Rolling Western U.S. Is On Fire / Wildfires Thread

scary stuff in northern california right now. we're approaching the peak of it but wildfire season gets longer every year.

still two months or so to go before the rains hit Oregon. yeah, scary shit

this wildfire smoke map / forecast is wild:

https://airquality.weather.gov/sectors/conus.php

that interface is wonky but the "vertical smoke integration" forecast seems to show smoke drifting all the way to the lower mississippi valley.

miraculously, we have not gotten serious smoke in Eugene yet. last year was much worse, but I think it's just pure chance (and weather patterns) that we aren't totally inundated at this point.

The #CarrFire that is burning through Redding, CA has now destroyed nearly 1,000 homes.

It's still just 20% contained and has burned an area *three times the size of San Francisco*.

Six of the 20 most destructive fires in California history have happened in the past 10 months. https://t.co/BcK4gNmnPX

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) July 30, 2018

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjZpEKYUYAII-qS.jpg:large

Was in Ashland, OR last week, which is about two hours north, and the smoke was so bad is was classified as "hazardous." Lots of people wearing masks, or at least staying indoors. Related, we were in Santa Rosa, too, which was hit super hard last year, but aside form a few "thank you" monuments to firefighters I never would have guessed.

from a friend, and I totally buy this theory"

[Now these developers are starting arson fires in Cali to force people to flee north where these prices are “normal”!

Sixteen thousand rental units in Portland are sitting empty

http://www.registerguard.com/news/20180820/wildfire-smoke-to-degrade-lane-countys-air-quality-to-unhealthy-levels

Seattle:

https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NASA-Vancouver-Fire-thumbnail-620x467.jpg

Missouri man flies to California, sets 13 wildfires, then tries to fly home, cops say

https://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/s6tqdm/picture235504772/alternates/FREE_768/Screen%20Shot%202019-09-26%20at%2011.44.07%20A_fitted.jpeg

After he was arrested, Graham told investigators he and his wife had planned to drive along Calaveras Road near the reservoir together before her death in 2018, according to the news outlet. A report by investigators states: “Because she passed away and could not be with him, it made him emotional, starting the fires.”

The blackouts, which were projected to begin early Wednesday just after midnight, were likely to affect parts of San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley but not San Francisco or Sacramento, PG&E said. https://t.co/myow89C8eu

— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) October 8, 2019

"Can't blame us for fires if we shut off the power grid"
Roll-Safe-tapping-finger-to-head.jpg

PGE recently spent $79 million on lobbying, got $1 billion in tax rebates, made a profit of $4.8 billion and hiked executive pay 94% https://t.co/ELHZLLlKn2

— reclaim UC (@reclaimuc) October 9, 2019

Saddleridge fire being investigated as caused by sparking SCE electrical tower despite residential outages.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-13/saddleridge-fire-electrical-tower-investigated-possible-ignition-point

This is normal right?

Black smoke and fire from Nustar Energy refinery pic.twitter.com/nuuCOuiVS9

— KTVU (@KTVU) October 15, 2019

I guess this isn't technically a wildfire but still (wait for it...):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u4BeyqyP8o

I have to say, between the fires and now smoke from a burning refinery, this ad is in pretty poor taste for Californians. #smokeandmirrors#banSUVs https://t.co/RrLBRrM9Ow

— Dr Kristina Hill 🏳️‍🌈 (@kzhill) October 15, 2019

There are approximately 42 fire units at Nu Star incident from agencies around the Bay including- Contra Costa County Fire, Crockett Fire, Rodeo-Hercules Fire, Pinole Fire, Richmond Fire, CAL FIRE and the East Bay Regional Park District and overhead from the East Bay IMT.

— Con Fire PIO (@ContraCostaFire) October 16, 2019

Interstate-80 is the major conduit from the SF Bay Area to Sacramento & beyond...

https://i.imgur.com/jNYX0hs.png

...and is forecasted to be closed for another 6+ hours.

More PG&E power outages coming over the next few days, some could last as long as 48 hours.

Outages already reported in Northern Sonoma County.

The wind woke me up early. Reminded me of how it was the night of the Tubbs fire. First thing I did when I woke up was check to see if there was a fire and wasn’t too surprised.

possibly no bueno with the Getty Fire in L.A., w/the strongest Santa Anas of the year supposedly arriving tonight. the air quality seems to be okay around the city, i assume the winds are blowing the smoke out to the ocean.

there are a dozen or so people on my FB marking themselves "safe" from this fire despite most living in idk Highland Park or Silver Lake or East Hollywood.

haha i assume it's to ward off calls or messages from family who live out of the area?

I heard some terrifying dystopian references (2nd-hand w/o source) about people trapped in their "smart" homes as flames approached, because the power outage meant the "smart" locks couldn't be opened, and the internet was down so they couldn't reach anyone for help?

any source or link for that wld be appreciated

I would think any door would have to have a failsafe way to open from the inside, for a house fire, etc.

I would think any door would have to have a failsafe way to open from the inside, for a house fire, etc.

that's a pretty non-contestable requirement of CA Fire Code for buildings

and we all know how much rich techbro assholes feel about public safety regulations

Cue Silicon Valley Jared and the driverless car scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UBdrMTxsvs

if you die in a fire because of your "smarthome" maybe you... aren't that smart

"Open the pod doors HAL"

SF is on fire and TIME is on it (view quickly before it is deleted):

As fires continue to ravage different parts of California, watch as firefighters face massive flames in San Francisco pic.twitter.com/lFjNOQiBqV

— TIME (@TIME) October 29, 2019

lol

The Zack House by Craig Elwood burned by the Getty fire in Los Angeles.

https://www.facebook.com/KCMODERN/photos/pcb.2525595454199945/2525593230866834/?type=3&theater

xp RIP Time tweet

the reagan library is now threatened by the blazes

bump

CalFire admits in presser this morning that they have NO resources to fight this. Like, NONE. Guess why? Bc the prison populations, who have for decades been California’s primary firefighter hand-crews on wildfires, are too sick with Covid to go. https://t.co/ZZKIpsN5lc

— RH Herron/Rachael Herron (@RachaelHerron) August 19, 2020

well, not exactly NONE. but yeah, that is bleak. $2 to $5 a fucking day for the work, too, which probably makes it the highest paid position available for them

it would be disgusting even if they weren't exposing themselves to immediate and long term danger for that wage. absolutely unconscionable.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-climate-danger-of-kamala-harris-prison-labor-legac-1844712734 this suggests it's $5/hour? not that it makes a difference. (n.b. in spite of myself i don't place much of the blame for this on kamala herself, article doesn't do a great job of explaining how the AG's office got to the point of filing that. however, it's not justifiable.)

Anyone know the likelihood of Santa Cruz city having to evacuate? My sister lives there, and this is cranking up her nervousness...

(caveat that i'm just some guy, not a firefighter) It's not too close yet but I'd be concerned about the cluster that just broke out south of Henry Cowell State Park (https://www.esri.com/en-us/disaster-response/disasters/wildfires) . CalFire's general policy is to greatly favor protecting residential areas over parks so I wouldn't be surprised if they're already doing controlled burns around UC Santa Cruz.

xp: She should be fine if she's in town. If she's up the coast or in the hills off Hwy 9 she's probably already evac'd.

I don’t really want to reveal where I live (not Santa Cruz) but um I have a bag packed. 😬

DJI: this account has all the latest information

https://twitter.com/CALFIRECZU/

Now UCSC is under evac warning

If it gives you any optimism, a fire crew on loan from SLO drove high up into the mountains above San Jose to save all of the Lick Observatory structures last night despite insane high winds, swirling flame and ash.

https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/08/mt-hamilton-fire.html

and here's the live shot (the other cams from the actual observatory are no longer broadcasting, not sure if they got damaged):

https://www.see.cam/us/ca/san-jose/mount-hamilton

This was a remote outpost some 30 miles up the hill from San Jose.

california and also the entire intermountain west is on fire

Fire and wind map: https://caltopo.com/map.html?fbclid=IwAR2hBujGNlyLgghWv-ugwVIlK_Sq7s0ywcQEqPelsbsLZGOJa8WuRNmgfrg#ll=37.15703,-122.23938&z=12&b=map&a=modis_mp%2Cwxd_wspd-01

We're lucky the wind isn't higher.

according to this, my parents (and most of their town) are fine unless the fire jumps the freeway

https://twitter.com/calfireSCU

Fire Weather Watch issued for 11am Sunday through 11am Tuesday for possibility of dry lightning. Graphics are pending, but here's the fire weather watch text:https://t.co/nADYZ6w9jn

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 21, 2020

The most optimistic take that I've seen today is that having these fires will establish some natural firebreaks for a month from now, when the Santa Ana / Diablo winds start up.

this place suuuuuucks

Bonny Doon, SantaCruz County, CA
37.1004, -122.1410
2618 ft above sea level, facing northhttps://t.co/6jWU2cuETC pic.twitter.com/axwBZEtg7r

— California Landscapes (@CALandscapeBot) August 21, 2020

The LNU and SCU lightning complexes are now the #2 and #3 largest wildfires on the books and the president is threatening to refuse aid because we didn't "clean our floors"

fire burned thru the Ventana condor zone where at least 1 baby condor was nexting 2 days ago, so that's a drag

Okay this 2019 story is too long but it's good. https://story.californiasunday.com/gone-paradise-fire

Cities founded in the fire-prone frontier by anti-government types that didn't want to be told how to build (proper infrastructure, firebreaks etc.)

Real estate has been the main wealth generator for a while, "Selling out to a developer was the only retirement plan most farmers knew."

"What was once sparse is now densely packed with pine, fir, cedar, and manzanita. A forest that supported 64 trees an acre in pre-settlement times now boasted 160 trees an acre ... 'I don't think we could have managed the forests any worse.'"

"as Wilson and his staff studied the fires more closely, he could see that their oddly linear pattern of ignition clusters corresponded to major electrical power lines."

Forestry management and fire prevention - prescribed burns, reducing fuel load - curtailed in favor of military-style firefighting.

"To justify its high costs, [Cal Fire] had to figure out a way to make itself essential throughout the year. This was how it evolved into a 24/7 provider of emergency services to the sprawling mountain communities ... instead of trying to slow down the suburbanization of forestlands, Wilson said, the department served the growth — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year in funding."

PG&E and a Public Utilities Commission that's not equipped or inclined to regulate it

Yet again, a baby gender reveal party sparks a wildfire:

2020: A gender reveal sparked a wildfire in California that's grown to 7,000 acres
2020: A gender reveal party ignited a 10-acre brush fire in Florida, fire officials say
2017: Officials release video from gender reveal party that ignited a 47,000-acre wildfire in Arizona

bonus gender reveal combustion:
2019: Partygoers thought they'd built a clever gender reveal device. It turned out to be a deadly pipe bomb
2019: Australian gender reveal party goes wrong as car bursts into flames

Oregon is collectively holding its breath for the next 48 hours

https://www.kptv.com/weather/blog/extreme-fire-weather-next-48-hours-includes-damaging-wind-for-some/article_9f381716-f0be-11ea-9a76-47427495df5f.html

View of the Bobcat Fire from my street last night. Tonight is the same.

#BobcatFire over Sierra Madre right now + couple hours of ashfall on my car. pic.twitter.com/zXc0ZDmL0c

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) September 7, 2020

Here's a timelapse from inception, from a Mt Wilson cam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX49jfIAJwI&feature=emb_logo

or search this on youtube.

Bobcat Fire Time-Lapse from Mt. Wilson

Christ! Doesn't take much does it? Hope y'all are breathing ok.
Over the past ~3 weeks in SF I've figured out that anything above 70 on Purple Air's AQandU setting starts bothering my throat/lungs so I let that dictate whether I sweat it out in my hotbox of an apartment or open the windows and take a walk. It hit a hundred degrees yesterday while the AQI was around 90 and I'd never been more grateful to have a box fan and the electricity to power it.

Friend of mine is posting live AQI updates from Eugene ... 538, 560, 593, 607 ...

I don't even care if it actually retards the actual fire - they can hike my taxes if it means I get to be treated more frequently to these sweet jet dump Action Tweets

The #ValleyFire currently has eight air tankers assigned to the incident. When the retardant is dumped it can be a spectacular sight. Video taken 9/6/20 at 5:14 p.m. near Alpine pic.twitter.com/rwyXFpEEbD

— CAL FIRE/SAN DIEGO COUNTY FIRE (@CALFIRESANDIEGO) September 7, 2020

I could watch that cherry red retardant get dumped from that screaming sky bird all day long baby

does it smell great in the morning?

on the morning after a beet salad dinner hahahaa

I'm gonna go ahead and assume that what is essentially the opposite of napalm smells like Code Red Mountain Dew and say that yes, yes it does

but, key thing ... do you surf???

nah, too dangerous! I boogie board for fifteen minutes once every quarter-century, but that's it. beach schmeach, that's what I say

@MikeNiccoABC7 @DrewTumaABC7 These were from Willits and Covelo, respectively, around 2:30 today. Ukiah is as dark as 10pm would be but my camera won’t pick it up. It’s insane here. Apocalypse-like. pic.twitter.com/sAUPvRbaa6

— AlmightyAce (@AlmightyAcey) September 8, 2020

lukas, I'm in Eugene. It's apocalyptic. We're packing emergency kits tonight.

numerous friends who live less than an hour away have had to evacuate

all hell broke loose all over western Oregon last night and today. we are OK, but our neighborhood is thick with trees and all it would take is a power line sparking and that could change fast.

Ugh, sorry

possible water outages projected for tonight in addition to power outages, stocking up now

glad I have a serious solar array and battery backup for our freezer

sorry sleeve and Aimless, this sucks

lost power for about 10 hours last night, recently went through a very extreme and awful respiratory illness and remain in recovery for that, so sitting in a hot box terrified of the smoke with no ability to move any air around in here was a real anxiety experience i'd like to not go through again for a bit

What with huge masses of home grown smoke and more wildfire smoke able to travel down from WA and up from CA, I have the idea that when it comes to smoky air the ordeal is only beginning for most western Oregonians.

Speaking of wildfire smoke, this is a satellite photo of NW Oregon today:
https://www.oregonhikers.org/forum/download/file.php?id=76887&t=1

Sympathy for those living in the shadow of the pyrocumulus, from hurricane alley.

Daniel Swain @Weather_West is a great follow for those interested in satellite animations of this.

hmm yes that particular satellite image probably came from either NASA's MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Aqua or Terra satellites. I do believe one of the two recently came back online. The image would be preferable if the heat-sensitive filters had been applied, but I understand Aimless is more of a humanities major. One would have to wonder what the post-burn EVI or NDVI value differential would be for the affected AOI...

wait is burrito outing himself as a Sanpaku sock

FUCK forgot to change usernames

Burrito already outed as dusty crophopper upthread

no, you're that, what I am is the Cheech Marin car from Cars (2006), which btw is "Ramone," a 1959 Chevrolet Impala Lowrider, which btw is racist

this is the pixar content the board craves

best wishes to everybody in the path of this horribleness <3

@AlmightyAcey's photos are surreal

the northeast part of Sierra Madre here (along with all the other foothill cities) just went to voluntary evacuation - apparently they're expecting a wind shift on the Bobcat Fire in a day or two. Fingers crossed for everyone.

I know we keep using the word "apocalyptic" but here's some truly terrifying footage of the Bear Fire near Chico, which was reported at ~12,000 acres last night and has exploded overnight to over 250,000 acres. Just unfathomable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvyhWTjk6Qw

According to a press conference with the Oregon governor and top officials, they barely have the resources to manage orderly evacuations and try to keep people's houses from burning down (if that). Several hundred thousand people are under some level of Evacuation Alert and many thousands have already been given Level 3 notices and been directed to evacuation checkpoints. More than one small town has been largely destroyed along a 50 MILE LONG fire zone along highway 22.

My entire county (third most populated in Oregon) is under Level 1, 2, or 3. We're at level 1 and probably (?) ok. But it's anxious.

Christ. Good luck.

well I pulled two crates of LPs out of 4000 to take with me, working on a box of 45s now

I hear the wind is reversing tomorrow in Lane County, good news

thinking of you all. this is hellish.

<3 to all. I lived in Eugene for 3 years and just now scanning headlines in the R-G, I felt sick to my stomach, so many places that mean a lot to me in trouble, evacuating, or under threat

next year, when it's time to get back out into the forests and mountains around here, there will be a time to do some grieving about all the beautiful natural places that will have been reduced to charcoal. meanwhile, this is a human catastrophe and that is dominating the foreground of most of our thoughts.

Thinking of all who are evacuating and all who've lost family and homes...

My old place of work in the Southern Humboldt hills (iykwim) evacuated today. Some of the most beautiful country I've ever had the pleasure of living and working in. I really hope the place gets spared.

My daughter's group home is currently in Level 2 and in the process of evacuating. As luck would have it, there is an empty group home they will be able to move into, outside the evacuation zone. It was all prepared to get up and running as a new group home when the covid-19 lockdown started and all new admissions and transfers were cancelled until further notice.

My stomach is churning, in spite of knowing she will be safe. My emotions don't know it even though my intellect is pretty certain.

btw, our home is still in a level 1 zone. Yesterday we identified some possible friends and family who'd take us in if necessary. The 'natural' winds have died down quite a bit, but big fires can create their own winds.

Ugh, that's a lot. Hope the wind stays on your side.

reports of gun battles between residents and looters in the Blue River area, Route 126 in Oregon

Glad to hear your family is safe for the moment, Aimless

thinking of you Aimless, and all ilxors near danger

take care Aimless ♥️

sounds really difficult Aimless and sleeve, hope you will be ok

Echoing all the above good wishes. The air may be thick right now in SF but that's nothing like what you're both facing.

Aw shit. Went level 2 a couple minutes ago. Bye for now.

oh man, yeah head out

Hoping best for you, aimless, and others in the thick of it.

Whew! False alarm! I heard the phone broadcasting the "alert" klaxon sound, glanced at the text and didn't absorb the full message beyond "Level 2 alert BE SET to go..."
If I'd been calmer I'd've seen that it applied to an area 12 miles south of here.

Stay safe friends

12 miles isn't far :(
good wishes, all

I just spent the morning running masking tape over all of my house's door and window seams (including the front door) to keep out the smell of smoke.

Hope all in any potential fire paths are ok!

today in Oregon:

Big takeaways from Oregon Governor Kate Brown's presser:
- Salem-area fires are expected to merge.
- evacs in Portland metro is possible as early as Sunday
- decent # of ppl fighting fires are students
- we need MIN 2x the ppl power
- have requested aid from DoD
- WH hasn’t returned the Governor's call
-Fires in Clackamas county merged, and Portland is “on alert”
- Oregon Convention Center is open for evacuees
-ppl with RVs go to Portland International Airport
-Senator Merkley has been calling WH “multiple times a day”
-Rep. DeFazio says WH signed Emergency Order
-10% of pop evacuated and may rise to 35% before it's over
-Do not breathe air outdoors in Portland and Willamette Valley

In other words, things are looking great!

has the WH returned Merkley's calls, at least? or neither Merkley nor the governor? jfc

nothing, not a fucking thing.

last time washington voted for a republican president: 1984
oregon: 1984
california: 1988

is idaho (R for every election since 1964) getting their calls returned?

my place smells like smoke, AQI here is about 300. i've alluded elsewhere but never been too specific about it: a couple months back i survived and am obviously still dealing with a whole cascade of pulmonary embolisms -- the upper lobe of my right lung is a goner due to related infarction -- so my lungs are not in great shape to say the least.

when i got home from the hospital i remember saying aloud "hope the wildfires aren't bad this year! not sure i could handle that!" so yeah.

oh man, dude. idk if I can do anything from Eugene but my ILXmail does work if you need anything.

we also have spare bedrooms fwiw

yeah that completely sucks, clay. :(

that sounds concerning Clay. I smell smoke in my house too even with the windows closed. I explored getting an air purifier but the ones I've looked at are backordered. I'm staying indoors and not exerting myself

I'm really thankful my wife and I both have full strength P100 masks that we bought during the 2016 fires, it's the only way I've been able to walk the dog (who thinks we totally suck, btw)

thanks guys! I think i'm fine. the only way for stuff to really get in outside of cracks here and there is the wall-mounted A/C and we wrapped both inside and outside in plastic and taped it to hell a few days ago. I think it's hard for things *not* to smell like smoke after a few days of this.

sleeve, thanks so much for the offer. I have a couple closer last ditch places I can go but I'm pretty intent on riding this out if it's only for a few more days. have not been going outside, obv, and have a very kind roomie who's been taking care of me and things for awhile now. one bummer is literally the day before the smoke settled in i had started going on tiny tiny walks outside for the first time in a couple months and now, well, gonna have to wait a bit

That's very difficult, Clay, tho I'm glad you have a good roomie and seem to be in good enough spirits.

Truly best wishes to all of you. Let us know if you need anything, or know of any others who do.

I'm in North central AZ. I had thought it was overcast today, which almost never happens this time of year. Yeah no it was smoke particles from California. The sun looked eerie on my drive to campground near Williams.

Probably that massive snow storm north of you in the Rockies is creating some weird weather as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH5APw_SLUU

triangle setup using two filters is even better, you can overload the motors with a filter smack over the fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A8Yink0czc

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ehnc3XoXsAEHp3U?format=png&name=medium

The smoke from these fires reached Europe yesterday.

Enjoy! But don't indulge to excess.

To give an idea of how fast this developed, this is an official description from a government website called Inciweb (emphasis added by me):

The Beachie Creek Fire originated in the Opal Creek Wilderness approximately 2 miles south of Jawbone Flats and 6 miles north of Detroit, Oregon. Prior to the historic windstorm that arrived in the area on Monday, September 7th, the Beachie Creek Fire was estimated to be 469 acres. The fire grew overnight to over 131,000 acres driven by high winds and extremely dry fuels.

The sky's been a weird gray, but obviously nothing like the apocalyptic red you all are seeing.

There's a Detroit, Oregon too? Was stealing Portland, Milwaukie, and Salem not enough?

my friend's mom's place survived the fire in phoenix, oregon!

I preferred to pronounce it deh-TWAH. But if it makes you feel any better, the town of Detroit, Oregon was effectively erased from the face of the earth as of last Tuesday morning.

xp glad to hear that, tlg. Phoenix and Talent both got it pretty bad.

xp That's a start, thank you. Now please find a new name for your The Dallas before Texas feels any more messed with.

yeah me too, it's a super cute place. sending good vibes to everyone affected. my local fire is about 75% contained and the ash has stopped falling but i'm still not ready to go for a jog because of the pervasive haze. i live on a main emergency road uphill from a big fire station, and pretty much backed up to a regional park which is just a series of canyons full of piles of overgrown dry brush, so every time the marshal goes by in his truck with sirens blazing i get real nervous.

xp as a fellow san diegan and burrito lover, i'm honestly not sure why you're trying to provoke ppl. you seem cool enough but this probably isn't the time or place.

(not my intent! really only hoping to provoke Texas with the Dallas thing. you know they probably have a chip on their shoulder about it)

I'm not sure if you are aware that the Oregon city you are citing is The Dalles.

it's the dalles and i thought it was prounounced "the dales". as in chip and dale.

As a lifelong local it is pronounced to rhyme with some hypothetical tavern named "Al's", and not "ales" as in IPAs.

also if we think the western u.s. is bad take a look at south america and africa in this nasa fire map

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhnWM88UMAIJ5ep?format=jpg&name=large

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/

i mean .................................

we are so so fucked.

Do not forget the enormous catastrophic fires that raged across Australia just a few months ago. iirc, estimates of wildlife killed by those fires ranged up to one billion animals.

From what I understand most of the fires in Africa are in the savannas and are important aspects of their ecosystems. But yeah, the steady deforestation of the Amazon is a major global threat and only likely to accelerate as long as Bolsonaro turns a blind eye to land-grabbing arsonists.

this piece argues that controlled burning needs to start being applied to 30 million acres in ca alone (right now it's like 13,000 acres or something)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/california-cant-afford-to-wait-for-climate-action.html

i can't keep any of these numbers straight everything is just like "an overwhelming and impossible amount"

So basically a long intense fire/smoke season annually until everything that can burn, does?

^ without a major shift in forest management, yes

There are other books, of course, but I really do think that City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear are absolutely required reading for anyone living not just in LA or California, but anywhere on the West Coast.

thanks, table. don't know either of those.

At this point, maybe check out Ecology Of Fear first? Davis' "The Case For Letting Malibu Burn" chapter is u & k

Agreed with Elvis.

It's hard to think about the places I love most burning.

https://longreads.com/2018/12/04/the-case-for-letting-malibu-burn

Feeling for anyone near these blazes, it's unbearably smokey here,have a sore chest from being out running errands

Thanks for the link to that Mike Davis-essay. Very interesting.

That Davis essay is essential.

(Apologies for the twitter cross-posting)

Bloody sun over Sierra Madre. Ash fall is getting coarser. pic.twitter.com/JKcwy7NgYb

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) September 13, 2020

One hour ago on Highland Oaks Dr. pic.twitter.com/IlppS32lxU

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) September 13, 2020

thickest smoke so far in Eugene this morning, just unbelievable

so grateful for the HEPA filter in our furnace

OregonLive: The desperate fight to save his family ends in tragedy

Back in the Jeep, struggling to navigate a road once so familiar but now shrouded by smoke-filled darkness, Chris almost ran over what looked like a bikini-clad woman on the road. Once he was closer, he realized she was wearing underwear. Her hair was singed, her mouth looked almost black, and her bare feet were severely burned.

He impatiently tried to help her into his car, explaining how he needed to find his wife and son, feeling like she was resisting.

Finally, she spoke. “I am your wife.”

xp: the VIIRS global fire maps can be a bit misleading. The satellites are sensitive enough to pick up controlled fires of field waste (crop stems etc) used to return minerals to the soil and aid pest control, as well as controlled trash fires. Only a minority of the dots are deforestation by fire.

Jfc

trigger warning galore on that story, fwiw

sleeve, I enjoyed this newer Mike Davis book too, you might dig: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2779-old-gods-new-enigmas

(slightly o/t)

thanks, man

Finally a day of breathable air here in Seattle. Really looking forward to stepping outside without putting on my N-95.

Portland metro got some breathable air yesterday. I went for a 4 mile walk in the rain just to enjoy it.

very good to hear! I hope Eugene is getting better too, sleeve

yep, thanks, we're back to "normal" for now. currently at the coast, it's lovely

Someone rendered the 2020 CA fire perimeters to date on a topo map, and it's striking.

there's been some good map overlays comparing the Holiday Fire in Oregon to previously logged areas, gee what a surprise

Pretty bad tonight. An acquaintance lost his Santa Rosa home to the Tubbs fire in October 2017, and right now its looking like the Shady fire will hit eastern Santa Rosa by morning, crossing land burnt just 3 years ago.

I have a handful of friends who moved up north, near Santa Rosa to more easily quarantine without getting the same kind of cabin fever that people living in urban apartments/dense housing do ... and they got evacuation notices at like 6am this morning

fuck that sucks

these fires look so bad

was talking via zoom to a client today and we were both like, "can this stop now?" like, after the almost two weeks of shitty air quality from SCU and CZU .. it's like, geez not again, also it was 95 degrees this afternoon

yeah getting kinda ptsd from it - cant even imagine ppl who are going through evacuations or losing property for a second time

4 yrs ago next week, early on a Monday morning, my parents emergency evacuated from their home. This Monday morning, for the 4th time in 4 yrs, they are uncomfortably close to a major fire. I’m a climate scientist and I study global warming. Even I can’t process this step change.

— Abigail Swann, PhD (@ecoclimatelab) September 28, 2020

was reading about The Restaurant at Meadowood’s burning, it is kind of shocking.

oh what I didn’t know that! :(
i ate there 10+ years ago, one of the best & fanciest meals of my life

Orange skies
Carnivals and cotton candy and you
And I love you too you know I do...

They're back! At least here in Oakland... it was supposed to be in the 90s today, but the smoke is blocking the sun

it was definitely in the 90s yesterday in Oakland ... today isn't as bad.

though if you were somewhere where it _wasn't_ in the 90s I wanna know where that paradise is!

it was even horrible and gross in Alameda, and it's a fucking island, surrounded by water!!

we can see the California smoke in Oregon today

Bobcat flare-up near Mt. Wilson this afternoon. ugh.

did the observatory survive after the last round?

Everything at Mt. Wilson and Stony Ridge survived but it was uncertain for a couple of days there. Even after all this, there are still little canyons up in the Angeles NF that haven't seen fire in decades.

Someone rendered the 2020 CA fire perimeters to date on a topo map, and it's striking.

― Disgraced, committing sudoku (Sanpaku), Wednesday, September 23, 2020 7:38 AM (one week ago)

this is pretty incredible. wondering if you could point me to where you saw this, who did it, etc.? i'm kinda hoping there's one for Oregon.

Sorry alpine, I saw it on r/MapPorn. I think its by a regular there that does ray traced 3D topo maps, but can't recall the name.

no problem, thank you!

great news for all you wildfire fans out there

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwxDXxZUYAc9EWS?format=png&name=medium

high plains wind + fire danger

There is a LOT of smoke, and winds are picking up (as forecast). Some of us here are a little skittish in this drought....

(Not my photo, from a HS group on FB) pic.twitter.com/hCPxk5KIi7

— Terre Logsdon (@terreal) March 28, 2021

Controlled burn in Lake County CA. I'll bet you a beer/kombucha we're not doing enough of these.

Probably not. Controlled burns are incredibly important not just for prevention of wildfire spread but for the soil and habitat, too.

Gotta say, though, Lake County is truly one of the weirdest places in all of California.

o t m

Quite!

I've been to most of California and I endorse that message.

Residents here raise holy hell when controlled burns produce smoke that drifts to habited areas. Total lack of awareness of the trade off of short-term pain to achieve long-term gain. Obviously it's the same group of ppl who are incapable of thinking long-term and big picture on just about every issue ie republicans.

There's also some weird nutty lib types who seem to not understand "why they're burning the forests!" or whatever. I remember having to essentially yell at a person I knew, well-educated and good-natured, who couldn't understand why groves of eucalyptus were being shorn down in the Berkeley hills. Eventually I gave up, she got really into alternative medicine and yoga, and now seems to travel the world (despite pandemic) to exotic locations to practice her art or whatever. Or at least that was what she was doing when I unfollowed and unfriended her because her existence annoys me so much.

And eucalyptus trees are a non-native, invasive species!

and a serious fire hazard iirc? high in oils?

MMMMMMMMmentholated

I was in Lake County last August when the lightning strikes started dropping everywhere... it was really freaky and tons of fires stared almost immediately; it's a land that's meant to burn

Eucalyptus trees are so full of oil they kinda explode when they catch fire

I've driven the 20 through Lake County a number of times— I used to live in Butte County and would do occasional work in SoHum, so it was the easiest way across and then up. I tried my damnedest to never, ever stop in any of those towns if I could help it. It was like I could smell the meth cooking through the car windows.

(I also drove through on the 20 when the southern part of the county was on fire, it was incredibly surreal to look south and see hills on fire and just keep driving as if it was totally normal)

Eucalyptus trees are so full of oil they kinda explode when they catch fire

I already knew they were Bad but this is hilarious

they're apparently cutting down a lot of eucalyptus in the Berkeley hills

we've got a whole goddamn forest of the stuff in the middle of SF (Sutro open space preserve)

The history of eucalyptus trees in CA is pretty nuts

I

By the early 1900s, the get-rich mindset had caused many aspiring forest tycoons to plant countless acres of eucalyptus in hopes of selling the timber for a tidy profit. It’s estimated that there were over 100 companies involved in the eucalyptus industry at this time, and they changed the landscape of much of California.

But investors were soon to discover that the eucalyptus weren’t all they’d hoped them to be.

Sadly, most of these schemes went the way they infamously did for Frank C. Havens. Havens was an Oakland developer who opened a mill and planted eight million eucalyptus trees in a 14-mile-long strip from Berkeley through Oakland. But when he came to sell the timber, it was found that the trees were too young to make suitable wood; the young wood had an irregular grain and it bent, cracked, and shrank when dried. It is true that eucalyptus trees from Australia could make good timber, but those trees were decades or sometimes centuries old. It was soon found that eucalyptus trees would need to be at least 75 or 100 years old for good lumber. The young wood didn’t even make useable fence posts or railroad track ties, both of which decayed rapidly. Havens closed shop.

Yeah, I remember reading about the same a while ago because of arguments that I'd get into with pro-eucalyptus people. I admit, I think they smell and look lovely, but dammit, they don't belong!

I hate the way they look, at least in contrast to the native species. Every time I'm up in one of the regional east bay parks, I can't help commenting about how dreary and washed-out they look. And the stuff they drop makes for treacherous footing.

They do smell amazing but so do native california plants! I get overwhelmed by *fragrances* when i go back home

there are pro-eucalyptus people? this state is irredeemable.

Eucalyptus here def look v scraggly and sad

But i am a fan of the Australian ones obv :D
When they are healthy & growing enmasse, they give off a blueish haze when viewed from far away that i love. And the smell is <3

I grew up in Oxnard (mostly) where they'd been planted as windbreaks for the farms (the blue gum variety, I think). Went to college in Santa Barbara, where they'd planted a bunch of the lemon-scented ones everywhere, so I still associate those scents with my youth. I like them but recognize they don't belong here.

I do think they're pretty sometimes

, she got really into alternative medicine and yoga, and now seems to travel the world (despite pandemic) to exotic locations to practice her art or whatever. Or at least that was what she was doing when I unfollowed and unfriended her because her existence annoys me so much.

lol I want to know who this is!

I don't think you know her— classically pretty blonde with a Brit accent who dated D4v1d BuUcK

I know a D4v1d BuUcK from work but I can’t imagine it’s the same one you know. The D4v1d BuUcK I know helped invent HDMI.

xp - I think I might know of this person through "my channels" lol

DJI, the one I'm talking about is a poet, professor, and activist. Not the same person.

If anyone has ever camped at Chabot Family Campground.. you've basically camped in New South Wales.

When I drove from Sydney to Brisbane, I couldn't get over at how much of flora/topography reminded me of driving in inland Orange and San Diego counties.

Not looking forward to wildfire season in California this year. And feeling pretty bleak about every year after that, too.

The humble shrub that’s predicting a terrible fire season

Fuck

Some great writing from John McPhee on chaparral and wildfires here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1988/09/26/los-angeles-against-the-mountains-i

Meanwhile, the investment group that owns the 747 Supertanker is shutting it down
https://fireaviation.com/2021/04/23/the-747-supertanker-is-ceasing-operations/

101 in slc tomorrow. this summer's going to be a monster.

I'm supposed to with my GF out to see her mom in Fresno CA this weekend - fortunately it's 'cooling' from 105* to 100* by the time we get there

Looks like the season is beginning in earnest:

The #InyoCreekFire in Inyo NF near Whitney Portal was 97 acres & 0% contained this morning but is experiencing some significant fire activity tonight.

Can listen live: https://t.co/Ps9sC4B5Oi pic.twitter.com/e1SM6AsFrZ

— CA Fire Scanner (@CAFireScanner) June 22, 2021

Nearest station ~10 mi north of the fire is at 11% RH and winds 26 mph gusting to 45https://t.co/AR6enawijf

— Matt Roberts (@WxMattt) June 22, 2021

hi, it began in earnest three weeks ago but i guess if you just want to extrapolate from california that's solid

Yeah, there's fires near Chico, also on the Central Coast... I'm sorry to hear this about the Whitney Portal, I love that area..

They're closing Coconino and Kaibab national forests totally, until we get enough rain. Which is good overall but sucks for me since that covers most of the high country trails I go to on weekends to escape the heat. There's been some precipitation (I got rained on my last 2 hikes, tho both storms were limited to small areas up in the mountains) so fingers crossed that monsoon actually happens this year (it's been a "nonsoon" the past 2 summers).

Storms in a big chunk of the southwest today. I haven't heard any thunder so hopefully there's no lightning-caused fires from them. Usually this is the driest time of year, until monsoon comes in early July. I've seen more clouds so far this year than the past 2 years combined.
I can see 2 smoke plumes from my back patio and another one from my front porch. The one to the north was HUGE yesterday but much diminished today.

A place where we lived for about a year and much of the area around it is threatened, if not totally burnt up, by the Lava Fire up in Siskiyou. Getting ready to mourn...

The local, bankrupt utility company (Pacific Gas & Electric, or PG&E) is poised to cut down some big canary palm trees in front of my building, and it really bums me out. The city of Oakland won't step in as they don't consider palms to be appropriate street trees.

Yes, the trees are growing up towards the power lines, but why don't they just dig a trench and bury the lines? Grrrr, I've been dreading this for a long time but it seems like the fight is lost.

For some backstory, PG&E has been under fire for poor tree maintenance that most likely helped start some of the recent horrible fires.. but these are green, healthy city trees, and lovely ones at that. Maybe if they weren't so goddamn cheap they would start burying high voltage lines and save themselves future misery and litigation.

(Sorry for the rant, I feel slightly better.)

Yes, the trees are growing up towards the power lines, but why don't they just dig a trench and bury the lines?

Yeah this is messed up.

extremely tempting to troll the local yokels who comment on weather service updates about wildfire smoke, record temperatures, etc.

When can I stop holding my breath?

I don't know Mr. West Jordan Republican With A Child Bride but you might want to get better at it because each summer is going to be even worse :)

The city of Oakland won't step in as they don't consider palms to be appropriate street trees.

Yes, the trees are growing up towards the power lines, but why don't they just dig a trench and bury the lines?

it would take them a lot longer to do that than to remove the tree because it requires permits and the permitting process, which already is absurdly long, has gotten even worse since Covid. There's also the fact that the trees themselves could be fire hazards tbh ... it depends on the location. There are different zones with different levels of hazard and abatement enforcement.

I think OFD (Oakland Fire Department) has a specific division that deals with this, Vegetation Management. ... it's where they sent the evil inspector who got tons of complaints from his time inspecting buildings ... and now he has returned to inspecting buildings and making people miserable.

A decade ago I had a really great corned beef hash & eggs in Greenville. RIP.

it's real bad folks, but no one's talking about it unless the smoke affects them, because the biggies are in fairly remote parts of the sierra nevada, and i guess gawking at all the 'climate change bad' signs of the apocalypse is starting to wear out its welcome in the media, especially because it's bad and keeps on being bad and nothing ever changes.

anyway, just registering that slc as an aqi of 171 at the moment, because a cold front means we're in a direct line of flow right over the great basin.

it's sort of become a pastime of mine to read the comments on facebook from local yokels when the weather service shares smoke forecasts and such. so far i've seen a comment from rhonda of fillmore utah saying something like "this is just so bad and affects so many people. is there anywhere that isn't smokey" and yolanda of west jordan saying something like "another bad thing from california" (utahns LOVE to blame california for EVERYTHING that is wrong in the world, including but not limited to rising prices, moral decrepitude, and government red tape).

when the smoke flow drifts inland, you might as well not even know it because all of twitter, media, etc. is on the coasts.

when it blankets san francisco, suddenly the world is ending lol

a thing that salt lake liberals love to do is share aqi charts that put salt lake at the top of the charts worldwide. doesn't matter of it's "our fault" or not. they just love anything that makes salt lake look like the weird-ass conservative town it is, from the comfort of their single family homes cushioned by health care industry dollars.

*panicking influencer voice* this is an incredible reminder that your greatest competitor is yourself pic.twitter.com/7ZabLw1Rb2

— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) August 6, 2021

is this wildfire racist? needs a rename imo

just gonna grouch on this thread for the next three months. my sinuses hate me.

(utahns LOVE to blame california for EVERYTHING that is wrong in the world, including but not limited to rising prices, moral decrepitude, and government red tape).

LOL! who hates us (California) more: Utahns or Oregonians?

Former Californians.

NGL— I kind of thing Erika was right in the EMA track.

yeah, but neither you nor Erika were born/raised here. Like, I was just born boring, by that logic?

I think these days Utahns actually hate CA more, even though Oregon has a longe rand more venerable tradition of hating Californians

Idaho, Colorado, Arizona ain't exactly fond of Califorinans either from what I gather

Wonder how Nevadans feel about California

this fkn guy

throw him in the fire imo

The man is listed as a lecturer in criminal justice studies specializing in cults and deviant behavior at multiple colleges in California. https://t.co/nGQrkLAAS7

— The Sacramento Bee (@sacbee_news) August 11, 2021

Hangable offence

Don’t give a shit, sue me

Honestly surprised there aren’t more accelerationists, this is cali we’re talking about.

It’s all going to fucking burn anyway. Idk maybe the feds could take a couple trillion from the military and show they’re serious about fighting wildfires. Or something, anything ffs. Biden seemed very concerned.

The playbook is going to be, find the scapegoats with no actual power to change anything, like working people who can’t afford evs, or people who water their lawns too much, or crazy people like this professor who are easy to hate, rinse and repeat, from now until the last “this is fine” dog can’t breathe anymore.

yeah, but neither you nor Erika were born/raised here. Like, I was just born boring, by that logic?

― sarahell, Tuesday, August 10, 2021 3:50 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think that with people who were born in California, there's more variation. But most of the people who moved there, including myself? Yeah, it made me very boring.

it's full-on pouring in slc but the smoke concentration is very high. kinda trippy.

cold fronts used to bring fresh air, now it's the opposite it seems

We now have a red sun in SF.

Indeed. Still, glad we had made it this far this summer.

hella smoky here in sac

My son is with friends at Lake Tahoe - they had ash falling on them yesterday from the Caldor fire.

It's too bad the north American monsoon's reach doesn't extend to California, Nevada etc. Since it arrived here in AZ on 4th of July, wildfires have been nearly nonexistent.

Pretty hazy here in Oakland, but nowhere near as bad as we had a couple years ago.. I have nothing to complain about

We need a thread for Irrational Climate Change Related Fears

eg public health resources say exercising outside with an AQI ~50 is fine ... but what about ultra-fine particulate matter???

don't do it imo

i recommend running in 150 aqi personally, love to get dizzy and sick-high on the burning remnants of the planet, it can only increase your tolerance for next year afaict

sleeve, you do realize that many cities go above 50 on a regular basis, right? unless you have asthma or other related health problems, you're probably fine tbqh.

lol no I didn't, it's been a long week. thanks for the reality check.

I'm afraid to even post this but it hasn't been too bad in the Eugene area so far, people even 30 minutes away have seen a lot more smoke

yeah, wasn't trying to be a jerk, was just a little '?' at yr response. when it gets about 100 is when it's time to start really worrying about outdoor activity.

For reference, near where I used to live in Siskiyou County, California, the current AQI is 317.

sleeve, you do realize that many cities go above 50 on a regular basis, right? unless you have asthma or other related health problems, you're probably fine tbqh.

― heyy nineteen, that's john belushi (the table is the table), Saturday, August 21, 2021 1:53 PM (three days ago)

and we can get into the significant disparity of areas within cities ... like West Oakland vs. Montclair

A coworker had some kind of airbnb booking in South Lake Tahoe and just called off her trip - apparently it was a no-refund deal.

I feel pretty certain you can argue for a refund if all the roads are closed and local authorities are begging people to stay the f%@k away, and the air quality is the worst on the planet.

more than stay away, there are mandatory evacuations for all of south lake tahoe. and gridlock traffic trying to get out of tahoe basin.

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/08/30/caldor-fire-latest-updates/

yikes

its crazy

a few of my coworkers have family and/or vacation homes up there, just hoping everyone can get out safely

meanwhile there are people driving to burning man from California ...

they have a chance of becoming burning men themselves (let's cross our fingers)

Hmmm, maybe this is where my coworker booked her stay... I see SO many of their ads on youtube:

VRBO refusing to offer direct refunds to people in Tahoe Basin, customers say

Robertson said the property he booked through VRBO, a short-term rental booking site, refused to give him a refund for his $4,000 stay, even as neighboring counties began evacuating and the Air Quality Index spiked into the 400s — an incredibly unhealthy range...

VRBO said it recommends travelers "consider buying travel insurance that provides the right coverage for their needs to help protect their vacation plans."

Apparently they recommend dealing with the hosts themselves, which begs the question: why use VRBO at all?

THIS is the patio where you will die of smoke inhalation
THIS is the customer service call where you will yell at someone you don't know for not refunding your vacation booking

i'm schadenfreuding at the vacation home class and you can't stop me

the local hospitality industry workers living in the trailer park around the corner otoh, i hope they can get out of there

My boss's boss has a 2nd home up there, but she says they rarely go... the drive is too far, traffic, etc. etc.

On the other hand, my cousin's husband has an old cabin that his family bought in the forties, I hope it's safe as they've done a bunch of work on it the last couple years

my friend has a great little house in the tahoe keys that has been in her family since the 60’s (staying there is like travelling back in time) - i would guess the house will be safe since it’s so close to the water but with a fire of this magnitude you cant assume anything

Yeah, I remember the Malibu fire of 10+ years ago where the flames raced down and jumped PCH, burning down houses that were right on the beach.

Yeah, fires jump roads, canyons, rivers— the fire that burned up Paradise a few years back jumped the Feather River canyon, and it's actually quite wide and deep in the area where it did so. I still think about my favorite swimming hole up there.

The awful fire in Santa Rosa a few years back was caused by the wind-driven flames jumping four lanes of Hwy 101 and torching a leafy green suburb surrounded by lawns.. Nowhere is safe

Yeah, I was in Berkeley for a conference during the last few days of that fire, it was...horrible, just abysmal air quality, and here we were— a load of writers and queers taking smoke breaks despite the AQI. I quit smoking soon after.

I remember looking at the before and after pictures of that Santa Rosa fire and being confused. How could this happen here, it's not a brushy area out in the boondocks?

An ex's family home was in that neighborhood (Coffey Park) and burned to the ground... her father never really recovered. Took to a recliner at his sister's house and never really got up again (I think the official cause of death was a stroke).

It was a freak thing, because it was a flat, green, leafy neighborhood, like something out of a Spielberg film... definitely not brushy & hilly. Unfortunately wind-driven embers can get up in the rafters and I think that's what happened to a lot of those homes.

Yeah, I was in Berkeley for a conference during the last few days of that fire, it was...horrible, just abysmal air quality, and here we were— a load of writers and queers taking smoke breaks despite the AQI.

was that the day the sky was orange all day long? ... I smoked, but didn't do any physical labor ...

AQI of 126 today in gene OR, good times

*Eugene

careful with that axe, gene

Sorry sleeve, Oakland is very nice today! Only a little over 70 ... both in AQI and temperature

Sarahell, I don't recall the skies. They were quite yellow. But the fire we were talking about was in 2017…

Smoke from the Sierra fires advanced on Los Angeles this morning like it was a goddamn mothership

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E__6AJ3VIA0CGum.jpg

I saw this at lunch and thought, "That looks like smoke but I don't smell a fire, hope I don't have Covid."

thirty years ago today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991

looking like northern California's fire season might end this week. fingers crossed.

yes

now we will have flood season

boulder, colorado, december 30 2021

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/30/weather/colorado-wildfires/index.html

"Marshall fire explained: How we got 115 mph winds in Boulder County on a December winter day"
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/12/31/marshall-fire-explained-firestorm-colorado-weather/

ever earlier

Eleven large wildfires are currently burning across the Southwest and Southern Plains, with some 8 million U.S. residents under fire alerts. https://t.co/6plChJvQcf

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) April 21, 2022

The entire southwestern US is in severe drought. Still.

very windy and extremely hot today in slc.

so far no fires but it just feels bad, you know

did you see https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/climate/salt-lake-city-climate-disaster.html?

yes

paywalled though

the word that comes to mind is 'desertification'

Alaska is on fire.

https://fire.airnow.gov/#

not great

hope my friends in Oakridge are OK, they got an evac order

i have a hunch that this year we're gonna get epic flooding then epic fires.

It’s El Niño so it’s certainly going to be warmer

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/471/227/dd0.png

thread is about wildfires not flooding but i need to put this somewhere

29" SWE. As Utah officially surpasses the estimated 1952 levels, those concerned with flooding can learn more about risks and other state resources by going to the @UtahDPS emergency management page: https://t.co/gfkjF2yFlE #utwx pic.twitter.com/jHQQ62QUXr

— NRCS Utah (@NRCS_Utah) April 4, 2023

All the rainfall/storms will definitely lead to more fuel by the summertime - grasses and underbrush, and fallen trees and limbs

But the rain may have helped some of the drought-stricken pines

doubt i'll see this much snow again in my lifetime.

hope you are not in a danger area for snow melt flooding

i think we're far enough away from the creek. we'll see how bad it gets.

Canada too, although maybe that’s a different thread.

this'll do for now

we've already had two in Oregon within 50 miles of us

Quite visible and smellable in Brooklyn this evening

I forgot to look up but my daughter told me about the big red sun. And a friend of ours that hasn’t been posting recently just told me about all the smoke in Ottawa.

Actually we can smell it now too here in Queens.

yeah i mean it was shortsighted of me to limit this to the western us

Smoke smell not quite as unpleasant as what it was in downtown Brooklyn right after 9/11 but why compare?

Feeling it on my eyes. Not sure if psychosomatic, doubt it.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/toronto-ottawa-covered-smoke-wildfires-2023-06-06/

The Canadian capital of Ottawa, which neighbors Quebec, was covered in haze on Tuesday morning, with air quality in category 10+, the worst level on Environment Canada's Air Quality Health Index, indicating "very high risk".

ottowa, welcome

Lots of headlines saying nyc’s air quality was “the worst in the world” this morning.

I’m caught a bit flat footed… not sure what to do other than close up the apartment, keep the dog walks brief and hang out inside.

It’s weird how it wasn’t apparent to me walking around Chinatown all afternoon but taking the dog out an hour later was yikes.

I didn’t notice until this evening.

ah ye, finally, been long looking forward to my first fire season wherein I have one lung

Ugh, sorry.

looking a little better in Montreal this morning, but the last two days were p depressing (not as bad as Ottawa though)

This explains why the early mornings have looked so apocalyptic here of late.

Sund4r told me he drove back from Toronto to Ottawa the other day and basically was welcomed in the middle by giant cloud of black smoke into which he drove. Had to wear a mask in his car. And then in his apartment.

Well now it’s drifted down to DC.

Air quality in Ottawa back up to 10+, highest possible risk.

It was surreal walking around my neighborhood yesterday (in Montreal), just smelled like light campfire smoke, so not really unpleasant to me though obviously unhealthy. Today seems less bad so far at least, I guess the bit of rain we had this night helped.

imo this blows

Seems like the next plume is coming into nyc now

it's pretty weird to watch the rest of the country experience our Oregon summer world, been like this on and off here for 4-5 years now

pro tip: get P100 masks, you want those small particulates filtered

We have N95s aplenty…

ha yes, everyone does now, but do try to get some P100s if you need to be outside in it for an extended period

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1FzbmpFyaw

Is it even worth bothering with a surgical mask, as some are doing?

I don't think so. I think you need at least an N95 to filter out particulates?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/us/masks-wildfire-smoke-air-quality.html

Went out to get groceries just now (picked the wrong time but I've been sick all week) and felt like the dog in the "This is fine" cartoon.

it's pretty weird to watch the rest of the country experience our Oregon summer world, been like this on and off here for 4-5 years now

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Wednesday, June 7, 2023 6:36 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i wouldn't wish smokey air on anyone, but yeah, from a western pov it's a little jarring to see "this sucks baaad" in 2023. not like in some perverse bragging tone or anything. just a note that many parts of the country that don't have many posters to this message board have been living this reality for quite some time. my sympathies to everyone dealing with this right now. the good news is weather patterns change and the smoke always moves somewhere else. then moves back to you. then gets worse next year.

i'm super glad we'll see some media hand-wringing and rationalization about it in the coming weeks though.

it does suck bad

I’m in the Baltimore area. This has happened before, not pretty rarely in my memory.

(The only other time I remember it was in the Austin area a decade or so back when the city of Bastrop was on fire for weeks.)

I moved to Montreal from Oregon 9 years ago. So, I left before the real bad summers started, but I did experience fires while there, including waking up on vacation in Bend one morning to the surreal sight of midsummer snow that I realized after a confused minute was falling ash. There have also been plenty of wildfires in Quebec before this year. What's freaking me out is that it's only June

i've seen a fair number of westerners with thoughts along the same lines as sleeve/map and i get it, but . . . this *hasn't* happened in nyc before. (james redd could only compare it to 9/11!)

i mean, if the west coast of the usa gets hit by a hurricane sometime, that too will be very noteworthy despite the southeast getting several every summer

I suppose maybe I could have should have lowballed and compared it to that one time NJ sent us some foul-smelling air.

Yeah, FW2020 was rough. 5 of the 10 worst wildfires in the history of California (and Oregon wasn't much better).

Not only were we in COVID lockdown but also choking on dense wildfire smoke for close to 3 months. Even our indoor AQI readings were in the triple digits. Those of us with kids dealing with at-home everything and then no more going outside for fresh air made things extremely unmanageable.

https://i.imgur.com/WsuDF4n.jpg

Good luck East Coasters.

(no filter on the pic, white-balanced to the interior lighting)

It makes me think of there Las Vegas set scenes of Blade Runner 2049.

ok fine i will admit to experiencing a ~tiny~ bit of schadenfreude after spending many many years slowly accepting that smoke = summer in northern california

but also: i am v sorry this is happening to you all, it super sucks & i know firsthand it becomes very depressing + scary very quickly. stay safe! stay indoors!

Thanks. Definitely some disturbing AQIs over here in Queens, some very unhealthy and even hazardous.

veg otm

oh in case anyone needs indoor filters:

https://deohs.washington.edu/edge/blog/how-make-box-fan-filter-clean-indoor-air-smoke

i pulled up the purple air map for nyc. jfc, that is worse than what we had in norther california in 2020 when everything turned orange and freaky.

stay safe y’all :-(

incredible photo, Steve

There have also been plenty of wildfires in Quebec before this year. What's freaking me out is that it's only June

I have lived in SF for most of my life, and September 9th, 2020, dubbed "orange skies day", will always be a day I remember, it was a very dim orange twilight all day and even the birds didn't know how to respond, it was freaky. Steve Shasta's photo captures it

I think the particulate matter AQI score in NY today was maybe even higher though

Yeah, that day was incredibly eerie but it was nowhere near one of the worst air quality days that year. Iirc, the orange skies were a result of a cloud layer creating a buffer between the city and most of the particulate.

welp

i've seen a fair number of westerners with thoughts along the same lines as sleeve/map and i get it, but . . . this *hasn't* happened in nyc before. (james redd could only compare it to 9/11!)

i mean, if the west coast of the usa gets hit by a hurricane sometime, that too will be very noteworthy despite the southeast getting several every summer

― mookieproof, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 4:31 PM (two months ago)

yup. everything is on fire around us right now as well.

over 1000 fires in Canada

https://data.statesmanjournal.com/fires/

Photo of a hurt and angry planet

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/09/16/multimedia/18californiatoday-hilary/18californiatoday-hilary-articleLarge.jpg

Nothing really close to me at the moment; being basically on the shore of a giant lake must keep the ground pretty well irrigated, I guess. But I'm keeping an eye on the map.

https://www.mtfireinfo.org/pages/current-fire-info

Quebec man who blamed wildfires on government pleads guilty to setting 14 fires

A Quebec man who posted conspiracy theories online that forest fires were being deliberately set by the government has pleaded guilty to starting a series of fires himself that forced hundreds of people from their homes.

Nice misdirection dude

🔥

https://www.fireweatheravalanche.org/fire/

1298 active fires

The two closest to me are ranked "Contained," but there are two other "Active" fires relatively close by. The air's been a little hazy — it was hard to see the mountains last week — but we haven't had the persistent burning smell we had last year.

we tried to go hiking yesterday and ran into a roadblock, the trail was closed. no visible signs of fire tho.

When the authorities closed down long sections of I-84 in eastern Oregon last week due to a megafire, I knew this fire season was going to be another bad one. I'm leaving for a 9-day camping/backpacking trip in southern Oregon tomorrow and I'm hoping I won't get any new fires or heavy smoke near me. If so, it will be a piece of luck, because there's a ton of fires and heavy smoke just about 40 miles NNW of where I'll be.

plus a shitload more in alberta and BC

Our vacation to lassen got 86’d this week

I wanted to go backpacking or camping last week. I snagged a limited-quota hiking permit for a popular wilderness in Central Oregon, but at the last minute I switched over to a car campground about 40 miles SE of there because the revised forecast called for lightning storms in the area where I was supposed to backpack. I recently endured a very prolonged and violent series of lightning storms while backpacking in the Cascades and had to bail out early. That was an experience I wasn't eager to repeat, especially with about 25 wildfires already burning throughout Oregon.

So, I car camped and day hiked for several days in Newberry Volcanic National Monument having a fine time (except for some clueless neighboring campers). There was a thunderstorm Friday evening, but it seemed mild and innocuous compared the maelstrom I'd recently endured. On Saturday I was up at 7500 ft on the rim of a caldera, eating lunch and enjoying the quiet when I noticed the air was getting very smoky. That was disquieting. After lunch I was able to get a more panoramic look at the sky. There was a general smoke haze everywhere, but the smoke seemed much denser to my south and I thought I could make out the faintest hint of orange at the horizon line in that direction. That was faintly alarming.

As I hiked down I started making contingency plans in case there was a fire close by and I got an evacuation order. Like the infamous Paradise, CA fire, the only way out was one road that wound down 2500 ft before it reached a highway. When I got to my campsite the smoke was nasty. I slept uneasily that night and resolved to leave in the morning. When I got home later on Sunday I discovered that a Level 1 Evacuation notice had been issued for the place where I'd been camping about 40 minutes after I left.

Incidentally, the place where I chose not to go backpacking had 8 new fires within about 15 miles of where I'd have been. Fun times we're living in.

that sounds dicey, glad you got out of there okay

to restate the obvious, these hills are supposed to burn occasionally but you don't wanna be there when they do!
I have some friends that have a (2nd) house up near Nevada City CA and they've just resigned themselves to the fact that it might burn down... you can do some simple things to help fire-safe the yard and home, but if the blaze really gets going there's not much you can do

https://i.imgur.com/vpDUe4v.png

that fire is about 45 miles away from where this photo was taken

a friend’s cabin in Wrightwood is right where the Bridge Fire is currently raging. seems to be anyone’s guess if it’ll still be standing when they eventually extinguish it. he just bought that cabin about two years ago, too.

Increased humidity and lower temperatures are said to help with the Bridge and Line fires into next week. I hope the fires can be contained and your friend's cabin in Wrightwood has made it through.

Feel like not enough people (I'm not including people in this thread) understand that fire suppression can't be the only strategy. If they understood that we'd have a lot more funding for prescribed burns. Which aren't a panacea of course ...

of course this feeling would be complicated if it was my home or a loved one's home but at this point i just see it all as an act of god brought about by our own hubris that we can do little to nothing about.

pretty good piece on 'good fire' (though not the populated hills of california)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240902-how-controlled-burns-can-help-wildlife

xp these were almost certainly the act of the arsonist they arrested

a few are but most aren't. oh wait i guess there's one fire in california right now so that's what the thread is about.

I hear you re: the hubris of building homes, towns, ski resorts, etc in dry mountain forest areas. I suppose most of our interactions with nature involve some hubris that could be randomly punished. I have a friend in Forest Services that seems to believe the situation could be improved with more budget (e.g. for prescribed burns). I guess there could be air quality concerns far away from the homes and ski resorts, and these will get worse as wildfire frequency and intensity increase from climate change. So there may be an argument for improving the situation that isn't so strongly tied to at-risk human-built structures.

that's not really the hubris i'm talking about. more the attitude that we can contain the burn. or like innovate our way through it. i'm familiar with the mitigating effects of controlled burns but i doubt increasing them is going to make a significant difference.

Aimless, I’m glad you’re OK.

xp ah, I see. I was reading your post too much in the context of the general thread restart and not enough in the context of the post directly above it - thanks for explaining.

Bad in west L.A., with high winds for the next 24 hours:

Scary webcam photo of the roaring #PalisadesFire from Santa Monica as the fire pushes into neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades. pic.twitter.com/T9fq1pIjwL

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) January 7, 2025

That's where the Eames House is (and of course a lot of other houses, too)

Santa Ana Winds are about now, yeah?

Yeah, major Santa Ana winds in progress.

Only time I'd share a James Woods tweet:

Leaving pic.twitter.com/yJDQ8xIhbI

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 7, 2025

woah

yikes, and it's January

NorCal has had a fair amount of rain but it's still pretty dry down that way

yeah it's very dry down here right now

have read that we're supposed to be getting 50-80mph winds later today into tomorrow

bloody hell

These are Paradise California conditions in the Palisades. We were in a neighborhood as it went up in flames. Mass panic in the streets, and the worst of the wind will hit the Palisades Fire tonight pic.twitter.com/NY4joNow4I

— Jonathan Vigliotti 🐋 (@JonVigliotti) January 7, 2025

Live video from a stringer...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQreEzRmibc

January Santa Anas are quite rare ime.

That said, w/r/t that tweet these conditions are absolutely nothing like the Camp Fire* of 2018 in Paradise, CA... at least not yet.

*85 fatalities, 18,000 structures destroyed, ~$16.5 billion in damage.

The conditions, not what’s happening yet. From that same CBS correspondent:

Easily dozens of homes in this neighborhood on Las Lomas Ave are gone. Firefighters can’t gain access to many neighborhoods because of blocked roads. The worst of the wind - 100mph gusts - are forecasted tonight as the Palisades Fire explodes in size. pic.twitter.com/RemMhX9Qlc

— Jonathan Vigliotti 🐋 (@JonVigliotti) January 7, 2025

yeah i hear that but...

Camp Fire day 1:
https://i.imgur.com/RNOiAVj.jpeg

Palisades Fire day 1:
https://i.imgur.com/njKSdju.png

Palisades map scale is ~1/3 of the Camp Fire map

And yes, density is the key difference, but also plays into firefighters' hands as there is more infrastructure to battle spread compared to the wide-open forests of the Sierra foothills.

fire seems to be making its way towards the getty villa

https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/palisades-fire

we live on sepulveda in westwood, just south of sunset, and I can see the smoke from across the 405. it’s horrific. it seems like the forecasts are for it to spread eastward, but I’m packing bags just in case

i work in westwood - not there today but am supposed to go in tomorrow, lol. stay safe k3vin

it seems like the forecasts are for it to spread eastward

Don't the Santa Ana's generally blow west towards the sea?

stay safe y'all, pack a go bag, I've been there in Oregon before and I expect to again

also in Oregon. we deal with this every summer now.

also, comparing these things is never a great look, imo. if you're close enough to one, it sucks real bad, no matter the conditions or circumstances.

It's crazy right now, just turned on the local news and watching homes go up just like that.

I'm in Orange County but I did think a palm tree was going to bust through a window as it was bending like i have never seen.

The damages in $$ might be higher here … guessing some of the access issues are similar to those of the Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire in 91 iirc

The worst of the wind - 100mph gusts - are forecasted tonight

Even leaving the fire(s) aside, winds nearing 100 mph can do one hell of a lot of damage.

Stay safe, everyone!

#BREAKING: Flames have reached the Getty Villa art museum. pic.twitter.com/g9vl0aLwdR

— Ready Breaking (@Ready_Breaking) January 8, 2025

Appears to be the grounds, not the buildings. So cross yer fingers...

winds nearing 100 mph can do one hell of a lot of damage.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

yeah this is nuts

it seems like the forecasts are for it to spread eastward

Don't the Santa Ana's generally blow west towards the sea?

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, January 7, 2025 4:03 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes sorry, I meant westward (away from me).

we can now see the flames from our rooftop

it's gonna be a long scary night

the getty is just a mile up the street

we’re packed preparing to evacuate

I hope you stay safe k3vin

Getting flashbacks to 2007 when Griffith Park had that huge fire and I lived a few blocks away, the nighttime sky outside my apartment was full of flames. Praying for no loss of life but also for the Getty Villa.

yeah, best of luck k3vin, hopefully it won't come to that

from a friend

iThis wind is terrifying. I’ll just admit it. The cats are freaking out and I’m freaking out with them.
Plus, my favorite park is on fire (Will Rogers State Park) and I’m worried for the people in Pacific Palisades.
Jon just heard on the radio that the police are telling people to get out of their car and start running (Sunset Blvd) - it’s all chaos.

thx dan and andy

andy, are you nearby?

Just watched the restaurant opposite the parking lot at topanga state beach burn down on YouTube. What a world.

Small fire in Kenneth Hahn in Baldwin hills too apparently.

Thought I heard Palisades High is burning.

TV station just updated the acreage to 2900+.

God, with these winds...

A new wildfire has just started above Pasadena where wind gusts up to 80-100 mph are expected tonight. Really hoping they can catch this one before it gets out of hand. #CloseFire pic.twitter.com/gOWY0ErOaj

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) January 8, 2025

Best wishes those are some scary looking flames. The series of north bay fires a few years back almost got us to move out of the area. All the smoke and straight up risk of death and destruction was very unnerving.

Calabasas evacuating

Altadena now

I'm in Pasadena and started smelling smoke about an hour ago. I still can't see any glow from my house (which I have in the past).

Evacuation order for Santa Monica north of San Vicente…

that's a lot of people

(rich people, but people nonetheless)

misread the map, it's not a huge area but mainly because the bit north of san Vicente that is inside the city of SM is tiny. presumably the bit over the border in LA already evacuated.

SM also issuing an evacuation *warning* for north of Montana. if that turns into an evacuation that's going to be wild.

https://www.santamonica.gov/blog/palisades-fire-updates

the evacuation zone over in alt/pasadena is a lot of people too

https://app.watchduty.org

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/07/palisades-fire-getty-villa-museum

The Getty Villa had “made extensive efforts to clear brush from the surrounding area as part of its fire mitigation efforts throughout the year”, Katherine E Fleming, president and CEO of the J Paul Getty Trust, said in a statement early Tuesday evening. While the blazes reached some of the vegetation on the property, “staff and the collection remain safe”, she said.

Fire prevention measures at the Villa include water storage on-site, with irrigation immediately deployed throughout the grounds on Tuesday morning, Fleming said, adding: “Museum galleries and library archives were sealed off from smoke by state-of-the-art air handling systems. The double-walled construction of the galleries also provides significant protection for the collections.”

Possible mass casualty incident at Duke's Malibu. Multiple burn victims. pic.twitter.com/KG9xsJkYd1

— Los Angeles Scanner (@LosAngeles_Scan) January 8, 2025

Mandatory evacuation zone for me is six blocks up the street. Assembling things right now...

sending good thoughts, stay safe

Chris, Kevin and anyone else in the area please be safe!

Media is warning that the fire could grow far into Santa Monica and West LA throughout the night

"If the winds continue to blast like they have been and we expect them to go into the morning, all of these folks could be in danger." https://t.co/o9qu4hBZFr pic.twitter.com/myjlcUomaC

— People's City Council - Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) January 8, 2025

anyone have a recommendation for a good news broadcast that's streaming live through the night?

Looks like NBC 4 is.

Yeah mainly been watching KNBC but also KABC and KCBS.

thanks y'all.

best of luck to all ilxors in the area.

View from the sky above LA.
Pacific Palisades and Malibu engulfed in flames. Absolutely Horrific. pic.twitter.com/Q5O8XgEHng

— Dan Hellie (@DanHellie) January 8, 2025

Bugging out. All of Sierra Madre is under evacuation.

KTLA is a good TV stream too

Stay safe ilxors.

we ended up just evacuating to my in-law’s place on the east side last night. saw the writing on the wall and knew we’d never be able to sleep with all the uncertainty anyway. thankfully I don’t have to work until sunday, and my her clinic was just canceled

the evacuation zone in Pasadena / Altadenas is insane. blocks and blocks of dense suburbia. I guess on the bright side it's not like in the palisades where there's effectively one road in and out. but that's tens of thousands of homes.

multiple people we know have evacuated. one family who was just on the outside of the initial evac zone in Altadena finally did evacuate, and they're unsure if their home survived. They're pretty far up north, close to the hills. The air quality is awful. lots of schools are closed, not ours. But we decided to keep the kid home anyway, almost out of principle, since considering the uncertain conditions all over the city and the fact that teachers are coming from all over including areas directly affected, it should have been a citywide closure imo.

Jfc homes along PCH just get wiped out. So scary

https://bsky.app/profile/coachfinstock.bsky.social/post/3lfalltlmbs2i

palisades footage. looks bad. 5000 acres, 1000 structures, 0% contained (but wind is dropping today)

we had winds in the high 90s out here at some point over night. the yard is pretty wrecked. a friend of mine said a sectional couch disappeared from her deck overnight.

so fucking scary. stay safe!!

was riding my scooter home last night in Oakland, into warm winds blowing west towards the ocean... not the Santa Ana's but still really weird
Fortunately we've had a bunch of recent rains

that aerial shot above is fucking apocalyptic

Eesh, via a Mastodon post:

JPL and all of the residential areas around it have been evacuated. They are now shutting down computer systems and transferring the Deep Space Network operations to their operations center at Goldstone.

I would also like to remind everyone that last spring, UCLA shut campus down for over a week to repress students protesting a genocide. But windstorms and raging fires....no biggie...come on down to campus. https://t.co/bcMNCd97kK

— Nour Joudah (@nsdoud) January 8, 2025

lol i’m currently on campus and working. i told my student employees they didn’t have to come in today. i will say the AQI here, while not great, is currently better than in highland park, where i live. my apartment completely reeks of smoke.

from garbageday

https://i.imgur.com/9U8nQa3.png

'private firefighters' lol

himself a privates fire fighter

When I was in Sonoma County during the Kincade Fire, there were privately contracted firefighters protecting some areas, some hired by insurers. Guardian story about them here.

I'm sure that happened much more after the Tubbs Fire wiped out an entire neighborhood in Santa Rosa. And I'm sure we'll see much more of that in L.A. going forward.

the more, the merrier I guess

Dystopian to think of private firefighters only risking their lives to protect what they're hired to protect, but I imagine this happening more if some areas are no longer eligible for standard fire insurance.

yeah, almost like fire mercenaries

Was wondering why the acreage hadn't updated overnight (the DoS part is alarming):

Palisades Fire Map Update🗺️

Due to flooding and possible DoS attacks on CALFIRE’s external services, map updates were disrupted. A workaround is now in place, restoring access to the latest fire maps. Satellite hotspots continue to monitor the Palisades fire’s expansion over… pic.twitter.com/pNJ8qzlUxF

— FireMap.live 🔥🌎 (@disaster_db) January 8, 2025

'private firefighters' lol

private firefighters have been a thing for years in CA. they're in Gangs of New York. that's not the funny bit IMO. it's that combined with complaining about property taxes.

I don't think the DOS part is true, or at least I don't believe it based on a tweet from an $8 account with few followers.

watchduty, who I do trust, say this, i.e. it stopped updating because mapping stopped overnight:

"(Note that the fire perimeter that is currently visible on the Watch Duty map is the most up to date map of the fire that is currently available, no new mapping has been conducted since approx 7pm last night.)"

Considering the shady taboo underworld of firefighters responsible for arson, the whole idea of mercenary firefighters-for-hire being tempted by job security and market-making is a bit too dystopic for even me to consider. See also insurance scams.

hey look a wiki exists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighter_arson

_'private firefighters' lol_


private firefighters have been a thing for years in CA. they're in Gangs of New York. that's not the funny bit IMO. it's that combined with complaining about property taxes.

For anyone who cares, I just saw on IG that the Eames Case Study House B in Pacific Palisades is currently unharmed (as of 8am this morning)

private firefighters have been a thing for years in CA. they're in Gangs of New York. that's not the funny bit IMO. it's that combined with complaining about property taxes.

exactly what i was going to post.

private firefighters are still a thing, too, and i don't really think it's completely unreasonable - annoying and dunk-on-able, sure - for a rich guy to be trying to find some to hire to protect his house.

it's his view on property taxes and what that says about who he thinks deserves protection and who doesn't that suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

exactly.

My cousin lives near all of this. She is okay but the high school her kids graduated from is gone.

This is so fucking scary. Hope all ilxors and their loved ones near this stay safe.

Breaking News:

Palisades fire started as backyard fire.

I'm glad it wasn't deliberate but still.

likely a kid with a magnifying glass

just found out my friend's brothers BOTH lost their houses overnight

jesus that's awful

the palisades fire is at 12000 acres now from what I’ve seen

my fiancé is a primary care doctor at ucla olive view, which is hundreds of feet from an evacuation order zone (due to the hurst fire). was super worried about her last night

lots of schools wound up closing early today, and again it was absolutely stupid for LAUSD to not just shut down the entire district for the day as of last night while this is going on.

BUSINESSES Burned or Destroyed in Altadena - I will update throughout the day. (Estimated 1,100 businesses destroyed)
▪️▪️▪️▪️▪️▪️
▪️Christmas Tree Lane
▪️Grocery Outlet
▪️Waldorf School
▪️Rancho Bar
▪️Ace Smoke Shop
▪️EZ Stop
▪️Brake Masters
▪️Rite Aid
▪️Sheriff Station
▪️Aveson Elementary
▪️Franklin Elementary
▪️Altadena Hardware
▪️The Lighting Company/corner. ofGlenrose&Altadena Dr.
▪️Super King
▪️Mountain View Mortuary
▪️Altadena Town and Country Club
▪️Side Pie Pizza
▪️Lifeline Fellowship Christian Church
▪️Elliot Arts Magnet
▪️Eaton Canyon Golf Course

Also the alto_beta gallery

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEk14uOSDz7/

Downtown Altadena is close to the hills but not *that* close.

Palisades at 16,000 acres

1,000 structures burned

Only one church? *shrug* At least they listed it as a business.

(I'm sure the fires will come for me in the summer, don't worry.)

This is ominous https://bsky.app/profile/bradleyewing.bsky.social/post/3lfb6zeiudc26

yep. that’s not hillside estates. there is some real density there. unimaginable

N Lake Av in Altadena is… gone! Trying to get my head around it

I’ve never wanted to punch anyone in the face harder than the MAGA shitbricks brigading into fire chats with “haha California deserves this”

wait, where was this?

https://bsky.app/profile/badideas.bsky.social/post/3lf7nala74s2y

God I <3 Mike Davis. RIP

Yikes, this Altadena fire is far scarier as the winds are blowing the fire directly into town instead of the ocean.

wasserman is reaching pharma-bro levels of tone-deaf notoriety

Critical fire weather will last through Friday for portions of LA and Ventura counties, including major wildfire locations such as the #PalisadesFire, the #EatonFire, and the #HurstFire. Gusty winds and very dry conditions will continue to fuel fire starts and existing fires. pic.twitter.com/Uh0EPRJapN

— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) January 9, 2025

New fire in Hollywood Hills.

Fuck!

This is nuts, I'm watching just explode

https://abc7.com/

It's about a half mile away from Hollywood Blvd

Topanga evacuated according to a friend who lives there

fuck

Real Day of the Locust vibes with this Hollywood Hills fire right now

this guy is the best streamer, cuts between news and maps but is otherwise an extremely serious academic California weather and wildfire nerd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRnFQXKMJs0

that Hollywood fire looks like it could get real, real bad real soon. it's feet from standard neighborhoods and moving toward them.

Superimposing the street names/routes helps so much with those aerial views on ABC7.

jfc altadena

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5kahvhco3k5ocqyp6x5rxldd/bafkreifvbvqcr75c7qt4uzghc7f6kn3fiavye3pksumzxjxa3ikoxprnpa@jpeg

via https://bsky.app/profile/paulpmurphy.bsky.social/post/3lfbk3o5kdc2m

yeah it looks huge already. bad news for me too since were downwind of it in westwood. at least we’re renters I guess

fwiw weather west is not saying don't worry about the sunset fire, but he does not expect it to turn into another eaton fire

They moved the Monday Night Rams game to Arizona

The Hollywood Hills fire looked like trouble and grew big very fast. Today the Santa Ana winds have died down where they're making water drops via air support.

So far, hopefully stays this way, no structure damage only brush.

This data table was particularly enlightening:

https://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we13a.php

Historical rainfall in LA for July-December averages: 3.99 inches
Rainfall totals in LA for July-December 2024 was: 0.16 inches

The drought has caused the canyons and foothills to dry up like tinderboxes then add some freakish unseasonal January Santa Anas to that mix and you get this current infernal maelstrom.

I looked at some long range forecasts to see if and when it will ever rain again in the Los Angeles area and in 3.5 weeks there was one single day with a 50% chance of 0.05 inches of rain.

In that Altadena satellite picture you can see how Eaton Canyon acted as a flamethrower on the central part of town.

Back home now. Really really tired

I looked at some long range forecasts to see if and when it will ever rain again in the Los Angeles area and in 3.5 weeks there was one single day with a 50% chance of 0.05 inches of rain.

On the SoCal hiking group I'm part of, a poster in Idyllwild mentioned that this was the first time in recorded history that there wasn't any snow on the San Jacintos

A really intense house fire just blew up in the Hills of Studio City due south of the Whitsett/Ventura intersection

Couple that with a fresh flare up in Brentwood

multiple xp
and that's on top of two years of above average rain, which produced a lot of undergrowth.

Elvis Telecom glad to hear you and yours are home and in good shape

Been watching the Studio City fire and seems like a house fire that got out of hand

I guessed right, news said house fire

KNBC said they have been on the air, with no commercials, for 35 straight hours.

Couple that with a fresh flare up in Brentwood

― omar little, Wednesday, January 8, 2025 9:24 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

where was this?

we went back to our apt in westwood tonight to pack up the rest of our valuables and keepsakes just in case the hollywood fire got out of control. thankfully seems like it might not be huge

that flareup was on Rustic Canyon Rd iirc but maybe not a new fire but just more of the Palisades fire pushing down a bit.

the tally of friends or friends of friends who lost their homes is presently at ten, for us.

Omg the overhead shots this morning are insane and so heartbreaking

just saw it confirmed by a friend of a friend that the Nature Friends lodge in Sierra Madre, where my husband and i got married in 2019, burned down. one loss among innumerable losses but i'm feeling all kinds of fucked up about it.

A publicist I know has started a Google docs listing for music industry folks needing help:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jyJ-NM2qP-iRk1LJ8l3dc7e0M3IhHlo3E7Agvo9JOAQ/edit

sweet detail deep in that otherwise devastating collection of names/stories/etc., from publicist Kathryn Frazier of Biz 3:

"This home took every penny I had and never ever would have happened without the generosity of Daft Punk who shared an unexpected bonus that allowed me to put a downpayment on this property when my publicist salary at the time would not have allowed."

Nature Friends lodge in Sierra Madre

Aww that sucks... we have a couple in the Bay Area and they're awesome spots for a cold mug of beer and a brot

my buddy in LA who works for the City of Burbank Parks Dept reminded me that the area also has a long history of brutal landslides.. so when heavy rains do come, we have that to look forward to

From a friend who went through the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa some years back and lost her house then. People here who know people who have similar losses now might want to pass this on (Jessica was the author of another advice post she was responding to):

As a Tubbs Fire survivor who went through the rebuild process I have to add this:
1. When you save receipts write down in the back exactly what it was for.
2. Start a diary of every single interaction with the insurance company. We were handed off to 5 different agents and told many things. We got a small check and then couldn’t get anything for another 3 months. Write down names, email, phone numbers and WHO you spoke to and the nature of the conversation. Ask for them to email you a summary of what was said or agreed upon!
3. Get divider tabs for your 3 ring notebook and have sections for utilities, insurance, personal belongings, rebuild process, etc. This was my “bible”. It went everywhere with complete documentation. You may normally be a person on top of things with a sharp memory but your entire world has been turned upside down.
4. PTSD is real. Get ready.
5. Don’t be stoic. Take advantage of friends willing to help whether it is to do your laundry, make a meal, give you a place to stay, or give you clothing. This runs out soon.
6. Secure housing ASAP! This was a huge problem in our community. Some of the closest rentals ended up being 1.5 hours away by the time people got insurance checks to look for housing.
7. Like Jessica said above. BREATHE…

An ex-GF lost her family home in the Tubbs Fire in Coffey Park in Santa Rosa... her dad never got over it. He took to a chair and sat there for a year or so and then died, it was pretty sad (they'd bought the house in early 80s I think)

Yeah my friend's house in Altadena had this fantastic backyard with a giant treehouse, a chicken coup, turtles, and some outbuildings. And some wooden kayaks they had built. All gone. But they're OK at least.

My parents lost their home is the cedar fires of 03. It sent my father into a spiral of depression and mental health issues that followed him to the grave years later.

just saw it confirmed by a friend of a friend that the Nature Friends lodge in Sierra Madre, where my husband and i got married in 2019, burned down. one loss among innumerable losses but i'm feeling all kinds of fucked up about it.

― donna rouge, Thursday, January 9, 2025 10:55 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

:( this is so sad

Really sitting with the emotional & psychological damage that it does to people to lose a home. I've seen more coverage of the perspective of people who get insurance money and rebuild and talk about how it's hard but worth it; thanks for the sobering reminder that the loss is a trauma that not everyone recovers from. I'm so sorry for the person Andy knows and for your dad, carne asada, for having had to endure it.

My parents experienced the near-total destruction of a place they lived, insurance paid back little, the people who destroyed it had to be sued, and my folks never really got the value of what they had lost so they re-built it by themselves over months of back-breaking labor at an age when they should not have been doing that. I'm so grateful for their ability to brace up under the shock and face the size of the task, and still find joy and peace and appreciation for what they have. (It wasn't our family home though it was a significant asset and a huge loss.)

new fire in west hills just north of calabasas

Jesus I’m so sorry for all of you.

the area is very remote, not a lot of people there and also not many tall trees. hopefully can dump on it

ugh seeing some footage now and it might be closer to residential areas than I assumed based on the map

FD says fire has the potential to get to 1,000 acres within the next 30 minutes. https://t.co/Mkp9Xs3aSg

— Los Angeles Scanner (@LosAngeles_Scan) January 9, 2025

https://i.imgur.com/sfZ31Ha.jpeg" class="noborder">

This one is too close

https://i.imgur.com/sfZ31Ha.jpeg

sorry so huge

My wife has lots of friends in Altadena. 3 have lost their homes. One sent round an Amazon wish list for their kids which got me.

omar where are you located?

Woodland Hills/West Hills border… it’s heading away from here now. It was very briefly absolutely fucking terrifying.

just heard on the radio that the winds have shifted a bit and the humidity is rising... hoping it keeps going this way

jesus man, hope your turf stays ok. this shit can literally pop off anywhere at any minute

Looks like they arrested someone for starting that fire.

oh man

hope that fucker rots if true

Is there speculation on the sources of the other fires at all?

I don’t know, but apparently they arrested this guy after local residents grabbed him while he was trying to start a second fire south of Ventura Blvd. and east of Topanga Canyon Boulevard

Which is several miles away from that first fire

I was spooked that this situation would bring out the homicidal pyromaniacs and it looks like it did at least in this case

jesus

Couple of friends in Altadena have lost houses. Ms. T's brother mentioned that 10 of his friends have all lost their homes.

I haven't really written about it here, but a couple years ago I joined the crew of tech volunteers who help keep the historic telescopes at the Mount Wilson Observatory in good running order. Really got knotted up when I saw that last set of photos from the Mt Harvard 2 webcam... holy fuck
https://ops.alertcalifornia.org/cam-console/2169

Barf
https://polymarket.com/event/will-palisades-fire-spread-to-santa-monica-by-sunday?tid=1736484298747

One of the Super Scoopers is grounded because it hit a drone
https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/video/skycal-gets-a-look-at-the-super-scooper-damaged-by-civilian-drone-over-palisades-fire/

KNBC has just completed 60 hours of nonstop coverage with no commercials.

This fire is one of the worst things I have ever experience I have ever lived through. And I'm not directly effective.