is all over and we are asking "why?", that might be the time to consider if CC is part of the problem. Now is not.

 

[A Surfer]

I would put a moratorium on (apparently) controversial topics - at least while people are still dying, still running from wildfire, and still seeing their homes and communities burned to nothing.

Perhaps when it is all over and we are asking "why?", that might be the time to consider if CC is part of the problem. Now is not.

I absolutely take your point and think it is reasonable, but a part of me thinks that because CC conversations have been so politicized and minimized that is a huge way that the social discourse has been manipulated and controlled.

But yes sensitivity to the tragedy is also called for.

 

[caught gesture]

I would put a moratorium on (apparently) controversial topics - at least while people are still dying, still running from wildfire, and still seeing their homes and communities burned to nothing.

Perhaps when it is all over and we are asking "why?", that might be the time to consider if CC is part of the problem. Now is not.

When people are losing homes, their livelihoods and even lives everyday somewhere in the world due to climate change, when would be a good time to talk about it?

In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognised Earth's natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. We could have been talking about it for over a century but it seems that it is never the right time to have an honest, science-based discussion.

 

[Soandso]

California's political decision to embrace "global warming" alarmism and subsequently fight "anthropogenic climate change" worked out as follows in contributing to the potential level of devastation from the regular fire outbreaks. These fires do not originate from spontaneous combustion under the sun.

Embracing the theory that CO2 is linearly culpable for so-called greenhouse atmospheric conditions California's officials' policy deemed carbon as something to be retained in plant matter as long as possible and not released into the atmosphere. That led to the stoppage of both public and private controlled burns in regions of Southern California to routinely clear out the naturally produced dry/dead plant matter. (In other regions with more trees there was a similar policy failure to clear out dead ones.)

In other words it is human fostered conditions based on dogma that maximize tinder fuel here which intensify California fires that break out. California has always been prone to fire conditions and seasonal winds in certain well known regions; these latest (apart from that Hollywood Hills fire) are not the first in southern California during the last decade.

 

[Sokel]

I tried to get informed by US media for the last couple of days.
Ok,I knew their media is notoriously rude and hunting for the hit knows no limit but not at such an extent.

I mean,people dying,inside and out and all they search for is someone to blame and the main concern is if the major fired the chief of firefighters which apparently seems to be sane and far from this mentality judging by her resistance to turn the whole tragedy into gossip show.

Does anyone know any decent news agency one can be informed without all this nonsense?

 

[A Surfer]

I tried to get informed by US media for the last couple of days.
Ok,I knew their media is notoriously rude and hunting for the hit knows no limit but not at such an extent.

I mean,people dying,inside and out and all they search for is someone to blame and the main concern is if the major fired the chief of firefighters which apparently seems to be sane and far from this mentality judging by her resistance to turn the whole tragedy into gossip show.

Does anyone know any decent news agency one can be informed without all this nonsense?

CBC Canadian news

 

[Soandso]

Hi Sokel - What do you want to know?

My family has had a home in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains for 30+ years and I have lived in the San Gabriel Valley for the last decade +. For this Eaton Canyon Fire (located in the San Gabriels) my family's house was spared among neighbors' which burned and I about 2 miles from this fires closest reach that extends from the connected town of Altadena into the city of Pasadena. [ Note: the earlier Pacific Palisades Fire is another sector and I haven't lived there since 1967 so am not up to speed on that. The Hollywood Hills Fire was more episodic.]

I'll attach a color photo of this morning's (Sat. 11 Jan. 2025) view of a short sector of San Gabriel range near me for your orientation. Also for now a black and white 1964 photo of fire fighters up in the foothills responding to a nearby fire from my upthread #64 screen shot.

 

[Sokel]

Hi Sokel - What do you want to know?

My family has had a home in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains for 30+ years and I have lived in the San Gabriel Valley for the last decade +. For this Eaton Canyon Fire (located in the San Gabriels) my family's house was spared among neighbors' which burned and I about 2 miles from this fires closest reach that extends from the connected town of Altadena into the city of Pasadena. [ Note: the earlier Pacific Palisades Fire is another sector and I haven't lived there since 1967 so am not up to speed on that. The Hollywood Hills Fire was more episodic.]

I'll attach a color photo of this morning's (Sat. 11 Jan. 2025) view of a short sector of San Gabriel range near me for your orientation. Also for now a black and white 1964 photo of fire fighters up in the foothills responding to a nearby fire from my upthread #64 screen shot.

View attachment 420388View attachment 420389

Nothing specific,just a sane coverage with facts from experts away from the blaming game and gossip.
By the way,the link @A Surfer posted above is decent,thanks for that.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Nothing specific,just a sane coverage with facts from experts away from the blaming game and gossip.
By the way,the link @A Surfer posted above is decent,thanks for that.

I don't think you can count on CBN. I don't know of a good source you can just reach out to without worrying about their bias, their views, and their politics. I think it has always been this way, and it is just more apparent now than years past. I know in a few incidents or on going situations I was involved in and saw the news coverage it is like wondering "are they writing about the same thing?". Most situations are too layered and nuanced for quick reporting beyond the old staples of who, what, when and where. Beyond that the why and how quickly becomes hard to discern.

Yet so much news now insists on reporting with a point of view on why and how. Such reporting is possible, but usually only works if it is a detailed on going in depth investigative reporting effort. As such investigative reporting is much too slow for our modern quick hitting news cycle and people just lose track in about two weeks this has resulted in news pretending to be informative about everything like an investigative report when it does not have time or knowledge to be. Which mostly results in mis or mal information. Day to day reporting would be much more useful if it stuck to immediate facts clearly discernible and left the whys and hows to others. Good luck with that.

 

[RayDunzl]

Canada is sending water bombers

Maybe theyll bring the Martin Mars Hawaii out of mothballs...

 

[Doodski]

View attachment 420410

Maybe theyll bring the Martin Mars Hawaii out of mothballs...

View attachment 420411

I saw a Martin Mars doing an apparent lake surface water pickup decades ago. Very large aircraft.

Martin Mars by Coulson Aviation |

martinmars.com

Coulson Aviation’s Martin JRM Mars Waterbomber Philippine Mars to land at Arizona’s Pima Air and Space Museum — COULSON AVIATION

Thermal, California – April 25, 2024 – Coulson Aviation’s Philippine Mars will soon find its forever home at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona this year. The Philippine Mars is one of only five Martin JRM Mars flying boats produced. Coulson announced the donation of anothe

www.coulsonaviationusa.com

Hawaii Mars to be Donated to the BC Aviation Museum — COULSON AVIATION

Coulson Aviation is pleased to announce that we are donating the Hawaii Mars to the BC Aviation Museum, where it will be its final resting place. We have let go of the disappointment of having to retire the world's greatest waterbomber and now focus on its amazing aviation history, which dates back

www.coulsonaviationusa.com

 

[Chrispy]

California's political decision to embrace "global warming" alarmism and subsequently fight "anthropogenic climate change" worked out as follows in contributing to the potential level of devastation from the regular fire outbreaks. These fires do not originate from spontaneous combustion under the sun.

Embracing the theory that CO2 is linearly culpable for so-called greenhouse atmospheric conditions California's officials' policy deemed carbon as something to be retained in plant matter as long as possible and not released into the atmosphere. That led to the stoppage of both public and private controlled burns in regions of Southern California to routinely clear out the naturally produced dry/dead plant matter. (In other regions with more trees there was a similar policy failure to clear out dead ones.)

In other words it is human fostered conditions based on dogma that maximize tinder fuel here which intensify California fires that break out. California has always been prone to fire conditions and seasonal winds in certain well known regions; these latest (apart from that Hollywood Hills fire) are not the first in southern California during the last decade.

Do you have some details on controlled burns cessation as far as areas/dates? Was global warming that created such a policy or just state air quality (CARB)?

 

[Soandso]

...sane coverage with facts...

The Eaton Canyon Fire (SanGabriel Mtn.) got going (downed power line) in the dark after a day of high winds, the local fire fighters immediately responded, electrical power was shut off for many, delegated authorities began messaging/posting identifiable precoded neighborhood evacuation watches and then as the fire spread to 200, 400, 600 and 1,000 acres by midnight (maybe 10,000 acres by time burns itself out) an ever increasing number of "immediate" evacuation orders. ……………At 4:00 am a policeman came to my family's home informing them to get out. The high winds kept fire fighting aircraft grounded until about sun-up and around 8:00 am a private helicopter was allowed up filming the blaze, including my family's neighborhood foothill ridge ablaze. These residents have their own large water tank specifically for fire fighting and I watched fire trucks working there........ The firefighting supervisors had established a staging post near the foothills. I could see their wide swath of emergency lighting from my window in the darkness up there. I never lost power, water or cell phone/internet connectivity………………Evacuees were filling into designated shelters and the public civic response began in full. Water, prepared food, clothing and children's toys points of access began being publicized via social and internet media. Eateries were offering free food, storage facilities free storage, ride apps free rides, salons free hair washing, drug stores free face masks, airBn' free shelter and markets free water, etc., etc. etc. Right away those left in the evacuated watch areas were notified to not drink/cook or attempt to purify their tap water (my tap water remained safe) ……………By night there was coordinated uniformed manned efforts to prevent access to evacuated neighborhoods and prevent looters. This continues with some national guard and police.………The 2nd daytime saw single visits in and out again by residents into many evacuated neighborhoods. The 3rd/4th daytime the gas company for safety dispatched teams to shut off the gas in some of the neighborhoods that were only on evacuation watch. Electric power crews have been inspecting evacuated and evacuation watch transformers/connections so some in the evacuation watch neighborhoods are restored power. ……………The air everywhere at first was smoke/ash/cinder laden with particulate counts over 200 and in the evacuation watch areas double that; the evacuated areas' particulate sensors stopped sending data.
I could smell it inside with double paned windows closed (irritated the eyes) and those remaining in evacuation watch areas had to wear masks inside it as so bad. There were thing like asbestos shingles, solar panels, electric cars and more than just wood that burned up...........Days ago it was reported 5 people died in this fire. Lots of people's cats/dogs ran off while owner's were organizing their evacuation and are being sought....…... From my personally safe vantage point regarding this Eaton Canyon Fire I see no reason to criticize the first response fire fighting, the evacuation support, the civic response, the utility providers' strategies nor public security measures. I do know a lot of commercial establishments that ended up burned out and the names of entire neighborhoods that burned down.

Is this what you are most interested in? I figure local destruction and sector maps wouldn't mean much to those not living here-abouts. As for the Southern California political yammering: my suggestion is there's already accusations and defensive mustering where initially each sounds plausible so hold aloof from the fray for a good while.