@LASteve and any others in California,
Keep seeing appalling pictures and videos of the wildfires in LA. We hope you and your family are safe and your house is OK. Keep us posted.
All the best,
Chris
I'll second that,
As someone who lives in a province with a 'wildfire season' I have some idea of the stress and danger this causes. I hope you are safe and well
Graham
Third that
Keep safe Steve and Jill
Hope you are managing
@Papyrus Thank you for you kind thoughts. We are okay but pretty close to the Altadena fire (there are at least three separate fires). We are about two miles south of the mandatory evacuation line. The winds were very fierce yesterday evening and we had to dismantle a large canopy my daughter has on her driveway (she lives across the street) to prevent it blowing away.
The air quality is very poor and I think over 1,000 homes have been destroyed.
The wind dropped about 9:00am local time last night and things quietened down in our area. Fortunately we did not lose power.
Our pool is completely full of leaves but, considering what others are going through, we got off lightly (so far).
LA Ian
Ian
Have you power ?
Can you manage to keep warm / cook a meal ?
Just heard from
@LASteve (and a few other of my friends in the LA area) and so far they're all safe.
Don't take any chances! Be safe Ian!
Some 80,000 people have been told to evacuate.
While there are lots of normal people in the Palisades area there are a particularly large number of very wealthy and highly influential folk there too, with quite a few celebs already reporting they've lost their homes, so this event is likely to shine a very bright spotlight on climate change issues.
Ross.
Quote from: RBTKraisee on January 08, 2025, 08:13:50 PMWhile there are lots of normal people in the Palisades area there are a particularly large number of very wealthy and highly influential folk there too, with quite a few celebs already reporting they've lost their homes, so this event is likely to shine a very bright spotlight on climate change issues.
Ross.
I wouldn't get your hopes up on that. Last time they blamed it on libs not raking the forests properly.
Quote from: crewearpley40 on January 08, 2025, 07:52:16 PMHave you power ?
Can you manage to keep warm / cook a meal ?
We are fine. Even though the winds were very strong in our area yesterday evening, we did not lose power. However, we did see a lot of transformers arcing with big blue flashes on the local neighbourhood power lines.
I just checked and Southern California Edison are reporting over 4,000 power outages with over 3 million people affected in the Los Angeles area.
The funny thing is, right now (1:00pm local time), the weather in our area is warm and sunny with no wind!
Ian
Ross / Ian
Thank you both for the updates.
Quote from: RBTKraisee on January 08, 2025, 08:13:50 PMWhile there are lots of normal people in the Palisades area there are a particularly large number of very wealthy and highly influential folk there too, with quite a few celebs already reporting they've lost their homes, so this event is likely to shine a very bright spotlight on climate change issues.
Ross.
Far too many are now counting the cost of refusing to evacuate when informed it was best to do so
Hi all
Thanks for thinking of us. We are OK as we speak, more danger from falling trees and wind damage rather than the fires.
We do have fires on all sides now, the nearest is in Altadena to our East, but no threat.
We've had a good friend/colleague in the Pallisades evacuated yesterday. He doesn't know if his home is still there, he said the fire was getting very close.
The winds that fuel the fire have died down somewhat. All LA City, LA County, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena fire departments are deployed. Our nephew is with LADF Brigade 14 and hasn't stopped for 36 hours.
This was the view this morning from the house. The branch from the neighbor's tree is about 100lbs, amazing how heavy a bit of tree is.
We've just been affected by power outages, but heck, we'll take that. First World Problems Squared.
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/148/6889-090125001001.png) (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=148377)
The winds are dying down now which helps. :beers: to all the fire departments.
Stay safe (Derek)
I can understand all of this concern. As is widely known, here in Australia we have the same problem. During some fires, burning leaves have actually landed on Chez Bealman.
Fires are horrific. Good to know forum members close to the California fires are safe. :thumbsup:
Authorities say the winds are expected to pick up again tonight.
1500 fire fighters at work, many doing 36 hour shifts.
180,000 ordered to evacuate.
I'm sure I speak for all of us when wishing everyone in the area all the very best! Stay Safe!!
Ross.
My sister lost her house in a housefire a decade ago. Having seen that devastation, I can imagine how frightening it must be for our LA correspondents. Please stay safe, all.
This may seem like a frivolous or idiotic addition to this thread, but it isn't meant to be, so here goes...
It seems to me that part of the problem lies in the way US houses are built. In the UK we are used to the majority of our housing stock being constructed of brick, stone, tile and slate - all non-flammable. (For the purposes of this I am leaving out the dreadful mistakes made with cladding on high-rise blocks.) In America, however, most houses seem to be built, to quote Pete Seeger, out of ticky-tacky, ie. timber and only the chimney is made out of brick. This means that if the house catches fire, the whole structure goes. Not only that, in the case of wildfires, all this extra combustible material just adds more fuel. Similarly, in tornado and hurricane prone areas, the houses just get smashed to pieces, whereas with a brick or stone structure the roof might go but the rest will stand. Can someone explain why the US building industry persists with this?
Anyway, I am glad to hear our Forum members are OK and I hope it stays that way. Look after yourselves.
Cheers,
Chris
This is an interesting article on the why's of American house building.
https://engines.egr.uh.edu/episode/779
But to put it simply, wood is cheap over here and you don't need skilled craftspeople to build a house.
Regards,
John P
Quote from: jpendle on January 10, 2025, 04:30:40 PMThis is an interesting article on the why's of American house building.
https://engines.egr.uh.edu/episode/779
But to put it simply, wood is cheap over here and you don't need skilled craftspeople to build a house.
Regards,
John P
First, I am so very glad that forum members in LA are safe.
Living in a country where everyone knows that many types of disaster can strike at any time, no matter how much one physically prepares, when it does happen it is very distressing and so my heart reaches out.
Turning to
@jpendle 's link. Very interesting back story.
Here in the land of Wa fire has always been a major concern (to be seen in the significant size of the professional and neighbourhood volunteer fire services). Its up there along with the earthquakes, tsunami and typhoons. Especially in this winter dry season. Traditional wooden houses are like tinder boxes and have historically been very closely packed together.
We sadly see the results, especially after earthquakes. Images from visiting a fire site in Kobe after the 1995 earthquake still stick in my mind.
And its not just earthquakes but also regular kitchen fires that can cause a major fire - especially where restaurants in tightly packed old neighborhoods cook using large wok type pans on big open gas burners. Of course there is an element that wants to rebuild in traditional style however in recent times things have changed - unlike after past earthquakes ( such as the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 ) or the multiple firestorms of WWII, rebuilding is no longer "more of the same".
Nowadays houses are now largely constructed from kits of parts prefabricated in factories, delivered as a kit and hung on a frame built on a good solid concrete base. They are not necessarily built to last more than a lifetime (the norm here when buying a house is still to buy for the land value, clear the house that is there and build a new one ) however they are much safer in terms or both the ability to flex in an earthquake and resistance to fire.
Also, although gas is still widely used for heating water and cooking, the use of plug in gas stoves at the end of flexible rubber pipes (they plug into a gas socket on the wall using a bayonet plug - like an advanced version of the gas taps of many years ago that were often found beside the fireplace in UK houses of a certain age ) and paraffin stoves which I think is what the US calls white gas, though although still used, especially in the countryside, has greatly declined. This has reduced the monoxide risk as well as the fire risk (not so good for the business of the guys who used to deliver top up jerry cans of paraffin door to door).
Further, wide deployment of gas meters with earthquake detectors (these are now nationwide but were not deployed in Kansai in 1995) and more and more highly sophisticated/computerised gas cookers (they can tell, for example, when a pan sitting on a ring is about to burn ) means things are steadily getting much safer than they were.
One unfortunate result, especially in high density living areas, is an ongoing growth in a homogeny of concrete and plastic paneled buildings that pretty much all look the same ( even though different parts can be order to make the "kit" ). However no matter how much people may hanker for the nicer looking classical style buildings of the past in place of the modern ones, the situation is preferable to the potentially disastrous alternatives. And of course, especially in tourist areas, with money the skin of older buildings can be kept and be fitted with an inner steel and concrete frame which also has 21st century rather than 19th century amenities.
Anyway, what is happening in LA just drives home the importance of the drills and the readiness - these days we live on the 16th floor of a modern 23 storey building which is properly equipped to handle things, but we still get annual evacuation drills, lectures, visits from the fire department and regular inspections of the equipment inside our apartment as well as in the common areas. Having lived in some older buildings here in the past I do appreciate where we live now from a safety aspect.
Still, returning to the start of the conversation, these fires are horrific so the people of LA are very much in my thoughts,
Colin.
Here in Canberra in 2003, we had a catastrophic bushfire (= wildfire in North American parlance) that destroyed in a single afternoon over 500 houses and killed 4. Needless to say in a city of 300,000, this was a very big deal. A couple of the destroyed houses were only about 200m from where I lived and still live. You think you are safe in suburbia, well think again! Bad stuff can happen very quickly like in a few hours.
Virtually all houses here are either totally brick or more commonly what they call brick veneer (an outside of brick on a wooden frame) which you would think is a cladding relatively impervious to being easily set alight. However, what investigators surmised afterwards is that fire got into houses sometimes via the eaves filled with dry combustible leaves perhaps or by radiant heat through the windows that basically caused houses to burn from the inside out.
We did not lose our house, but a lot of people around here did. What's happening to many in L.A. is truly horrible.
Webbo