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The California Fires

FayetheAspie

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V.I.P Member
This is a thread for members who are either in or near the area of the fires to check in and let everyone know when you get to safety. Make sure you are in a safe area before posting. Your safety is more important than responding to the forum. Those with friends or family in the area feel free to post your concerns as well.
 
I am experiencing hecka ptsd right now, because I grew up in the So Cal High Desert, a couple hours southeast of LA.

I really do feel their pain. It breaks my heart, with great sympathy for everyone.

And now with the fire hydrants being dry in the cities. What a nightmare.

They used to do yearly clearing of brush and controlled burns, but now they don't do that so much. They use the environment as an excuse. But the truth is that it is bad for the environment, and it's a tinderbox just waiting for someone to discard a beer bottle, and have that act like a magnifying glass from the sun on dry brush.

I've been through multiple wildfires. Every few years as a kid, there'd be fire racing down the mountain. I've lost 2 homes. I am hypervigillant and humble to the power of wildfire. It is not something to dance with. Prevent as well as one can, and be prepared!

There are very few photos of me as a young person, because everything has burned.

It happens in an instant. Entire mountainsides, homes, everything, gone as soon as an ember drops. I still keep important files in a little folder, in a quick accessible spot so I can run out the door at a second's notice.
 
My friends and family have already checked in, and are safe. Some are having breathing problems, but nothing serious (yet).

As for the fires themselves . . .

"They" could not have foreseen the enormity and swiftness of the fires. One or two slow-moving brushfires are normal and to be expected. Five or more brushfires in separate areas being fanned by the most intense Santa Ana winds anyone has seen in over a decade was simply too much for the current system to handle.
 
@Yeshuasdaughter I am sorry to hear about your past experiences with fires. I am glad that you made it out of them and hope that you will recover fully from the ptsd that the fires caused.
@Cryptid I am glad that your friends and family made it out. Hopefully their respiratory issues will soon resolve.
 
The Los Angeles Basin is essentially like nature's own "air fryer" in every winter. Bringing in hot air from the Pacific with much higher wind speeds. Into a topographical basin that allows the winds to swirl in four different directions, yet contained by barriers like the San Gabriel Mountains. Then consider all the seismological activity that emanates from the San Andreas fault and other faults within the basin itself. How does earthquake activity have anything to do with the peril of fire relative to the wind and air temperatures brought on each year by the hot Santa Ana Winds?

The combustion load within the Los Angeles Basin isn't simply a matter of what mother nature provides in terms of trees, shrubs and periodic droughts. You're also talking about some 13 million people who live there spread out in a huge area, mostly in frame construction buildings cleverly attached to concrete foundations, to mitigate endless seismological activity in the area by allowing a structure to deliberately sway.

Frame construction means a proliferation of wooden beams which burn quite well whether or not in a real firestorm. Yet without frame construction, even the most minor earthquakes can cause a lot of potential damage to non-frame buildings.

Los Angeles Earthquake Fault Map

And 13 million humans in close proximity bring a whole lot to add to such combustion loads brought on largely by mother nature. And when you load all of such possible factors when it comes to multiple and major conflagrations like this, there is simply not the infrastructure that exists or can be built by humans to successfully preempt such catastrophes from happening. When in the simplest terms, containment equates proportionally to the wind speed, and its duration. When reaching speeds well beyond 65mph, it becomes a "firestorm" where the most fundamental strategies of firefighting on the ground and in the air can come to a standstill.

There are no instant solutions under such circumstances. At least not until science manages to truly control the elements, which ain't happening any time soon. Having to deal with potential hurricane force winds with fire in drought conditions contained in a basin with so many combustible materials and this is what happens. Coming at quite the cost for those who freely choose to work and live there who are more than willing to risk it all. But then having lived in California for many years, I can understand how so many are willing to take such risks. No differently that other places with equal perils that come each and every year like clockwork. The kind of perils that have no real logistical or political solutions on such a grand scale. When all that is left is to either rebuild, or relocate.

Of course all of this bring into question the sustained viability of the California Fair Plan. One's only real (non-public sector) alternative for limited indemnity when insurers choose to part waves with you, depending on where you live relative to the distance to fire hydrants and fire stations. When California can't prohibit preferred and standard market insurers from electing to exit an entire state, but they can penalize them.

Would you elect to remain where you are given your job if it involved owning a home without any mortgage but remaining uninsured? Apparently some have in the Los Angeles Basin. Tragic.
 
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Just saw a picture on a house that survived the fire, Metal roof, fire proof siding, The siding looks like a print my former employer produced. fluorocarbon paint that will not burn. If this is the case, not something it would have been marketed on, Could be a real boom for my former employer.
 
Just saw a picture on a house that survived the fire, Metal roof, fire proof siding, The siding looks like a print my former employer produced. fluorocarbon paint that will not burn. If this is the case, not something it would have been marketed on, Could be a real boom for my former employer.
More likely it's just a matter of how freakishly the winds can change in seconds. Leaving one side of a block of housing untouched while the other burned to the ground. Saw some examples of that of buildings all built with frame construction in the city of Altadena.

I've also seen where motor vehicles were destroyed at temperatures which literally melted cars to a point where they were "dripping" down the street.

Yet imagine the morale of a family living in a home barely scratched by such fire, while everywhere around them looks like a bombed city. With property taxes remaining high, while property values plummet in the market.
 
I saw this in a town that burnt here in Canada last year one house standing same thing metal roof. owner built it this way to make it fire proof. What I saw was in this case was printed siding recognized pattern Most siding is not fire proof uses polyester paint. Most houses start on fire due to embers from trees burning raining down on the structure rather than the heat. Crazy thing printed siding, Only made in Canada. I do not think the architect was thinking fire proof just aesthetics, when he designed the house boy did he luck out, same as my former employer.
 
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I saw this in a town that burnt here in Canada last year one house standing same thing metal roof. owner built it this way to make it fire proof. What I saw was in this case was printed siding recognized pattern Most siding is not fire proof uses polyester paint. Most houses start on fire due to embers from trees burning raining down on the structure rather than the heat. Crazy thing printed siding, Only made in Canada. I do not think the architect was thinking fire proof just aesthetics, when he designed the house boy did he luck out, same as my former employer.

Pity Canada doesn't have those Santa Ana winds to truly put it to a test. When a combination of high wind speed, high air temperature, low to no humidity and perpetual drought conditions even in winter to potentiate combustion on a grand scale.
 
We lost a whole town in either last year or the year before. Remember news one solitary house standing owner purposely made it fire proof, Looks like this owner had this in the back of his mind when I read the article, way he maintained the property. Last year lots of fires in Northern Ontario, could smell it here. All part of global warming. Trees like to burn some need it Expect next summer will be bad as we have lots of trees no population. We lost a very popular skiing resort last summer. I guess like hurricanes and earth quakes build to prevent it can be done.
 
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Expect next summer will be bad as we have lots of trees no population.

Exactly. However that's what separates Canada and even much of the United States from the freakishness weather conditions compared to the Los Angeles Basin.

That such catastrophes are occurring in the winter- not the summer. A phenomenon not likely to occur in Canada given its geographical latitude. I still recall a rather pleasant trip into Alberta and BC back in 1974.

All except for an oppressive, hot and humid summer. And hoards of mosquitoes.
 
If California changes their building codes, fire proofing houses can easily be done, fortunately my former employer makes a product that is fire proof, I found a U-tube video on the house builder and others questioning, what kind of strange siding it is looks like wood but it is not It is actually a print, I matched a lot of different trees so realistic
used real wood sample to match. The garage doors pass for real wood. I guess Derek the guy that I taught how to match, is getting lots of inquires now.
Very strange seeing my work take centre stage like this. Currently only one company one plant capable of making this product. Competitors only capable of solid colours. Colour control of ink for prints to difficult to copy.
 
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Are their enough trades people available to rebuild the houses destroyed.

Good, but complicated question. In an economy that hasn't been particularly lucrative for construction in general. It's a part of the economy in Nevada that has never really "bounced back" since the Great Recession, let alone the pandemic.

And enticing workers into a market with some of the highest costs of living...hard to say. And to contemplate what percentage of workers may be undocumented workers, if not already detained awaiting aggressive deportation who may not want to risk being there.

Lots of headaches in that equation, beyond a simple analysis of supply versus demand.
 
We have a real housing shortage up here, trades guys retiring, so probably can not help much. My cousin lives in British Columbia won worlds best cabinet maker award in 1970's. doubt, his employer a premium home builder would want to go south.
 
If California changes their building codes

That has always seemed to be a tall order that goes far beyond any perceptions of common sense. With not only the concern of those who suffer catastrophic losses, but insurers who are left to pay for them.

Dealing with state and municipal bureaucracies that are seldom heavy-handed and move like a snail with so many special interests weighing in. Where most improvements take place over the peril of earthquakes more than any other. Though the magnitude of this particular loss may change how they have operated over many years.

But then there are also many other considerations, particularly complex economic ones. Right now with all eyes on the California Fair Plan, and whether their paying out legitimate fire loss claims may break them both at the level of primary insurance of policyholders, and that of the reinsurers covering the insurers themselves. And of course this does not include those who simply owned their home yet could not afford any kind of insurance at the rates offered.

The fire continues to be ugly. But the legal aftermath will be as well. Even worse perhaps, will be how many unaffected persons will pay even more for their insurance in the future so insurers so badly impacted can spread their risk more, in a market where reinsurers are most likely to push back. It all makes me cringe, apart from so many people who have lost their home, and may not be able to financially handle being future renters in a sprawling metropolis with an outrageous cost of living.

A primary reason why I chose to leave Northern California in 2008.
 
I watching how it plays out for the next few days, with am impending trade war. We have stuff our neighbours to the south want. Could get ugly.
 
I watching how it plays out for the next few days, with am impending trade war. We have stuff our neighbours to the south want. Could get ugly.

Considering the economic sensitivities of such a catastrophe, imagine having to rebuild in a preposterous and unnecessarily bad economy. Making things ugly for everyone.

It all boggles the mind and could spread just like these wildfires. :eek:
 
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lots of new houses being built up here Houses are made from 2 by 4s usually fir or spruce soft wood, main supplier neighbour to the north. boy is it going to get ugly.
 
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