[HN Gopher] LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL c...
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       LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 115 points
       Date   : 2025-01-08 21:40 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
        
       | zokier wrote:
       | I was wondering why JPL website was not working, I guess this
       | answers that.
        
         | carabiner wrote:
         | It's working fine.
        
           | zokier wrote:
           | https://downfor.io/ssd.jpl.nasa.gov
        
             | carabiner wrote:
             | https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/jpl.nasa.gov
        
         | mulmen wrote:
         | Why would this answer that?
        
         | edm0nd wrote:
         | wat
         | 
         | https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
        
         | KoftaBob wrote:
         | Are you under the impression that their website is hosted on-
         | premises? This ain't the early 90s
        
           | Twisol wrote:
           | As an ex-JPLer, it would not have surprised me for this to be
           | the case even in the early 2010s.
        
       | mrbluecoat wrote:
       | JPL would be a national loss. I hope it doesn't come to that.
       | Stay safe, SoCal folks!
        
         | fidotron wrote:
         | No joke.
         | 
         | I hope these days it's more spread out and backed up, but at
         | one point they did a lot of phyical archiving related to space
         | exploration there, including huge amounts of transparencies.
        
           | markus_zhang wrote:
           | I hope nothing will be damaged! Those are priceless
           | treasures.
        
         | throwup238 wrote:
         | All the big campuses here like JPL and the Getty are built for
         | this (it's more or less standard now for insuring anything high
         | value). They have landscaping designed to slow down fires,
         | dedicated water systems, and firebreaks all around the
         | buildings. The civilian evacuation order is because the area
         | south of the fire is densely built up with single family homes
         | without much in the way of defenses and JPL has to comply with
         | that.
         | 
         | Thankfully the wind has died down significantly from last
         | night, so we're in a better shape, but there are still high
         | wind warnings till 6pm and the fires are 0% contained.
        
           | cindycindy wrote:
           | Will look into options for supporting these folks. Thank you
           | for the level-headed and informative response.
           | 
           | I prefer HN over some other news sources, which seem less
           | concerned about presenting information to the degree the news
           | article can vouch for. Media literacy is a two-way street and
           | we need better reporting standards. If reading and writing is
           | a lot like parsing, then anyone who spreads misinformation is
           | just a parsehole.
        
           | bragr wrote:
           | The Getty Villa has reported that some landscaping burned,
           | but the buildings and collections are safe.
           | 
           | https://www.sfgate.com/la/article/getty-villa-threatened-
           | pal...
        
       | kaycebasques wrote:
       | Map of evacuation zones:
       | https://protect.genasys.com/Search?z=9.689266971108566&latlo...
       | 
       | Looks like 3 independent fires?
        
         | 0xffff2 wrote:
         | Yep, 3 separate fires. The first in West LA blew up late
         | yesterday afternoon and blew through a bunch of residential
         | areas by the looks of it. From watching Flight Radar, it seems
         | to be getting most of the air resources, although that could
         | just be because wind conditions are favorable on that fire
         | today. The second fire near Pasadena started yesterday as well,
         | but really blew up overnight. The third fire up North I think
         | started overnight.
         | 
         | There's been a huge amount of wind throughout So Cal today and
         | yesterday that is driving the rapid spread of these fires.
        
           | Gibbon1 wrote:
           | I saw a video of of it burning down down houses and commecial
           | building Altedena, unlike newscasts where the lip flappers
           | are blabbing over everything you could hear the wind howling
           | and see streams of embers blowing down the street and
           | overhead.
        
             | gamblor956 wrote:
             | The lip flappers, as you call them, are providing valuable
             | information to people who lived and/or worked in the areas
             | where the fires are occurring.
             | 
             | As I type this, ABC7 is providing intersections-specific
             | location information for their reporters-on-the-ground so
             | that people can track the progress of the fire and
             | hopefully determine the status of their houses.
        
       | JumpCrisscross wrote:
       | With much of California, Texas and Florida property damage is
       | concentrated where folks built where they shouldn't have [1]. (At
       | times nudged on by subsidised insurance [2].)
       | 
       | Is that true in this case, too? (Being so close to LA, it doesn't
       | strike me that it could be.) If not, is my general thesis off?
       | 
       | [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1204923950/arizona-
       | california...
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...
        
         | Dalewyn wrote:
         | Deserts are generally uninhabitable by their very nature, but
         | these persistent fires are primarily due to lack of proper
         | underbrush care and other preventative measures.
         | 
         | California fires are a classic case of _" We tried nothing and
         | we're out of ideas!"_, speaking as a former Californian I
         | honestly think the faster solution at this point is for enough
         | of the state to burn down that pretending the problem doesn't
         | exist is no longer good enough.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _Deserts are generally uninhabitable by their very nature_
           | 
           | Deserts don't have wildfires. (EDIT: They do!)
        
             | annoyingnoob wrote:
             | https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-31/york-
             | fir...
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | I stand corrected! I guess the rains caused the desert to
               | burn?
        
               | rurp wrote:
               | Lightning strikes and humans are probably the most common
               | causes for fires in the desert.
               | 
               | Most desert areas in the US are a lot more lush than the
               | blank sand dunes many people think of as desert. Usually
               | there are a lot of bushes and grasses, and higher
               | elevations can pine, juniper, oak, and other trees.
        
               | hparadiz wrote:
               | It's complicated. More rain creates more natural plant
               | growth which inevitably dries out. Some fires are natural
               | (lightning strikes) but humans setting fires increased
               | the wildfire cadence so the fires are more frequent.
               | 
               | Not really sure what the solution is. We can't really
               | just kill all the natural growth during the wet season. I
               | imagine we could create wet forests resistant to fire
               | with better water management but that could also have the
               | exact opposite effect (create more fuel). I'd love to
               | know what agriculturally knowledgeable folks think the
               | best approach here is.
               | 
               | I own property in the area and I've seen torrential rain
               | here the past three winters but this winter is extremely
               | dry. I've also had a hurricane here bring east coast
               | style humidity in the middle of summer for 3 days giving
               | the area a random few inches of rain in the middle of our
               | dry summer. The climate here can be two extremes.
        
             | rurp wrote:
             | Deserts absolutely have wildfires, and are even pretty
             | common in California deserts. The second largest fire in
             | the state for 2023 was the York Fire in the Mojave
             | Desert[0]. There have been many other sizable desert fires
             | in recent years as well.
             | 
             | As with many other landscapes, climate change, drought, and
             | aquifer depletion have made deserts increasingly vulnerable
             | to large wildfires.
             | 
             | [0]https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-31/york
             | -fir...
        
           | linotype wrote:
           | As a current Californian we really don't need that right now.
        
         | grumple wrote:
         | Your thesis is way off, and people didn't understand climate
         | back when these areas were settled. And really, we still don't
         | know how to or can't politically manage wildfires well.
         | 
         | Part of climate change is that this man-induced change is
         | making previously hospitable areas much less so.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _people didn't understand climate back when these areas
           | were settled_
           | 
           | Agree on Palisades. My original thesis is about new
           | construction in Florida and Houston and in _e.g._ the middle
           | of the California woods. That is settlement done when we did
           | know the risks.
        
           | downrightmike wrote:
           | And all the maps are political, like houston is no where near
           | correct, its all flood zone
        
         | esalman wrote:
         | They've actually stopped permitting new builds or rebuild of
         | burned houses in Santa Ana mountains since last year's airport
         | fire.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | Huh, I'm actually surprised a high-risk area is that close to
           | LA. (Santa Monica, no less.)
        
         | xoa wrote:
         | To start with the last first, I would argue your general (and
         | not uncommon) thesis is off in one key respect: it's not
         | primarily (though in some percentage it may be) a matter of
         | people building _where_ they shouldn 't have per se, but that
         | they built _what_ they shouldn 't have _where_ they did. Ie, it
         | 's 100% feasible as a matter of
         | architecture/engineering/construction to build a structure that
         | will shrug off a Cat 5 hurricane including storm surge. And
         | while it adds a real premium, it's also not at some impossible
         | cost either. People have done it, and it works. Same with most
         | other natural disasters. It's "only" a matter of cost and
         | standards. It's worth noting too in many cases societies have
         | indeed done exactly that, like with earthquakes, or in areas of
         | high risk tornadoes. Building standards have been set to match
         | the risk. There is plenty of low hanging fruit that can
         | severely diminish the impact of a lot of the disasters causing
         | massive damage if it's just standard upfront.
         | 
         | Also, there's the complete polar opposite approach: build
         | something "disposable". In the "old days" (including with my
         | extended family) there was a style of "summer camp" for example
         | that was ultra simple. Some small single floor deal,
         | uninsulated, maybe some power but often not even that,
         | composting/pit toilet, some simple wood furniture, that's it.
         | People bring their own everything, be there for a few
         | weeks/months a year, and then go home. Such a structure can't
         | survive much of anything but that doesn't matter because it's
         | so cheap, if it burns/blows down/washes away once every 5 years
         | or whatever so be it. It's a problem though when people convert
         | what should be cheap into some full fledged thing, but then
         | don't take environment into account.
         | 
         | I think this distinction is super important, because a lot of
         | these places are beautiful and desirable much of the time, and
         | a blanket "no you shouldn't build there ever" isn't likely to
         | be heeded and does not get to the root actual problem, which is
         | that the true costs of doing so aren't being priced in. The
         | reasons for that distortion are myriad, but that's the actual
         | issue. I think it's much more productive and convincing to the
         | public to say "it's fine to build where you like, but it's not
         | fine to hit other people up for money to cover it or cause
         | unreasonable costs to safety services/environmental damage
         | (homes burning or floating away means massive pollution), you
         | just need be responsible in how you build."
         | 
         | FWIW to specifics:
         | 
         | > _With much of California, Texas and Florida it seems pretty
         | clear people built where they shouldn't have._
         | 
         | In some cases sure but in others I guess it'd be reasonable to
         | say that things built long enough before anthropogenic global
         | warming really kicked off can't be reasonably blamed for that,
         | particularly if they correct gauged the risk for themselves
         | (ie, someone built something 50 years ago as a life thing and
         | it did indeed last the remaining 40 years of their life, well
         | you can't really say they got it wrong and built it wrong or
         | it's still their problem). What is bad though is new stuff
         | getting built or worst of all things getting _REbuilt_ after
         | destruction but not to updated standards each time.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | Are there estimates for the cost of fireproofing Californian
           | construction?
        
           | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
           | I never experienced an earthquake, in Tokyo, but those who
           | have, say that the buildings wave around like drunk dancers.
           | 
           | Things fall off of shelves, but the buildings seem to come
           | out OK.
           | 
           | The Japanese are _hard core_ about building standards.
           | 
           | Compared to other nations (deliberately not gonna name them),
           | that have corruption problems, as well as frequent
           | earthquakes, you _always_ have a bunch of buildings fall
           | down, there 's a surge of anger, a couple of unpopular
           | scapegoats get jailed, then, it happens again, the next time.
           | 
           | I have a bunch of friends in the LA area. So far, none of
           | them have been in the line of [literal] fire, but everyone is
           | freaking out. These fires are under no control, whatsoever.
        
         | wk_end wrote:
         | Unfortunately there's increasingly few places where natural
         | disasters, of one sort or another, aren't inevitable. The PNW
         | also burns regularly now, never mind the enormous earthquake
         | looming under us that we're terribly unprepared for. Even the
         | northeast is starting to get buried in smoke in the summer and
         | hit by storms like Hurricane Sandy. Tornado Alley knocks out
         | much of the midwest. What's left of the US? Desert and
         | mountains?
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _there 's increasingly few places where natural disasters,
           | of one sort or another, aren't inevitable_
           | 
           | Sure. That doesn't mean you can't mitigate damage.
           | 
           | Not _e.g._ building on the Houston flood plain is one such
           | example [1].
           | 
           | [1] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
           | texas/houston/...
        
             | vel0city wrote:
             | You wouldn't think you'd need to point out building on the
             | water side of a levee is a bad idea, even for a "dry
             | reservoir", but here we are.
        
       | sapphicsnail wrote:
       | I was in Pacific Palisades when the fire started yesterday. I've
       | never seen one spread so fast. It went from there being smoke way
       | in the distance and people going about their lives normally, then
       | 90 minutes later the fire was everywhere and people were
       | panicking and evacuating en masse.
        
         | tylerflick wrote:
         | It's definitely the worst fire I've ever seen here. Very
         | surreal to watch houses burning while walking my dogs this
         | morning. The only silver lining are the winds blowing the smoke
         | out to sea rather than blanketing Santa Monica.
        
         | bragr wrote:
         | I have a good view of the smoke column from Brentwood. I've
         | also never seen a fire spread that fast. Same thing, in about
         | an hour it went from a small fire to the smoke blocking out the
         | sun.
         | 
         | As a testament to the speed of the winds, I've never seen a
         | smoke visually move so quickly. Usually at that size and
         | distance, they feel more like static objects
        
           | earnestinger wrote:
           | What is burning? Mostly bushes or mostly homes?
        
         | ed wrote:
         | Folks say the same thing about the 1991 Oakland firestorm. If
         | there's a fire in your area, pay attention and don't assume
         | it'll be contained, the situation can change very quickly.
        
       | throwup238 wrote:
       | I live south of the evacuation warning zone and the wind and
       | fires have turned the entire San Gabriel Valley into an
       | apocalyptic scene. Detritus littered all over the roads (with
       | tons of dry flammable eucalyptus branches, yay!) and there's ash
       | falling from the sky in big flakes. Air quality in the tank
       | though it was even worse a few hours ago and everything smells
       | like smoke.
       | 
       | This is the worst fire I've seen in SoCal since the Valley fire.
        
       | trhway wrote:
       | One can imagine an IR monitoring (satellite or high flying drones
       | like Reaper, one drone can see an IR source like a tank from
       | 100km, so it would take just a few drones to monitor the the
       | whole state for fires) with [almost] automated immediate
       | dispatching of the fleet of drones (not small quadcopters, more
       | like WWII size bombers) once the fire is detected. Would be much
       | cheaper than having multi-billion dollar fires every year.
        
         | jkaptur wrote:
         | https://wifire.ucsd.edu/firis-in-depth
        
           | trhway wrote:
           | they use manned planes for monitoring - very costly and not
           | scalable. And there is no "water-bombing" drone fleet. The
           | manned "water-bombers" are extremely expensive, there is only
           | small number of them and they actually carry pretty small
           | amount of water as they are mostly helicopters or retrofitted
           | passenger planes.
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | > _it would take just a few drones per the whole state_
         | 
         | What are you basing this on? Being able to see something once
         | you know it's there is a different problem from detecting it in
         | the first place.
        
           | trhway wrote:
           | there is no issue in detecting. You sweep the area. The IR
           | sources like a tank - pops up like Xmas tree even on
           | relatively cheap IR from 10km (there is a lot of footage from
           | Ukraine war for example). A house fire would easily pop-up
           | even from tens of km. A acre size fire - it would pop-up even
           | on coarse grain IR from space.
        
             | JumpCrisscross wrote:
             | > _house fire would easily pop-up even from tens of km. A
             | acre size fire - it would pop-up even on coarse grain IR
             | from space_
             | 
             | Both of these produce lots of smoke. Neither can be doused
             | by drones.
        
               | trhway wrote:
               | >Both of these produce lots of smoke.
               | 
               | i suggest you view a bunch of real IR footage.
               | 
               | > Neither can be doused by drones.
               | 
               | I'm pretty sure 20 tons of water would douse a house
               | fire. It would take 10 flights of an F8F Bearcat sized
               | drone. Though the F8F is an overkill built for speed. One
               | can carry 1-2 ton with much simpler plane today for that
               | purpose.
               | 
               | An acre size fire - an acre-inch of water is 100 ton. So
               | 10 drones 10 flights at 1 ton/drone.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _suggest you view a bunch of real IR footage_
               | 
               | For what? Apologies, I've only seen it in respect of
               | projectile telemetry. (Much more sensitive than what
               | you'd need for a fire. And no, three couldn't detect
               | every launch across California because the Earth isn't
               | flat. Fire detection is already incredibly accurate, and
               | it's done from satellite.)
        
               | tanseydavid wrote:
               | >> Neither can be doused by drones.
               | 
               | Identification only by drone. Then the dousing is done by
               | conventional means, but dispatched locally.
        
         | esalman wrote:
         | There's no air support to contain fire because of dangerously
         | high wind. Asking for drones now is like a dumb person's idea
         | of cheap science fiction.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | I think they're talking about dousing when it first lights.
           | That isn't "a dumb person's idea." But it _is_ presently
           | beyond our capabilities, to say nothing of the huge privacy
           | problem it would entail.
        
             | Jtsummers wrote:
             | They're talking about both detecting _and_ dousing. Note
             | they mention two different kinds of drones (a few monitor
             | drones, and then a fleet of drones to deploy and douse).
             | The monitor drones could be practical, we 've demonstrated
             | that loitering sensor drones work well in other domains.
             | 
             | Depending on the sensor payload (what it's looking for) and
             | how the data is stored and used, it wouldn't really entail
             | a huge privacy problem unless you show up on IR sensors as
             | well as a fire.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _it wouldn 't really entail a huge privacy problem
               | unless you show up on IR sensors as well as a fire_
               | 
               | If you're hoping to do better than sighting a smoke
               | column, you will absolutely have to be. We're not at a
               | loss of detecting entire houses burning.
        
               | Jtsummers wrote:
               | To violate your privacy an IR sensor would have to be
               | able to pick out people (98 degrees Fahrenheit, approx.)
               | and put them on a map. Versus a sensor tuned to an actual
               | fire which is substantially hotter and larger.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _Versus a sensor tuned to an actual fire which is
               | substantially hotter and larger_
               | 
               | Again, at that point you're no longer adding value over
               | the _status quo_. We don't have a problem detecting large
               | fires near population centres.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | > Asking for drones now
           | 
           | He did not. It would be worth re-reading his comment. He's
           | pointing out that we _do_ have technology that could help
           | with _containment_ : quickly identify fires, communicate
           | their location, and dispatch some local water carriers. He's
           | also surmising that the cost of keeping these active would be
           | less than the cost of damages, which could very well be true.
           | 
           | Something like a Reaper drone, which he specifically
           | mentions, works fine in the wind, as do the water carriers,
           | that fly at hundreds of miles an hour, that have been
           | actively helping this whole time.
           | 
           | I think this is probably all true, but probably not the
           | future since it would require a competent state government
           | who embraces tech.
        
             | gamblor956 wrote:
             | Putting the cameras on flying platforms actually limits
             | their functionality because the platforms have to be
             | refueled/recharged and rotated out on a constant basis.
             | 
             | Water carriers fly close to the ground and make sharp turns
             | because they need to pick up water and make targeted drops,
             | so they are heavily affected by the wind. The water
             | carriers weren't able to start flying until late this
             | morning/early this afternoon due to the winds being too
             | strong (>75+mph gusts).
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | You're currently being downvoted, but I'm genuinely curious --
         | is continuous IR monitoring from the sky an effective way to
         | detect wildfires earlier?
         | 
         | Or are small fires indistinguishable from a million other hot
         | objects, until the point where they get large enough to detect
         | reliably, it's already obvious to everyone on the ground from
         | the smoke?
        
           | 0xffff2 wrote:
           | Yes, it is effective. We have several NASA/NOAA satellites
           | with IR instruments on them that are used for fire detection.
           | These are obviously much more useful for detecting fires that
           | start in very rural areas under moderate conditions. The
           | current crop of fires in LA are all very close to populated
           | areas and spread _fast_ , so satellite mapping wasn't of any
           | use for detection. Also, California in particular has a
           | really great fleet of IR mapping planes that give
           | firefighters and the public much more detailed fire
           | information than the satellite coverage, but when I lived in
           | Oregon where they don't have a similar system, the satellite
           | coverage was often the most up to date information on fire
           | perimeters.
        
             | maxerickson wrote:
             | Seems like it would be logistically difficult to be able to
             | drop a significant amount of water anywhere in, say, 15
             | minutes.
             | 
             | With dry conditions and high winds, that is an extremely
             | slow response to an uncontrolled fire...
        
           | atonse wrote:
           | I'm not so sure. In nVidia's keynote, they had an example of
           | small smoke plumes identified as potential fires. If you had
           | a drone hovering over a particular city to monitor fires, it
           | could potentially be an early warning system, no?
           | 
           | And to others that said that the winds are dangerous, do
           | quadcopter drones (which tend to be more stable anyway) have
           | algorithms to account for that?
        
           | bsder wrote:
           | It could be for fires on normal weather days.
           | 
           | The problem is that with these winds and humidity small fires
           | become huge fires before anybody can react. Once they are
           | huge fires, detection isn't the problem.
        
         | carabiner wrote:
         | Your cost analysis is both thorough and thought-provoking.
        
         | gamblor956 wrote:
         | The problem is not identifying fires. That's the easy part. As
         | I watched the local news last night, I was able to watch (along
         | with the anchors) the real-time growth of the Eaton fire from a
         | tiny fire near the campgrounds into a behemoth. This morning,
         | the local news covered the real-time development of 2 new fires
         | (both were quickly contained).
         | 
         | The problem is fighting fires in steep, mountainous terrain
         | filled with dryed out brush and trees when the winds are so
         | strong (hurricane-strength gusts) that you can't provide any
         | air support. The problem is that the winds were so strong last
         | night and this morning that burning embers in the air could fly
         | to and light structures _miles away_ (which is how most of the
         | current fires in Altadena started).
        
       | chiph wrote:
       | Some coworkers had to evacuate. One of them was woken up last
       | night by their doorbell camera sending multiple alerts because of
       | the high winds.
       | 
       | I hope everyone gets to safety.
        
         | Gibbon1 wrote:
         | Friend of mine had to evacuate and then watched his house burn
         | down on the news.
        
       | segasaturn wrote:
       | Los Angeles Fire Department funding was gutted by over $23M only
       | a few months ago. The fires are currently being fought by a
       | skeleton crew of remaining fire fighters and volunteers. Can't
       | say if that funding would have prevented it, but cutting it
       | definitely has not helped.
       | 
       | Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/los-angeles-
       | fires-m...
        
         | defrost wrote:
         | Someone _tweeted_ $23 million .. your linked article (thank you
         | for source) follows that with:                 City budget
         | documents show the department's more than $800 million budget
         | decreased by around $17 million compared to the previous budget
         | cycle.
         | 
         | Which makes the cuts _less_ than %2.12
         | 
         | "Gutted" as a descripter seems extreme and the details that
         | matter are whether these reductions simply trimmed fat, or
         | denied something essential that would have made all the
         | difference here.
        
           | segasaturn wrote:
           | I'm not sure why the percentage matters? Whether it's 2% or
           | 20%, it's still millions of dollars that could have been used
           | here. More broadly, why are we _cutting_ fire department
           | budgets when wildfires are becoming more frequent, more
           | intense and a year round phenomenon due to global warming? If
           | you want to trim fat in the government there are much bigger
           | targets to go after than an essential service like
           | firefighting.
        
             | Redoubts wrote:
             | Are you for real?
        
           | Twirrim wrote:
           | Agreed. I don't see anything from a google search that
           | suggests that they cut the number of firefighters, either.
           | 
           | Hyperbolic statements like "gutted" are just meant to get the
           | knee jerk, frothing at the mouth "retweet" kind of reaction,
           | and it seems to be being successful at that.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | For reference the LAPD budget is $175 million per month.
         | 
         | The fire budget was cut by $17.6 million for the year, the 23M
         | cut was proposed. The police budget was increased by $126M for
         | the year.
         | 
         | For context, the LAFD annual budget is $820M and the LAPD
         | annual budget is $2140M.
        
         | ChrisClark wrote:
         | 2% means gutted? 2% less funding means only a skeleton crew is
         | left?
        
           | llamaimperative wrote:
           | Depends: did it have a lot of excess capacity before the
           | cuts?
        
         | ravenstine wrote:
         | I really don't understand how SoCal and Califonia residents in
         | general find the the state's response to wildfires in the last
         | decade to be acceptable. Not only have fire departments seen
         | cutbacks, but so has the forestry needed for preventative
         | measures.
         | 
         | What really bugs me is what I find to be a disinterest and lack
         | of belief in vastly expanding the fleet of water dropping
         | aircraft. Letting fires burn to the extent that they have been
         | isn't cheap, to put it lightly. Somehow, a state that is one of
         | the largest economies in the world can't or won't expand its
         | aerial response such that fires of the scale we are seeing
         | become a thing of the past. With satellite technology, it
         | should be possible to identify wildfires as they begin and
         | immediately deploy hundreds if not 1000+ planes to dump water
         | from the Pacific and reservoirs, while drones go ahead of them
         | to confirm that an out-of-control fire is actually in progress.
        
       | 383toast wrote:
       | is there a wildfire tracker?
        
         | xeromal wrote:
         | https://app.watchduty.org/
         | 
         | This one is pretty good
        
           | ninjha01 wrote:
           | [delayed]
        
         | jdbrown wrote:
         | https://www.fire.ca.gov/
        
         | tsbischof wrote:
         | https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents
        
       | earnestinger wrote:
       | I see there are three separate fires several km apart. How do
       | they start so synchronously?
        
         | gamblor956 wrote:
         | They didn't.
         | 
         | Palisades started Tuesday morning in someone's backyard. The
         | Eaton fire started last evening near one of the campgrounds.
         | The Hearst fire started late last night around 10pm (suspected
         | cause was a vehicle fire from an accident that spread to the
         | side of the road).
        
         | llamaimperative wrote:
         | The conditions that make one fire likely make others likely
         | too...
         | 
         | Extreme dryness, high wind, failing electrical infrastructure,
         | overburdened emergency response.
         | 
         | Also embers can easily be blown miles away to ignite another
         | "new" fire.
        
       | mempko wrote:
       | Global warming doing it's thing.
        
         | nxm wrote:
         | Wildfires have always occurred, just that mansions are now in
         | the way
        
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