Team-BHP
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Reading the news, I was astonished that people have gall to link this tragedy to some weird politics. A fire fighter has already predicted this might happen anytime, just needed a favourable wind condition and the disaster is on cards.
It is catastrophic events like this that transcend politics - or at least it should. The residents of LA are neither on the left or the right this evening. They are human beings who have lost everything they own - many of them have lived in their homes for decades.
All those memories, all those photographs, all those precious possessions - gone. Life is so fragile and it is impossible to take for granted for a single moment. I feel for all residents of the fire-ravaged areas, whether they be celebrities, or everyday ordinary people. It would be difficult to imagine what they must be going through right now. Kudos to the brave firefighters and my heart goes for every human life.
We deal with fires on regular basis from small to huge which can get catastrophic in oil and gas facilities in a blink of an eye. But we have mitigations plans and SOP’s in place for every scenarios. I wonder what hazard analysis does the city administration has for such unforeseen events.
Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton, other celebrities share LA fire experiences.
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The USA politics has turned so bad in past few years and its reaching new lows every passing day because of you know who. Just when you think it hit the bottom, there is something worse coming up.
Anyhow, the photos that are coming out of LA are outright dystopian, not-from-this-world sort.
The total damage was put at 50 billion dollars as of yesterday but in the evening Hollywood also started burning so by today it must have doubled.
A couple of news reports said people abandoned their cars on freeways and ran away as the fires were carried over from one side of the road to other because of the winds. Plenty of Malibu's ultra expensive houses which were right on the beach separated by 4 lane road from the fires, still caught fire and burned to crisp.
This is so unfortunate. Heartfelt sympathy for all the people who lost their homes. Despite susceptibility to such calamities ie wildfire, I am unable to comprehend why the houses in these regions still use so much of wood in construction. Wouldn't the damage be far lesser if it was built using brick and concrete like how we have in India?
The scenes look surreal, almost exactly like the aftermath of the alien ship unleashing it's firestorm in Independence Day( Will Smith) movie, ironically, on downtown LA amongst other places. It's uncanny how Hollywood writers got it so right. It must be gut wrenching to lose property like this and a minor miracle that so few lives were lost even though every life is precious.
I pity the innocents some of whom have lost their lives and hundreds of others who have lost their property, especially homes and business places.
Such an uncontrolled and catastrophic fire that is burning, devouring, destroying and annhilating the heart and soul of Los Angeles totalling about 28,000 acres or a part of LA as big as San Francisco, is extremely disturbing and send shivers down the spine of nearly all observers.
That such a deadly fire should overwhelm and fully devastate a part of the civilisation within the territory of the most powerful nation on the earth is still unbelievable. Research needs to be very well funded to come up with state of the art practices and equipment for firefighting and prevention.
Since these fires have been perennially a predator waiting to destroy civilisation and property in and around Los Angeles every year, mitigation plans and SOP's for fire control were expected to be in place and very adequately funded. But that was in vain. Fire prevention control, engineering, fire safety, fire service administration and more needs to be in the curriculum of most high school classes, universities and colleges in this part of California to train the young university students compulsorily for civil defence readiness during these mega disasters.
The US with its deep pockets needs to generate both government and private sector funds to plentifully fund fire prevention and fire engineering practices. Newer equipment needs to be researched for and manufactured with timely upgrades for the future as all existing measures and equipments for fire mitigation have totally failed to come up to the mark.
Not to come across as a fatalist or anything, but nature has a way of setting things right when it gets out of hand. At this moment, humans are genuinely getting out of hand around the entire planet. The powers that be are abusing it with impunity. Revolution seems to be the only way out. People get radical as they become increasingly desperate. This should never have gotten to this point.
This was in today's TOI. Sadly it does look as if there's a lot of politics involved. Tough when bad politics lead to bad policymaking.
I happen to read this article and somehow to certain extent it makes some sense. Worth a read. Nothing to take away the tragedy, a human (rich or poor) is facing at this time.
If I would be that rich, I will have my personal under-tank for holding water having my own hydrants, with full sprinkler system covering my whole property, when I know such things are pretty common in Cali. I guess every rich guy could have done this. May be I will invest money to make a fireproof construction !! This is how Europe came to knees in pre world war eras, how easy the cities were flammable.
Thank goodness our construction is brick & mortar.
Is complacency widespread in the USA ? I suggest it is. Why is that? The history of the USA explains a lot.
Wildfire Climate Misinformation Is Rampant, And Social Media Platforms Are Promoting It.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samurai
(Post 5908651)
They have the means to avoid such tragedies, but the will is missing.
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Firstly, deepest sympathies to the people living in the area. Maybe preparations could have been more thorough. Surely, the damage could have been limited, but it was also a "perfect storm."
Californians have long known that the area is very arid, and water management has been common here for several decades. Yet, they continued to build bigger townships.
The Eagles wrote about this in 1976 (The Last Resort, Hotel California).
Then the chilly winds blew down across the desert
Through the canyons of the coast to the Malibu
Where the pretty people play, hungry for power
To light their neon way, give them things to do
Some rich men came and raped the land; nobody caught 'em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus people bought 'em
And they called it paradise, The place to be
They watched the hazy sun, Sinking in the sea
As is wont in the era of Google, everyone's a meteorologist now, so I won't get into the whole history of the Santa Ana (Devil's) winds and all the geography stuff. It's the concoction of one part "
overbuilding," two parts "
arid climate," and three parts "
lack of preparation." These are the same causes that led to the floods in Mumbai on July 26, 2005. The only difference is that the Mumbai floods were a water issue, not a fire one.
It's not like these fires haven't happened before. I am old enough to remember the Oakland fire in 1991. Just look at the number of fires in 2020 and 2021; these should have served as fair warning.
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/ https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2021/
Quote:
Originally Posted by NomadSK
(Post 5908728)
If I would be that rich, I will have my personal under-tank for holding water having my own hydrants, with full sprinkler system covering my whole property, when I know such things are pretty common in Cali. I guess every rich guy could have done this. May be I will invest money to make a fireproof construction !! This is how Europe came to knees in pre world war eras, how easy the cities were flammable.
Thank goodness our construction is brick & mortar.
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A question from unversed :
Will any type of construction or water tank or hydrants be able to withstand this much inferno?
Or is it implemented to buy crucial time for escaping?
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Apex
(Post 5908780)
A question from unversed :
Will any type of construction or water tank or hydrants be able to withstand this much inferno?
Or is it implemented to buy crucial time for escaping?
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Defensive building with clearance is the only option, and some houses build with these construction principles did survive, but as for controlling the inferno, remember, LA has gotten 0.1% of regular rainfall this season so everything was totally dry. Add to that 69+mph winds, its like a fire hurricane. Once any fire starts with these kind of winds, no amount of water can help. Even making fire defense lines does not work as fire can easily jump 100s of meters.
Even with planes dumping ocean water over the structures, did not make any significant dent.
Eventually people would have to stop building in scenic places and forest and housing would have to learn to stay apart esp with increasing rain deficits in parts of California.
Forest fires have always been a part of california, but people started living inside forests, and over the past decades rain patterns have shifted and multi year droughts have become the norm.
See the rain deficit map and soil moisture deficit map
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/souther...res-fire-risk/
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