[HN Gopher] Show HN: LA Wildfire Satellite Analysis
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Show HN: LA Wildfire Satellite Analysis
Author : xingyzt
Score : 107 points
Date : 2025-01-09 04:08 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I really don't understand why something that is presumed
| preventable with little investment is allowed to continue
| happening. What's worse is the water shortage is what I don't
| understand. It's a state literally bordering the ocean.
|
| That graph is impressive, and really shocking how much land these
| fires are just taking.
| block_dagger wrote:
| Wildfires in California date back millions of years and are a
| natural part of the region's ecology. The difference in recent
| centuries has been dense human habitation. I think your
| statement about presumed prevention is inaccurate or
| misleading.
| 7e wrote:
| Another difference is a steady increase in the world
| temperature due to climate change.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| That is nonsense, the climate has been changing all the
| time without the place burning down to the roots when it
| happened to be a bit warmer or not burning at all when it
| was cooler. These fires have nothing to do with 'climate
| change', they are caused by the lack of controlled burning
| which leads to an accumulation of combustible material on
| the forest floor. Once a fire starts - and fires start all
| the time, both from natural (lightning etc.) as well as
| man-made (PG&E cables, careless campers, smokers,
| fireworks, arson, etc.) causes - they quickly bloom into
| massive conflagrations due to the presence of all that
| combustible material. Increased habitation makes these
| massive fires more costly since fire consumes a McMansion
| just as readily as it does a Pacific pine.
| polotics wrote:
| You wrote "the climate has been changing all the time" It
| must have taken you so much effort and thinking to come
| up with such an illuminating, novel, and profound
| assertion.
|
| Here is something of that ilk:
|
| The statement "the climate has been changing all the
| time" is often used to downplay the significance of
| current climate change. While it's true that Earth's
| climate has undergone natural changes throughout its
| history, the current warming trend is different for
| several reasons:
|
| Rate of Change: The current rate of warming is
| unprecedented in the past several thousand years. Natural
| climate fluctuations typically occur over much longer
| timescales, allowing ecosystems and species to adapt
| gradually. The rapid pace of current change is making it
| difficult for many species to keep up, leading to
| disruptions in ecosystems and biodiversity loss.
|
| Cause of Change: While past climate change events were
| triggered by natural factors like volcanic eruptions or
| solar variations, the current warming trend is primarily
| driven by human activities, particularly the burning of
| fossil fuels. This has led to a significant increase in
| greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, trapping
| heat and warming the planet.
|
| Magnitude of Change: The projected magnitude of future
| warming, if left unchecked, is likely to exceed the
| changes experienced during the past several million
| years. This could have severe consequences for human
| societies and natural ecosystems, including rising sea
| levels, more frequent and intense extreme weather events,
| and widespread species extinctions.
|
| Evidence: The overwhelming scientific consensus supports
| the conclusion that human activities are the primary
| cause of current climate change. This is based on a vast
| body of evidence from multiple independent lines of
| research, including temperature records, ice core data,
| and climate models.
|
| In summary, while the Earth's climate has naturally
| changed over long periods, the current warming trend is
| distinct in its rate, cause, magnitude, and supporting
| evidence. It is crucial to recognize the unique nature of
| human-induced climate change and take action to mitigate
| its impacts.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Your comment comes across as markedly authoritative. Are
| you a climate scientist with first hand knowledge? You
| appear to be repeating what we all read in countless
| reports almost daily from innumerable organizations and
| have done over the past few years. I'm pretty sure like
| many here I could probably offer an impromptu talk like
| this at the drop of a hat, covering the same points.
|
| I do wonder why we accept the reports from a number of
| rather distinguished climatologists and physicists who do
| not accept this 'scientific consensus'. Given the very
| significant swathe of the public who are convinced by the
| latter, why isn't this academic divide finally put to
| rest and the skeptics shown to be demonstrably wrong in
| their selection of data and their interpretations? It
| does not seem to happen. Why not? If this is an
| existential crisis I would have thought that such public
| debates at a very high level by extremely well-informed
| experts are well overdue. Yes, some occur but they are
| never definitive?
|
| "Current surveys may underestimate climate change
| skepticism evidence from list experiments in Germany and
| the USA"
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8262789/
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I do agree, the experts could do a better job of
| communicating to the parts of the public who may not
| understand the scientific consensus. But there is a broad
| swath of people who will reject any information, because
| it's already been politicized to death. (Why this is
| political I can't tell you)
|
| But the public reception doesn't really tell us much
| about the strength of the conclusions. For which there is
| overwhelming consensus, very clear mechanisms of action,
| and pretty straightforward directional signal.
|
| Are you questioning the comms or the consensus? I'm not
| clear from your response.
| polotics wrote:
| Hello vixen99
|
| You wrote "You appear to be repeating what we all blah
| blah" and guess what, the poster I responded to started
| it :-)
|
| A weak point of zero value like "weather has been
| changing all the time" deserves absolutely no more effort
| than the response I gave, what do you think? Anyone with
| an ouce of honesty and self-respect and care for the
| future would know by now that such a statement is
| completely worthless with 100% certainty.
|
| And the so-called skeptics have been shown to be
| demonstrably wrong in their selection of data and their
| interpretations many many times, they just choose to
| ignore the evidence and to lie and lie and repeat. There
| are whole websites like realclimate that go through
| absolutely everything that's been ponied up by now.
|
| And finally, full disclaimer but I thought my post was
| clear enough about that: except for the intro, all the
| points were pasted straight out of ChatGPT! No one has to
| accept the worn-out intellectual denial-of-service attack
| of climate trolls now, demanding exhausting pure sweet
| clear responses as response to half-baked brain farts.
| Like I said: low-effort on troll's part, low-effort on
| responder. Is fair.
| thangalin wrote:
| https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/
| 202...
|
| 'California has experienced increasingly severe autumn
| wildfires over the past several decades, which have
| exacted a rising human and environmental toll. Recent
| fire and climate science research has demonstrated a
| clear link between worsening California wildfires and
| climate change, mainly though the vegetation-drying
| effect of rising temperatures and shifting precipitation
| seasonality.'
|
| https://weatherwest.com/
|
| 'Thus, the wildfire risk across much of SoCal will be
| even greater than the sum of its parts (i.e., the strong
| winds or dry fuels individually). This is an increasingly
| prominent concern, as has been previously discussed, with
| increasing overlap between "offshore wind season" and
| "critically dry vegetation season" in California---and is
| something that is expected to happen more often with
| climate change (especially in Southern California).'
| lostlogin wrote:
| The climate has been changing a long time. I'm a big fan
| of the XKCD about it.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1732/
| aa-jv wrote:
| The previous inhabitants knew all about these firestorms and
| used controlled burning to minimize their impact. Its
| probably going to be wise for future governors to consider
| re-learning this knowledge....
| theultdev wrote:
| No need to look back that far.
|
| They know to do use control burns, we've been doing it.
|
| It's forest management 101.
|
| But they get sued by environmentalists when they do.
| greentxt wrote:
| You make it sound unidimensional but there is probably not 1
| type of wildfire in California. Coastal residentially dense
| fires in chaperal are not the same things as massive fires
| burning in remote areas of national forrests in the sierras.
| There is no single cause or solution because they are totally
| different things, with different drivers and requiring
| different solutions.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Who's presuming it's preventable? What little investment do you
| suggest California make?
|
| Probably slow controlled burns would be helpful in reducing
| potential fuel, but who's going to perform controlled burns
| over the entirety of all the hills surrounding LA ?
| defrost wrote:
| I cannot answer the "who" but here in a region with similar
| vegetation and fire risk we don't cool burn the entirety, we
| stagger mosaic burns that break up the fire risk area into
| patches.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKsLRNbczJY
| lazide wrote:
| When I last talked to USFS folks, one big issue is
| complaints and even legal action from folks about smoke
| when they do burn. It's a lose/lose situation for them.
| defrost wrote:
| That and insurance no doubt.
|
| What's needed is the reeducation of the NIMBY crowd .. I
| live in a state where _many_ local community members are
| motivated to egage with local volunteer bush fire
| services and cool burning is less of an issue.
|
| As the urbanisation and luxury housing increases the
| resistance to "inconveniance" seems to also climb.
| lazide wrote:
| I doubt very much it's a matter of lack of
| knowledge/education.
|
| Rather various degrees of 'fuck you, I got mine' and 'it
| won't happen to me because I'm special'. Which, often, is
| true enough they can keep doing it until they die, at
| which point they 'win'.
|
| Sometimes though, either something happens and they
| 'don't have theirs' anymore, or it becomes too clear it
| will happen to them - and some action occurs. Usually too
| late for it to be an easy or smooth change, of course.
| wtcactus wrote:
| This might seem far-fetched, but I wonder if all the money
| used for reactive actions to the fires and the billions lost
| during those, couldn't instead heavily subsidize a goat
| grazing industry at large scale.
|
| Keeping the forest clean of combustible materials is the only
| real preventive solution, but that's almost impossible to do
| by humans (besides lots of issues with depletion of soils if
| done incorrectly). The old way of doing that (and raise meat
| for human consumption) in Southern Europe, was to have goats,
| lots of goats, eating up all that combustible mass and
| transforming it into meat and "natural fertilizer".
| edmundsauto wrote:
| This is the best hacker comment on the thread. Trying to
| find innovative solutions to a big problem. Thank you!
| lazyeye wrote:
| Side question, is goat poop flammable?
| hedora wrote:
| There are two issues. For thousands of years, indigenous people
| maintained the forest and small fires cleaned out the
| underbrush. The US halted maintenance, and suppressed fires,
| creating a backlog of fuel.
|
| The second issue is global warming.
|
| If you have any ideas on how to get the manpower necessary to
| perform 100+ years of backlogged forest maintenance spanning
| the entire west coast, or (better) how to fix global warming,
| I'd love to hear it.
|
| Also, desalination at the scale necessary to meet California's
| demands is beyond current technology (especially if it's done
| without destroying the ocean ecosystem). Note that the central
| valley relies on irrigation, and is the bread basket of the US.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| You can extinguish a fire with salt water.
|
| Connect the sewage / storm water system to a few massive
| pumps and back flush everything.
|
| Set off a few nukes in the bay to cause a tidal wave.
|
| I'm no civil engineer / hydrologished, so there's probably
| issues with my drive-by dismissal of a serious issue.
| calgoo wrote:
| So yes, you can put out fires with salt water but its bad
| for any equipment that is currently being used * and it
| hurts the future plant life (salting the earth is an old
| method of hurting your enemies * ).
|
| * https://firefighterinsider.com/can-you-put-out-a-fire-
| with-s...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth
| shwaj wrote:
| I love how you respond seriously to the logistical
| challenges of salt water, and don't blink at the prospect
| of using nukes to create a tidal wave.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| While we're speaking about future plant life, it isn't
| necessarily looking particularly good.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| This is the most HN comment ever.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Aww thanks, you're making me blush.
|
| But I think the honorific goes to the Dropbox dismissal.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| This is a misnomer, Calfire does a lot of prescribed burns
| already. It's really difficult to do them safely around urban
| interfaces.
| Redoubts wrote:
| They also just get sued all the time for doing their job
|
| https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1877114784149029252
|
| https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1877145129351323920
| hedora wrote:
| They do, but they're still way behind where they need to
| be.
|
| They also do shaded fire breaks, which make sense.
| francisofascii wrote:
| > manpower necessary to perform 100+ years of backlogged
| forest maintenance spanning the entire west coast
|
| Curious what is involved with this. If indigenous people
| could do it, why couldn't a larger population with superior
| tech do it? Sounds like a worthwhile venture. Even if it
| costs a fortune it might be better than rebuilding LA every
| 30-50 years.
| shwaj wrote:
| It's unfortunate that Claude can't provide references, but
| it plausibly suggests that the indigenous population
| actively managed forests in a radius around their
| population centers, not the entire land area. So the
| current larger population doesn't make the task easier,
| since the size of the task scales with the population size.
| Superior technology should certainly make it easier,
| though. Probably a matter of lack of political will, and
| bureaucratic inefficiency.
| lazyeye wrote:
| You missed the third issue which was utterly incompetent
| management from the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, and the
| governer of California, Gavin Newsom.
| Redoubts wrote:
| The Sierra Club sues any attempt to do preventive burns. Forest
| management can take 4-7 years between planning and execution
| for any one task.
|
| https://x.com/tahrajirari/status/1877110097790312519
| pancakemouse wrote:
| > preventable
|
| Preventable via multiple methods, you've been downvoted
| presumably for seeming insensitivity, but it seems a valid
| question. Water is plentiful, it's a rich area. This stuff can
| be prevented. Why wasn't it?
| gamblor956 wrote:
| 1) There wasn't a water shortage. The local reservoirs were
| full at the start of the fire. The problem was that there was
| so much simultaneous demand that there was insufficient _water
| pressure._ This was compounded by the destruction of pumping
| stations by the fire, and by the extreme winds preventing the
| use of aerial support (i.e., water and fire retardant) on
| Tuesday, when most of the Palisades were burned.
|
| 2) Salt water is highly corrosive to equipment, and also kills
| vegetation. But it used as a last resort when fresh water
| reservoirs are empty...and was used in previous Malibu fires...
|
| 3) For an example of how important aerial support is: the
| Sunset Fire and the Mt Wilson flameup of the Eaton fire were
| controlled within an hour each through the use of aerial water
| drops.
| dheera wrote:
| > We download the reprojected data from UW SSEC's RealEarth
| program
|
| I really wish GOES's official images would provide the high
| resolution imagery directly. We shouldn't have to go through
| RealEarth to get it. However I've noticed that only RealEarth has
| the highest resolution images.
| mackid wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Do you work with the folks at Watch Duty?
| xingyzt wrote:
| No, just a student on winter break who got curious why CA
| Fire's map wasn't showing the up-to-date extent of the Eaton
| fire. Do they have this kind of heat data?
| mackid wrote:
| They integrate a number of sources. Satellite, cameras,
| weather, CalFire, etc. Check out their app, it's free. They
| are a non-profit Startup, which is an interesting approach.
| mzs wrote:
| Nice, thanks but did you know about NASA FIRMS?
|
| https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@-117.8,34...
| xingyzt wrote:
| No, looks like they're doing a way better job! Thanks for
| sharing. I was only aware of the GOES sats. Seems like VIIRS is
| more intended to do this kind of monitoring.
| mzs wrote:
| I still like what you did on break. FWIW GEOS provides Fire
| Temperature: https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector_ban
| d.php?sat=G1...
| pixelesque wrote:
| Interesting that FIRMS doesn't seem to yet be showing the
| "Sunset" fire, or anything West of Griffith Park...
| xingyzt wrote:
| Maybe because FIRMS uses data from satellites in polar
| orbits, which only pass over the area once every few hours?
| With choosing near-Earth polar vs. farther geostationary
| orbits there's a tradeoff between space and time resolution.
| notatoad wrote:
| FIRMS is very cool, but take it with a grain of salt - we were
| all looking at it obsessively while Jasper AB burned this
| summer, and apparently it has issues with differentiating
| between fire on the ground and fire in the smoke clouds, so it
| can make the fire boundary look bigger than it actually is.
| dbetteridge wrote:
| Wonder why the whole central band of Africa is just covered in
| fires, households? deforestation?
| keraf wrote:
| A sibling comment mentioned that it can detect smoke, so my
| guess is waste disposal, aka burning trash in your backyard.
| Some can produce quite a lot of smoke.
|
| I did a private pilot license in Africa, the biggest "plus"
| was that I always knew the direction of the wind on the
| ground by looking at all these fires. There was _never_ a
| time when I didn 't see smoke unless I was flying in very
| remote areas.
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| Why did you assume they are burning trash instead of log
| fires? What was the primary fuel for cooking and heating
| for poor people in the part of Africa you got your PPL?
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| If you look at all the green, you'll notice the fires are in
| the equatorial rainforest that runs along the equator. Fire
| is a quick, non-mechanical way to clear land of vegetation
| for farming or other uses.
|
| Additionally, in a rainforest, wood is a cheap and easily
| available source of fuel for day to day household energy
| needs in areas that are rural, remote and with no electrical
| services.
| tikkun wrote:
| Another fire project idea: show, based on some kind of prediction
| model that gives 50th, 90th, 99th percentiles (from historical
| data, perhaps, or perhaps just from wind/fire speeds), how fast a
| given fire could reach a specific location.
|
| Whenever I've opened watch duty, that's always the question I'm
| asking. How long might it take to reach [here/there]?
| lazide wrote:
| It's a very dangerous answer to try to give someone, because of
| how unpredictable and dangerous a wildfire is. Sudden shifts in
| winds and can have the flames jump (literally) miles in
| minutes, after sitting calmly for hours.
|
| It isn't theoretical either - it kills professionals too.
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Gulch_fire],
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Canyon_Fire],
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude_fire] for a few examples.
|
| Long story short - never turn your back on a wildfire, and try
| to stay as far away as possible.
| tikkun wrote:
| Right, they seem highly volatile/variable. The thinking is
| that showing the 99th percentile / range of possibilities
| would cover that, if it's based on historical data - does
| that seem right to you or no, and if not why not?
| lazide wrote:
| It would be like if someone you never met came up to you
| and held a revolver to your head, and told you they were
| going to play Russian roulette.
|
| If they told you the 99% percentile odds of the next
| trigger pull, would it be okay to stay if you thought you
| liked the odds?
|
| And if you were silly enough to believe him, who would be
| to blame if he was wrong?
|
| Oh, here are some more
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarnell_Hill_Fire]. Oh and
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Griffith_Park_fire].
| And
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Fire_of_1937]
|
| There is a reason why firefighters are considered to be one
| of the most heroic professionals.
|
| And some more (not all related to wildfires though) [https:
| //en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_deadliest_firefi...]
| lostlogin wrote:
| Prisoners one day, hero firefighters earning a dollar an
| hour the next.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-inmate-
| firef...
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The authorities already do the type of broad analysis
| you're suggesting. That's how they generate the evacuation
| maps.
|
| If you mean a more specific analysis: there's no way to do
| that with a level of detail or accuracy that would be
| relevant to individual decision-making. There are simply
| too many variables in the air, in the fuel, and even in the
| fire itself.
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(page generated 2025-01-09 23:02 UTC)