LA Fires: Jan 2025

[jamesdeluxe]

California fires happen frequently and there have been other discussions here about those affecting ski areas. Since this event is hitting the state's biggest metro region, I'll start a separate thread.

I've been reading coverage from several sources (but not the LA Times, which is still paywalling its fire content). As always in a blue state, the NY Post's "flamethrowing" articles are the most confrontational, taking shots at Dem leaders for corruption and mismanagement, Governor Newsom for blaming locals, Mayor Bass for flying off to Africa despite forecasts of inferno-friendly weather conditions, along with a reminder of gazillionaire podcaster Joe Rogan's predictions of fires that run through LA to the ocean years ago, and more in coming days, I'm sure.

Any opinions about where to assign blame other than the Santa Anas or is this just the price of admission to live in certain parts of the Golden State (there's really nothing that can be done differently)? As my mother would say, "you can have it!"

 

[jimk]

Too many people living on hot, dry hillsides. A lot of movie stars and celebrities disrupted this time.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I’m at Mammoth will be home tomorrow.

At least 90% Santa Ana’s. 0% climate change. 0% state water fire/policy, which is fair game for discussion of fires in NorCal forests.

NY Post article says LA City has. 114 water storage tanks and that the 3 in Palisades were exhausted after 15 hours, as was whatever served Altadena. These are obviously dedicated tanks at elevation to maintain water pressure. It’s Monday morning quarterbacking to say there should have been more of them.

Dumb or scandalous behavior by local officials make good press but I’m not sure are relevant to the fires or the water supply.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I have a lot of LA weather data/info and I’ll get around to posting some of that after I get home

 

[ChrisC]

Generally northern California gets enough rain to limits it fire window.

South Florida is a mess that has not been triggered in 10-15 years. The desirable neighborhoods of Brickell, weest Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale canals - flood yearly due to lunar tides. Seriously.

There is definitely a major (maybe only cat 3) to wipeout Southb Frlorida expensive areas.

My partner has a beach place in Naples - they are paying to exist. Buy lots took $3 m buyout for Miami type towers.

Whats more troublesome is crypto is back?! Miami coin, Trump coin…..
The city is just cringe. I think I want to sell my place to a crypto prick.

 

[tseeb]

Just heard on CNN that fire damage cost may be $20B. And some homeowners were recently dropped from insurance and had not been able to replace it.

 

[ChrisC]

It really got some of the most expensive real estate in LA.
I yell after SF hikes….. And Florida... Mess ( should be a state fund) but I'm going without flood because I'm nearly 9ft

 

[ChrisC]

It really got some of the most expensive real estate in LA.
I yell after SF hikes….. And Florida... Mess ( should be a state fund) but I'm going without flood because I'm nearly 9ft

I think my partner thinks... You can have your shitty car….. Your swamp in in SE Ft Lauderdale Florida.…. But Naples is going to be good

 

[Tony Crocker]

Liz has a good friend in Naples. Naples took a direct hit from Irma in 2017. Why is Naples safer than Miami? Not so much at low elevation? Liz' house in Belleaire Bluffs is 32 ft (yes, that constitutes a bluff in Florida!), no flood vulnerability but wind can be an issue since it's old construction.

It really got some of the most expensive real estate in LA.

Yes, last big fire to hit such a premium SoCal residential area was Bel Air 1961. Detail LAFD report here very much brings a deja vu aspect to the current situation in Pacific Palisades. Even though I was not quite 9 years old, I have a clear memory of the Bel Air Fire as a very big deal at the time.

 

[tseeb]

If anyone wants to donate through Red Cross for LA fires, you can use https://www.redcross.org/donate/cm/kcal-pub.html/ - I did.

 

[socal]

So I live in the hills above UCLA and my son's club soccer team is based out of the Palisades where most of the families live, this hits very close to home. Half of his team lost their houses. The idea that too much building in the hills is the cause is wrong in this case, most of the houses burned were in the flat part of the Palisades where you see whole neighborhoods wiped out. Sadly, and ironically the area in the Palisades that did the best, and where we have family that lives is the place deepest into the hills, the Highlands. I marked the area with the green box from todays briefing.

This was just a once in a generation event coupled with a lack of preparedness. When the fire broke out Tuesday they did their best against strong winds but from past experience with fires very close by i didn't see any large or very large tankers in the air dropping fire retardant. They were either shut down for the season or just not leased as usual. The DC 10's didn't arrive until yesterday (see my link for photos) and we didn't see any of the chinook's until Wednesday night.

They could have set fire lines to the south of the fire (the flat part of the Palisades). Tuesday night the winds were just insane, we had 50-60mph gusts, unlike anything i've ever seen, it grounded all the helicoopers they could use for defense. The winds were blowing mostly southward so it just blew the fire down the hillside into the houses in the flat areas and once that happened there was nothing they could do.

Would having all of the right assets available on Tuesday have saved the Palisades, not sure but it would have given them a chance.

Here's a link of my photos from the past few days, they've been working to keep the fire from spreading east and also west in Topanga, we have a nice view of it from across the street from us. Link to Photos

 

[jamesdeluxe]

large tankers in the air dropping fire retardant

I read an article that mentioned how toxic that pink stuff is (lots of heavy metals), which they drop before the fire arrives. Not meant for heavily populated areas but they had no choice here.

 

[socal]

Maybe, but it’s not really the question, they have been and continue to use it, so irrelevant to this conversation in my opinion. Someone didn’t prepare properly and we know that because we literally have lived through the response several times in the past 10 years. It’s not partisan, it competency. No one would’ve known if this didn’t happen, that’s the point of preparation.

 

[Tony Crocker]

As noted before I was not here, but I was under the impression that the winds were too strong Tuesday for any aircraft to operate in the fire areas.

 

[snowtrekker]

I strongly suspect that the winds were the reason you didn’t see any aircraft dropping retardant or helicopters on Tuesday, rather than lack of availability. No-fly conditions are characteristic of the worst Santa Ana events, and this one was at least as bad as any I remember.

Clearly the immediate causes for these getting out of control were the 70+ mph winds (in the foothills!) combined with a record dry start to the water year. The only truly preventative solution I know of amounts to mowing / brushing the thousands of acres in the wildland urban interface, and good luck in with that in the terrain we have. There are probably some building design / code decisions that would have helped (minimizing vents that allow embers to get into your attic, etc) though you can’t fault someone for not thinking about that when you’re so many blocks into the flatlands (eg, downtown Altadena)

We know California has always been notorious for precipitation volatility, particularly here in the south. I’ve seen several papers showing that’s likely to increase in a warming world along with becoming more concentrated in mid winter (thus leading to dryer starts to more overlap with peak Santa Ana season). I’m curious what Tony’s data has to say.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

As someone watching from the other end of the country -- amongst so many painful impacts, the architectural losses are especially sad to see, such as the before/after pix below of the Will Rogers house. One comment points out how impressive it is that many of these buildings lasted as long as they did being built in, basically, gorgeous fire traps (some had survived near misses during previous fires). I'm sure locals have personal stories about what is now gone.

 

[snowave]

I strongly suspect that the winds were the reason you didn’t see any aircraft dropping retardant or helicopters on Tuesday, rather than lack of availability. No-fly conditions are characteristic of the worst Santa Ana events, and this one was at least as bad as any I remember.

Clearly the immediate causes for these getting out of control were the 70+ mph winds (in the foothills!) combined with a record dry start to the water year. The only truly preventative solution I know of amounts to mowing / brushing the thousands of acres in the wildland urban interface, and good luck in with that in the terrain we have. There are probably some building design / code decisions that would have helped (minimizing vents that allow embers to get into your attic, etc) though you can’t fault someone for not thinking about that when you’re so many blocks into the flatlands (eg, downtown Altadena)

We know California has always been notorious for precipitation volatility, particularly here in the south. I’ve seen several papers showing that’s likely to increase in a warming world along with becoming more concentrated in mid winter (thus leading to dryer starts to more overlap with peak Santa Ana season). I’m curious what Tony’s data has to say.

Spot on analysis.

From what I've heard, aircraft were indeed grounded for much of the worst part of the devastation due to the severe winds. All the planning in the world won't prevent a 50+mph firestorm from going wherever it wants. I've heard fire specialists say that embers were reported up to 2 miles from fires... another reason why in these extreme cases, there's realistically nothing you can do.

 

[Tony Crocker]

when you’re so many blocks into the flatlands (eg, downtown Altadena)

Yes, by Google Earth I measure the Eaton fire burning about a mile south of the mountain interface.

The idea that too much building in the hills is the cause is wrong in this case, most of the houses burned were in the flat part of the Palisades where you see whole neighborhoods wiped out.

Even though I'm a SoCal native, my first impression was that Palisades was like 1961 Bel Air, which was exclusively in the foothills and canyons of Bel Air and Brentwood. Sunset Blvd was built mostly just below the mountain interface. But with more Google Earth browsing I see big differences in the Palisades. First, much of the destroyed area is south of Sunset, plus a sector NE of Palisades Village is still below the mountain interface. The greater density of homes in the flats is a big reason why 484 homes burned in 1961 vs. 10x as many this week.

FYI I live about 1/4 mile below Brand Park, and the Verdugo Mountains rise 2,000 feet above the park. View from my front yard:

The knoll in the background just above the bushy palm tree is my routine exercise objective, about 800 feet up. In September 2002 a fire started behind the park and burned all the way up to the ridgeline. In November when I was in South Africa a Santa Ana wind blew 50 pounds of ash off the mountain into our pool.

There was smaller fire just west of the park in June 2014. Liz had been here about a year and wanted to check it out.

We climbed into the hills east of the park and made our way into my usual hiking area for a view of helicopters dropping water and fire crews forming a perimeter.

Well over half of the time when there are Santa Ana wind warnings we get nothing. But the really big ones like last Tuesday blow everywhere. We just had a new fence installed but had not yet bought a latch for its gate. The wind shredded a 2x4 and broke off the gate.

The largest fire in our eastern half of the Verdugo Mountains in March (!) 1964 started in Eagle Rock and burned 30 homes there and in Glendale/Burbank but none in our immediate neighborhood. Our 94 year old neighbor saw a fireball come out of the park and cross the street at the top of our block.

My home insurance increased only 13% between 2015 and 2019 but 156% since then.

 

[Tony Crocker]

On these boards we covered the Aug/Sep 2009 Station Fire extensively as it threatened Mt. Waterman. I also explored the Sep. 2020 Bobcat Fire burn area in spring 2021. Even though Waterman was not damaged by either fire, it was closed for the ensuing ski seasons due to road damage and cleanup operations. And just last September the Bridge Fire burned into Mt. High but with minimal damage to facilities.

All of these summer fires occurred during summer heat waves but were not Santa Ana wind events. Even though massive forest acreage was burned, firefighters were generally successful keeping them out of densely populated areas. This was also true for the Sep. 2017 La Tuna Fire, which burned the western half of the Verdugo Mountains but only destroyed 5 homes.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Santa Ana wind description from that 1961 LAFD report:

The initial formation of the Santa Ana winds occurs as a large, cold air mass from the polar regions of the Pacific moves south into the arid interior areas of Utah, Nevada, and eastern California. From these barren wastes, the mass travels south and south-westward, influenced by atmospheric pressure differentials between the interior areas and the reaches of the Pacific Ocean. As the currents flow across the arid deserts and into the passes and canyons of the coastal mountains, they are dried and heated. Under conditions of moderate barometric gradients, the winds funnel through the passes; compressing to increase velocities to gale force. If pressure gradients are excessive, the winds will pour directly over the mountains to strike the Los Angeles Basin a few miles south of the foothills. In such instances, great clouds of dust are raised to tinge the skies. Temperatures are raised by compressional heating as the wind currents descend to progressively lower levels.

I've read variations of this description many places. The continental air needs to be colder than in the coastal regions for the Santa Ana winds to develop. Southwest summer "heat dome" events can push into the SoCal coastal plains but are not accompanied by the offshore winds. Santa Anas are historically a fall/winter phenomenon and my gut feeling from living here 60+ years is that they are less frequent than when I was growing up. That's because we remember best the September/October Santa Anas that drive temperatures over 100F more than the winter ones that only get into the 80's.

I’m curious what Tony’s data has to say.

A few years ago I found a dataset of the record high and low tempertures for every date of the year. How many dates does Los Angeles have a record low of 80F or higher and when are they? There are 13 dates, 12 in September and one in October. This is to me a clear cut Santa Ana marker because there are zero such dates in July and August. It is well known that summer temperatures in continental North America have risen disproportionately with global warming. Of those 13 dates with lows 80+F, the last one was in 1988. So I believe that September is now usually too warm in the Utah/Nevada high pressure formation area of Santa Anas for them to develop, just as July and August always have been.

IMHO the "climate change component" of Santa Ana winds is a reduced risk factor for destructive fires because the Santa Anas are more confined to cooler months than historically.