Why doesn't California have the tools, people, means to put out these fires even though they know there will be fires every year?

The LA water system can’t refill those tanks fast enough to fight the kind of fire that engulfed Pacific Palisades. No city has that. They’d have need 10–20 times as many water tanks to do that.

While it’s useful to make fire breaks close to homes, remember that the Santa Ana winds were gusting up to 100 mph and they can blow burning embers for miles, rendering fire breaks ineffective. You cannot create mile-wide fire breaks on the hillsides.

Now some people ask “Why don’t they clear the brush or have controlled burns?”

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The Santa Ynez Reservoir was dry.

Castaic Lake.

The dam removals? Look at a map. See where the Klamath River dams were compared to Los Angeles.

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But that was followed by seven months of record dry when less than 1/5 of an inch of rain fell from June-January.

Now there are a whole lot of people like Donald Trump gloating over the suffering of the fire victims and using this tragedy to rather tastelessly proclaim that Governor Gavin Newsom, LA Mayor Karen Bass, environmentalists, and Democrats are to blame because of water policies intended to protect endangered salmon. They claim that reservoirs were drained dry and that the removal of dams left LA without water to fight fires. And it’s a giant pile of bovine feces spewed out by people who no sense of character, integrity, compassion, decency, class, and taste.

Because sometimes there are calamities that are beyond the capability of even the most well-prepared agencies. Why wasn’t Louisiana better prepared for Katrina? Why weren’t states along the East Coast better prepared for Hurricane Sandy after seeing what Katrina did? Why was there so much damage in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina from Hurricanes Helene and Milton - did nobody learn from Katrina and Sandy?

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A lot of brush and grass. The seven months of rainless weather turned all that vegetation into tinder dry fire fuel. So now you not only have tinder dry fuel but a much bigger supply of it. And it took very little to set it off - it’s as flammable as gasoline. Anything from a discarded cigarette, a lawn mower spark, a hot car tailpipe next to grass, or a downed power line could set off a fire. New Year’s fireworks set off a fire above Pacific Palisades on New Year’s Day and although fire crews thought it was extinguished, it may have smoldered underground.

As for controlled burns, that’s probably not a good idea in much of Southern California. They work fine in the Sierra Nevada where there’s a lot of sparsely populated backcountry and there might be snow on the ground or still have relative moisture. Southern California hills are much drier and closer to a lot of buildings. A controlled burn could turn into an uncontrolled burn very easily. There’s no way you could have a controlled burn within a mile of Pacific Palisades.

Then you had the Santa Ana Winds that gusted up to 100 mph.

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Casitas Lake.

But you can’t just stick firehoses into lakes and send water 30–40 miles away by turning on a spigot.

The reservoirs around California are full. That includes the lakes around LA like these two.

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Look how much brush there is. How do you intend to clear it all? If you denuded the hillsides, the next rainstorm is going to produce giant mudslides.

Note that the wind blew the fire downhill. Most people know that fires burn uphill normally.

In 2022–23, there was so much rain in Southern California that the normally trickling Los Angeles River looked like this.

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Last February, the reservoir was drained for maintenance and it was discovered that its covering suffered serious damage that could lead to contaminated drinking water. The work to fix that was put out to bid. Nobody envisioned the current issue - this is normally the rainy season when fire risk is low. Even if Santa Ynez Reservoir had been full, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Could the state and the city of Los Angeles change their preparation? Sure, they could plan for the next confluence of historic events occurring simultaneously - but it’s likely impractical. They could put up bigger water storage tanks on top of hills. They should probably require homes to be built with less flammable material though that won’t stop the interior from burning. It’s likely not feasible to increase the volume of water that could move through the LA plumbing system. That would mean digging up a lot of streets and replacing hundreds of miles of water pipes.

Bottom line - it reminds me of the line from Obi Wan Kenobi to Luke after he discovers his uncle and aunt have been killed. “There’s nothing you could have done had you been there.”

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Those fed and spread the fires while making it unsafe to fly planes to drop fire retardant.

If you need to know why the Pacific Palisades fire and other fires around Los Angeles were so horrendous, you have to start with the weather.

Last February was historically wet in LA.

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No fire department in the world was designed to fight conflagrations covering entire neighborhoods. Fire departments fight building fires with 2–3 trucks, not wildfires that engulf city blocks.

The fire hydrants went dry because there was so much demand on the system that the water storage tanks were drained.

It’s 650 miles from the nearest dam site to Los Angeles and there are no pipes, canals, or aqueducts linking Klamath River water to Los Angeles. Those dams could have been filled to the brim and done nothing for LA. Also, the dams came down because they’re antiquated and the ownership - Berkshire-Hathaway - determined that retrofitting costs greatly exceeded any economic returns.

Hi everybody! I have been looking at posts on narcs and narc abuse on here and if has really helped me out a lot. I am currently struggling with my situation and need some advice/support. I met a narc last year, everything seemed to good to be true. Love bombing, always texting calling and taking me on dates. Everything changed when someone warned me about him out in public in front of him and who he is. This caused a conflict with us and the love bombing seized. he would tell me that everything is okay and i can come and talk. He would set a time limit on me and kick me out after that. he would then text me like everything was fine and we hung out again and after that he completely ghosted me for one week. He came back and texted me a week later laughing about the ghosting and acting like nothing had happened. he continued to text me ( not like in the beginning) make plans with me, then on the day of the plans he would just ghost me. One day he would act interested the next silence. i contacted him a month later and he acted like nothing happened. He was on a vacation and sent me a picture of another woman ( someone he allegedly met on the trip) to strike a reaction but i never gave him one. After the trip he came to my place and was extremely rude, accusing me of going on dates with a bunch of men. The next day he accused me of being an alcoholic and that he wanted nothing to do with me but said well maybe we can be "friends" then ghosted me i assumed at this point it was over and i would never hear from him again. He contacted me on the holiday a month later acting like everything was great. We ended up hanging out a month or so later and when we hung out it went well, i thought things were going in the right direction. after we hung out.. silence. I would try to text him and if he replied it would be very short then he just stopped replying. He ghosted me for almost three months. I thought he was done this time and of course he popped up again like nothing happened. At this point i was getting sick of if so i questioned him as to why he dissapeared and always does this. Of course he had some sob story about a injury and family member dying of cancer. I felt pity for him and he gave me an apology.. so i took him back stupidly. things seemed to be going smooth for a couple months, of course until his family member died and his injury got better he never contacted me and was distant. Menawhile, i was there for him during the difficult time for him. He lied to me about the funeral and never wanted to chat. I was chasing him and he would always claim nothing was wrong but when i said i thought he used me when he was down he could not handle it and would always tell me he didnt care and to go away. I would get so upset i would try texting him to work it out he would barelt respond and if he did he would not be nice about it. we did hang out a couple times after that, he would ignore me after. One day i was like hey i think you are seeing someone else, and i was like well ixam seeing someone so no problem if you are he said " buy bye good luck with your new guy stop contacting me" i was devastated and tried to get into contact with him for weeks then i just gave up and accepted it was over. He ended up contacting me a month later acting like everything was fine. He wanted to go out and have drinks i told him i would. He and i both seemed to have a great time. He ends up ignoring me again. I kept texting him trying to figure out what was wrong. He kept saying everything was fine and i said ok can we hang out again? He said maybe i was like why? He just kept saying maybe … our last conversation we had… i said what is wrong ? He said nothing is wrong everything is fine. I asked him why he keeps saying maybe. He said " maybe but i dont want to see you right now" i said why? He saix " im just not feeling it, if i wanted to date i would" i said why did you contact me less then a week ago wanting to go out? He said i didnt.. even though he did. So i said should i just move on or what? He said whatever you want to do. So i said that he was really confusing me and asked him if he had anything more to say before i move on? My messages were turning green so i panicked he blocked me and reacted irrationally. I said " omg did you block me? My messages are not going through. Even texted him on my work phone asking what was up. And called him twice ( please dont judge me i know it is pathetic i never was this type of girl before him) so he replied and said " Ok I'll block you now" then immedietly blocked me. He has never blocked me before since I have met him he will just ghost. Is this ths final discard aka " grand finale? Did i just push him too far? this has upset me so much its hard to even function.

All that heavy rainfall resulted in heavy growth in vegetation all over the hills around Los Angeles.