The Los Angeles fires – could they happen here?

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, January 11th, 2025 - 6 comments
Categories: climate change, Donald Trump, global warming, making shit up, Media, politicans, science, spin, uncategorized, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

Over in the US of A the state of California is currently dealing with multiple large and out of control fires.

From the Guardian:

Even on their own, the fires are behemoths.

  • Palisades, the first and largest fire, is spreading west of Los Angeles. Burning across 20,438 acres, the fire has only been 8% contained as of Friday morning, meaning firefighters have created control lines – usually wide trenches – around 8% of it. Officials say initial estimates indicate it has destroyed at least 5,300 structures between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, making it the most destructive wildfire in California right now.
  • The Eaton fire, burning across Pasadena and Altadena areas in the north-east has blazed nearly 14,000 acres and has only been 3% contained. It has so far destroyed 4,000 structures, ranking it as the fourth most destructive wildfire in California’s history.
  • The other fires currently burning across Los Angeles include Kenneth, Hurst and Lidia. Kenneth, a brush fire which emerged in the Woodlands Hills area on Thursday, has burned across 1,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. As of Friday morning, it has been 35% contained. Meanwhile, the Hurst fire, which is burning across 771 acres across the northernmost suburb of Los Angeles, has been 37% contained as of Friday morning. Over in Antelope Valley, the Lidia fire has burned across 395 acres and is 75% contained as of Friday morning.

The cause is simple. Climate change has made the area hotter and drier and intense winds have spread initial ignitions with terrifying event.

And it was utterly predictable.

In this must read post from Democracy Now climate scientist and activist Peter Kalmus reports how he lived there until two years ago. He left because increasing heat and dryness made him leave the area in fear of his safety.

I couldn’t stay there … It’s not a new normal … It’s a staircase to a hotter, more hellish Earth.”

In the article he is quoted as saying:

I don’t know what to say anymore. I’ll get to that in a second, but I just want to make sure — the reason I wrote [this article in the New York Times] was because we have to acknowledge that this is caused by the fossil fuel industry, which has been lying for almost half a century, blocking action. They’re on the record saying that they will continue to spread disinformation and continue to attempt to block action. They’ve known the whole time that the planet would get hotter like this and that impacts like this fire would happen.

And then, something I really wanted — a point I really wanted to make in the piece, which they wouldn’t let me make, is that this is still just the beginning. It’s going to get way worse than this. Two years ago — well, 2020, when the Bobcat Fire happened, the whole time I was living in Altadena, it was getting hotter and more fiery and drier and smokier. And it just didn’t feel like I could stay there. Like, I could — you know, when you have a trendline, things getting worse every year — right? — like, where’s the point where something — where it breaks? You know, like, you keep going, keep pushing the system, getting hotter and hotter, getting drier and drier — right? — like, emitting more and more carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, eventually things break.”

To emphasise his point he then said this:

[I]f we don’t change course very quickly — and maybe it’s even too late to avoid some of these much more catastrophic impacts, but I am fully expecting heat waves to start appearing where 100,000 people die, and then maybe a million people die, and then maybe more after that, as things get hotter and hotter, because there’s no — there’s no upper limit, right? Like, we keep burning these fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry keeps lying. The planet just keeps getting hotter. These impacts just keep getting worse.

It’s not a new normal. A lot of climate messaging centers around this idea that it’s a new normal. It’s a staircase to a hotter, more hellish Earth.

My jaw dropped when I read the NY Times tried to dumb down his article by not emphasising where this is leading us to. This should be front page news. Unless we address climate change now things are going to get way worse.

The fires have been met by the usual response from the right.

Elon Musk has attacked the gender and sexual identity of a fire fighter and has emphasised that getting rid of red tape and quicker processing times for consents is a priority.

He has said this:

The real red pill will come when people try to get permits to rebuild their homes and face multiyear waits. This might finally spell doom for the Californian Coastal Commission, which should not even exist as an organization.”

He and his buddy Donald Trump have tried to blame Californian Governor Gavin Newsom for the fires.

Trump has made a number of patently false assertions:

  • That Biden has depleted the FEMA budget, it was replenished recently by $29 billion;
  • That  Newsom “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.” There is no such thing as a water restoration declaration.
  • That Newsom had “wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt” and had refused to allow water in the northern delta to be used for agricultural purposes. The water was in a different part of the state and Southern California does not have a shortage of water for fighting the fires.

The reality is that this is the hottest year on record and Los Angeles area has received less rainfall since the start of the rainy season in October than almost any other year since record-keeping began in 1877.

It is amazing that the debate should continue. That the right who serve the interests of billionaires whose temporary wealth relies on the burning of fossil fuels should continue to downplay the effects of climate change is predictable but completely bonkers.

Hang on. As Peter Kalmus states this is going to get rough.

And don’t think we are immune. As temperatures increase and droughts become more regular the incidence of fires over here will increase. And we are one wind blown fire away from suffering similar devastation.

6 comments on “The Los Angeles fires – could they happen here? ”

  1. Karolyn_IS 1
    11 January 2025 at 12:18 pm

    excellent post. I've seen some of the misinformation the post mentions and more.

    This link explains more about the LA water issue.

    The high winds stopping aerial firefighting. There was so much water being drawn off by the fire hydrants from storage tanks in a short period of time, it couldn't be sustained because the hydrants couldn't cope. It was an unprecedented event – and I guess unexpected. There was still plenty of water in the reservoirs.

    In NZ we need to prepared for unpredictable and unexpected events in the future – not starving necessary public services of funds via taxes etc.

    Minor point: it was 2024 that was the hottest year on record, not this (2025) year.

    Reply
  2. Ad 2
    11 January 2025 at 1:27 pm

    Our most intensely populated area in a subtropical forest is Titirangi to Bethells in Auckland. Covers about 120,000 hectares total.

    It has about 30,000 residents, 10,000 fairly expensive houses, 10% of Auckland's water supply with 4 dams, and 6,000 hectares of rare bird sanctuary.

    Also 4 small fire stations and no infrared monitoring.

    It'll all happen at some point.

    Reply
  3. Mike the Lefty 3
    11 January 2025 at 2:11 pm

    And all this is happening in the Northern Hemisphere winter, how much worse will it be in summer?

    Reply
  4. SPC 4
    11 January 2025 at 2:14 pm

    There are other factors

    1.After two decades of droughts, 2022 and 2023 were higher rainfall years and there was a lot of vegetation growth. This was all dry because of the 2024 drought.

    They declared a high fire risk a week before the fires (which then coincided with stronger Santa Ana winds than normal (these occur Sep-March) – off the hills towards the coast with embers starting house/section fires.

    Newsom has been accused of poor forestry/vegetation management, despite the known increasing risk from GW.

    Wildfires are part of life in the US West and play a vital role in nature.

    But scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather patterns.

    Southern California had two decades of drought followed by two exceptionally wet years, which sparked furious vegetative growth, leaving the region packed with fuel and primed to burn.

    Meteorologist Daniel Swain said the fierce winds – which have gusted up to 160km/h – are stronger than the usual seasonal Santa Ana winds but are not unexpected.

    “The winds are the driver, but the real catalyst … is this incredible antecedent dryness,” he said.

    “That’s something that we haven’t seen in records going back to the 1800s.”

    If we build on flood plains, properties will flood. If we build in earthquake zones, there will be destruction. If we cover the hillsides that are home to scrub and prone to drought and exposed to fierce winds, there will be fires.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/california-los-angeles-wildfires-karen-bass-climate-change-b2676535.html

    2.The LA county does not have a full staffing for the 12 month a year city normal. They do not have trained volunteer reservists, just the state National Guard (for looting and other security).

    This in a nation without a fire fighting reserve (inter-state seasonal transfers) for emergency situations (apart from US Air Force planes being used). They have also done this

    https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article-View/Article/3223104/fireguard-program-enhances-national-guard-wildfire-fighting/

    They appear about as organised as their health system in getting results.

    3.If they build back, they need covenants making sections/housing ember fire resistant. Already insurance companies had started denying insurance in Altadena because of the fire risk, that would go viral after this outbreak of fires.

    Random insights

    Staffing

    It has been “extremely challenging” for the Los Angeles City Fire Department to battle the historic wildfires ripping through the county while already facing staffing and resource shortages, according to Captain Erik Scott.

    “We could use more firefighters. Fire Chief Crowley has been on record saying: We’re understaffed, we’re under-resourced. And that is something that people above my paygrade are having frank conversations and working on.”

    The fire captain said mutual aid is critical in battling the fires, along with getting resources from out of state.

    Ember fires overwhelming local water supply, high fire risk area housing covenants and forest logging.

    The “infrastructure with the fire hydrants” in place now to put out fires across Los Angeles is not sufficient to handle hundreds of homes engulfed in flames at once, said Chad Hanson, a forest and fire ecologist with the John Muir Project.

    While the area has the assets to safely put out a fire in a single home and “maybe an apartment building or commercial structure,” the design cannot address a situation in which whole neighborhoods are on fire, he told CNN.

    Meanwhile, most of the areas at serious risk of fires are not in forests but rather in communities that lack home hardening, defensible space pruning and evacuation planning, he said, addressing critics who say more tree removal is the solution to combatting wildfires.

    “These are community safety issues not wildland management issues,” Hanson said.

    “Instead of political opportunism,” he added, “we need to promote logging policies from certain members of Congress, put the partisan aside.”

    CNN coverage

    https://edition.cnn.com/weather/live-news/los-angeles-wildfires-palisades-eaton-california-01-09-25-hnk/index.html

    Reply
    • SPC 4.1
      11 January 2025 at 2:36 pm

      Traci Park, councilmember for Los Angeles’ District 11, which includes the Pacific Palisades, said the ongoing blazes have been “horrifying, terrifying and traumatic,” and that the people who are affected are not just her constituents but also her friends.

      “This is a community that is no stranger to fires,” Park told CNN, adding that people in the district are very familiar with what she described as faulty protocols required of them in an emergency situation like this.

      “We know that there are particular bottlenecks when it comes to evacuating and so to see those same issues repeat in what has now become the most devastating disaster in Los Angeles history is incredibly frustrating,” she said.

      “It is indicative of chronic underinvestment in critical infrastructure as well as in public safety.”

      Park told CNN that the number of fire stations and firefighters in the city of Lost Angeles has remained the same for 50 to 60 years –– despite a need for at least 62 new fire stations to serve the average daily demand.

      “During last year’s budget, I fought to retain those positions, and I was successful in doing so. But it’s only a drop in the bucket,” she said. Park said the calls for service had tripled.

      “We are so understaffed that our response times are twice the national standards.”

      “The strains and the underinvestment in our public safety in Los Angeles is absolutely untenable, and so I think that our residents and constituents are right to be angry. I am glad to hear Mayor Bass’ commitment to accountability,” she said.

      https://edition.cnn.com/weather/live-news/los-angeles-wildfires-palisades-eaton-california-01-09-25-hnk/index.html

      Background

      The chaotic scene was not one year in the making. As in other areas of the towering, fire-prone hillside neighbourhoods that ring the Los Angeles basin, Pacific Palisades residents had long pleaded for more attention to preparing for the fires that are striking the region with ever-greater frequency and ferocity. As recently as 2019, two fires that burned near parts of Pacific Palisades had shown the challenges of moving thousands of people through the area’s few escape routes.

      The Palisades, rising on bluffs and foothills over the Pacific Ocean near the elite communities of Malibu and Santa Monica, has long been an enclave for those looking to escape the urban bustle of Los Angeles. Roads that snake up winding canyons provide residents with privacy, panoramic sunset views and access to hiking trails through the Santa Monica Mountains.

      But the steep topography and the rugged landscape carry a risk: wildfires are a constant threat.

      Over the past decade, residents have held meetings and sent emails urging local officials to recognise the potential for problems with evacuation and do more to avoid the risk of future disaster. In a 2020 message to Los Angeles City Council members, Palisades community leaders said that there remained “substantial risks to public safety because of crowded conditions causing backups on both substandard and standard streets during required evacuations”.

      With the tinder-dry conditions this year and forecasts for powerful Santa Ana winds, the Pacific Palisades Community Council had already been scheduled to meet Thursday, with plans to discuss fire safety and a citywide effort for Los Angeles to develop its first Community Wildfire Protection Plan – something many US communities facing wildfire risks have already done to help identify risks, explain mitigation strategies and plan for disasters.

      Park once more

      She said there were unique factors that had caused the current fire to be so devastating, including high winds that spread the flames and kept emergency responders from using aerial equipment to beat back the fire.

      https://archive.li/MtMOD#selection-4749.176-4788.1

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/in-the-palisades-an-evacuation-disaster-was-years-in-the-making/UOVVTYGQS5ARFEZVOV65XX2HVE/

      Reply

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