I asked earlier but can't recall the reply -- did they catch the person who crashed into Lonnie and make him pay his bills?
LA Fires: Jan 2025
- Thread starter jamesdeluxe
- Start date
Yes he knows who the guy is. It was not hit and run. But Lonnie is as yet unwilling to pay a P.I. to investigate his finances. The lawyers he consulted are not willing to proceed without such an investigation. The culprit allegedly lives with his girlfriend who is a renter and thus there is no personal liability insurance. The culprit was allegedly unemployed but previously worked for a tech company in S.F. Statute of limitation to file a case is two years.
Most were for looting.
Neither LAPD nor ATF has commented on any results of the just initiated investigations.
We had planned to go to snowbird since it's a holiday weekend anyway but figuring if they don't have school we could leave on Thursday which makes non Utah destinations make more sense. We had planned to ski Sat, Sun, and half Monday before a 6pm flight. Not a lot of other places you can ski the day you leave.
Redmond airport is half an hour from Bachelor with a few direct flights.
Schweitzer is 2 hours from Spokane airport.
I'm guessing the kids are young enough that it won't kill them if they miss school next Tuesday. In any case you have the excuse that you blew town when the schools delayed reopening so long.
Schweitzer is 2 hours from Spokane airport.
I'm guessing the kids are young enough that it won't kill them if they miss school next Tuesday. In any case you have the excuse that you blew town when the schools delayed reopening so long.
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Makes sense, I guess -- private firefighters hired by insurance companies -- but I don't think I'd ever heard of such a thing before. Apparently, it's been around for a while.
EMSC
Well-known member
A very long while. I get emails every late spring from my very normal insurance company saying if a wildfire comes up its possible they may send firefighters of their own (no guarantees of course).
If I recall my history, private firefighters existed long before the now common public funded ones. If you didn't pay your monthly premiums (think 1800's where everything was wooden), then the firefighting company didn't come to put out a fire at your house at all - but they might stop by your neighbor who did pay and ensure that his house didn't catch on fire.
Last I knew there were still a handful of places in very rural areas that still operate that way. There is no public funding available, but some people/businesses directly fund the fire department for service. Also are many private 'fire depts' located at medium to large businesses with high risk facilities (eg mfg plants, petrochemicals, etc...).
EMSC
Well-known member
Quite a few for such a tiny airport.
Even Jet service is a big deal (in my thought patterns anyway), as last time I flew there it was (a long time ago) from PDX in a TINY 20 seat twin prop where they could barely fit the luggage in and the thing bounced around like crazy going over the mountains. Talk about turbulence!
Thanks for the edumacation -- who knew? (not me!) Given the multitudes of military people/dependents who must live in the region, I wonder if my insurance company (USAA) is sending out squadrons of private firefighters.
This guy didn't have a plan in place, tried to throw money at the problem in an obnoxious way, got a social-media beatdown, and still lost his house:
$3M home of LA CEO Keith Wasserman, who offered ‘any amount’ for private protection, burns down in Palisades Fire
LA County’s official recovery website lists Keith Wasserman’s address as “destroyed” — with a photo of the once-handsome home reduced to a pile of burnt rubble.
nypost.com
I always wondered why they didn't dump seawater on fires from planes; however, this article points out two (in retrospect, obvious) reasons to avoid it:
:focal(1504x981:1505x982)/https%3A%2F%2Ftf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffiler_public%2F2a%2F85%2F2a85d734-170c-4e8a-9171-e90bf6abac0e%2Fsimi_valley_fire_california_usa_credit_us_air_force.jpg)
www.smithsonianmag.com
Firefighting Planes Are Dumping Ocean Water on the Los Angeles Fires—Why Using Saltwater Is Typically a Last Resort
In Los Angeles,
www.smithsonianmag.com
Here is the analysis I expected from Cliff Mass.
Liz has a different theory. The day after Trump won the election, the Mountain Fire in Ventura County broke out and eventually burned 20,000 acres and 243 structures. The day after Trump was certified by Congress, the Palisades and Eaton Fires started. The Santa Anas are returning to SoCal tomorrow as Trump is being inaugurated....
Liz has a different theory. The day after Trump won the election, the Mountain Fire in Ventura County broke out and eventually burned 20,000 acres and 243 structures. The day after Trump was certified by Congress, the Palisades and Eaton Fires started. The Santa Anas are returning to SoCal tomorrow as Trump is being inaugurated....
ChrisC
Well-known member
I read that Chaparral is the most combustible type of vegetation. We don't quite get as many fires in the Bay Area as LA. But of course, we are impacted many times by surrounding fires.
After the Oakland/Berkeley Hills fires, they bring in goats all summer to eat down vegetation.
When I drove down/moved from Seattle to SF, I wanted to stop by Crater Lake NP. Unfortunately, it was a fire year, and smoke filled the entire lake basin, and you could not see anything.
After the Oakland/Berkeley Hills fires, they bring in goats all summer to eat down vegetation.
When I drove down/moved from Seattle to SF, I wanted to stop by Crater Lake NP. Unfortunately, it was a fire year, and smoke filled the entire lake basin, and you could not see anything.
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Wildfires prompt evacuations near San Diego amid relentless Santa Ana winds
As wildfires continued to burn in Los Angeles, three fires broke out in San Diego County, prompting evacuation orders and warnings.
www.usatoday.com
This fire yesterday at a Turkish ski resort was much more serious:
Dozens dead as people jump from windows to escape fire at Turkish ski resort hotel
Witnesses say people used bed sheets or jumped to try to get out of the 12-storey Grand Kartal hotel after fire broke out early in the morning
www.theguardian.com
berkshireskier
Active member
Yea, my late father, when he traveled, would never stay above the second floor of a hotel (especially if it was an older wooden hotel), just in case a fire broke out and he had to jump out the window.The San Diego fires are as yet small, but one of them is forcing evacuations.Wildfires prompt evacuations near San Diego amid relentless Santa Ana winds
As wildfires continued to burn in Los Angeles, three fires broke out in San Diego County, prompting evacuation orders and warnings.www.usatoday.com
This fire yesterday at a Turkish ski resort was much more serious:
More deaths than Palisades + Eaton.Dozens dead as people jump from windows to escape fire at Turkish ski resort hotel
Witnesses say people used bed sheets or jumped to try to get out of the 12-storey Grand Kartal hotel after fire broke out early in the morning
Hughes Fire near Castaic is 9,000+ acres and 0% contained.
Doom scrolling! Tony, do you know anyone who's called it a day out there?
nypost.com
The LA wildfires have sparked an exodus to NYC
The ongoing California wildfires have forced some residents to flee — and New York City is quickly becoming their landing pad.
nypost.com
+1 And the entertainment industry where many of these people work has been contracting since COVID.
Liz is still happy she moved here from the Upper East Side 12 years ago.
L.A. Times' cover article today is about how the the Coffey Park area of Santa Rosa (Tubbs Fire was California record at the time for 5,636 homes burned in one fire), from October 2017 is almost completely rebuilt now. Construction is different and there's not much vegetation planted close to the new houses. I would expect Palisades will be rebuilt similarly. This is an analogy to ChrisC's comments about rebuilds on Florida barrier islands.
Both Palisades and Eaton will end up with final burned home counts in the ballpark with Tubbs.
Altadena rebuild may be complex. The primary commercial north-south street, Lake Ave., was a redlining barrier into the 1970's. East of Lake and close to the mountains has high-end housing comparable to the Palisades at least on larger lots than most of Westside L.A. West of Lake was the historic Black community and is still majority minority. The houses are more modest but they are still mostly single family owner occupied.
Another L.A. Times article today is about how the homes west of Lake Ave. did not get evacuation warnings until 3:30AM when the fire had already reached that area about 2AM. The east of Lake homes were warned at 7:30PM, an hour after the fire started. All 17 Eaton Fire deaths were west of Lake. Eaton Canyon is east of Altadena so there is some logic that side was threatened first. But the fire did not burn directly east to west. It burned up Eaton Canyon into the foothills and then the Santa Ana winds blew the fire NE to SW over a mile into the populated areas on both east and west sides of Altadena. Google Map here:
Note red X of origin point far to the east with dashed lines of fire spread. Lake Ave. is the street horizontal on the map with the word "Altadena" along it and the Cobb Estate where it dead ends into the foothills to the left.
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I lived for a number of years in a leafy part of Brooklyn with attractive brownstones near Prospect Park -- about as good as it gets in NYC for me -- and I still wasn't a fan of being a big city resident. Chicago and Montreal were more my speed.
I can't imagine living on the Upper East Side (or virtually anywhere in Manhattan for that matter) unless you have serious cash reserves to cushion the downsides.