Wild Fires In LA

[Sandra Koutsopoulos]

"That was me. The roofs in the housing stock I saw in Cabo are solid concrete and rebar; no soffits for hot embers to be sucked into. They are essentially fireproof."

That's brilliant! Does anybody know what the incidence of whole town destruction by fire is in Mexico? Perhaps we can learn a few things from our southern neighbor, especially since SoCal is similarly hot and dry.

 

[Sandra Koutsopoulos]

"Tall steel transmission towers would solve much of the problem, upgrading the current design to withstand 150 mph winds instead of 70 mph."

Bingo! That's one useful idea right there.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

The ongoing policy of using goats for shrubbery management

Those are the best lawnmowers going for brush. But anything that keeps the fire low near the ground will help. A fellow I know has a skidsteer and a brush demolisher. Don't know what you call it, but it grinds up everything far finer than a conventional Bushhog. And I was just by a big ROW transmission like in a steep valley where they cleared the ROW right down to the ground with a big articulated tractor device in an over-sized version of the same sort of device. They looked like they had taken that thing down 40-degree slopes and back up the other side. Fire might jump the ROW but I bet it would need a high wind to do so.

Anyway the thing looked something like this

Perhaps new materials for wrapping the cables.

Generation of heat is a big part of the underground problem. Heavy loads could literally melt copper or aluminum. You would need to use a very highly conductive wire to reduce heat. You might be able to build concrete trenches to place the wires in but the cost would be enormous as well.

 

[Charles West]

"That was me. The roofs in the housing stock I saw in Cabo are solid concrete and rebar; no soffits for hot embers to be sucked into. They are essentially fireproof."

That's brilliant! Does anybody know what the incidence of whole town destruction by fire is in Mexico? Perhaps we can learn a few things from our southern neighbor, especially since SoCal is similarly hot and dry.

I asked the consigniere if the scrub chapparel burned around the development every so often and he said no, but the land was flat and not mountaineous like in SoCal.

 

[TerryRohrer]

Anything can be acheived with money. Along with solar panels, all electric appliances, and whatever else is mandated in CA, another $25k will be insignificant. That is, before battling for years over the fact that flammabke building materials have high carbon footprints. Virtue signaling is an expense, nonproductive business.

"Constructing a home to optimal wildfire resistance will increase overall costs by $18,200 to $27,100 but will return greater long-term benefits in energy efficiency and durability. Wildfire-resistant construction adds approximately 2-13% to the entire cost of a new home."

Construction costs for a wildfire-resistant home: California edition - Headwaters Economics

In light of rising wildfire risks, we analyzed the costs of constructing homes to three levels of wildfire resistance in California.

headwaterseconomics.org

 

[J Grant]

These things we know. But if we can put ppl in space for 6 months at a time, and other incredibly complex things, surely we can consider prioritizing a new/better way of protecting us from out of control wildfires.

What's the estimated cost of THIS burn? $Billions? $Trillions? I dunno. But the losses are horrendous, which will likely destabilized many insurance companies, and the citizens once again, as in the Paradise Fire, will foot the bill. Our electric bills are outta sight! This summer, my August electric bill was over $800 for that month alone, and I have no pool to heat either! The cost of NOT fixing this on-going issue is inconceivably high. So it seems to me ppl should give some new thoughtful energy to actually solving the problem that above electric lines cause. We can't stop lightning strikes, nor cigs thrown out the window in mountainous areas, but surely we can put some additional energy into solving the power line issue. There's a lot of stupid out there for sure, but there's also intelligent engineers and creators of unique problem solvers. This issue should be prioritized, as it would be cost effective in the long run, considering how expensive the current cataclysm will turn out to be.

It reminds me of the healthcare executive shooting in NYC - likely that the executives of the power company knowingly delay or will not fix problems because, omg it might cost money or lower profit. That is very likely the cause or contributory aspect of this wildfire

And you are correct, not hardening our cities and natural landscape against the real and present and future more and more severe storms and fires and floods will cost far more in damage and loss to repair then to address now - the problem always goes back to someone has to pay for it, and then people do not want their taxes to rise and so it never gets done

CA has that prop 13 (is that the correct name )> Where long time residents pay a pittance in property taxes and federally, this admin will give massive tax breaks to the 1% and corporations further starving our treasury and avail funds to repair and prevent more loss - and climate change while not a direct cause is a contributing factor - or do these folks forever want to make it seem like it s just coincidence that so many storms, fires, floods, temperatures and extreme weather events are normal - yes there has always been storms weather swings and fires but not like what we are seeing now -

 

[Elliott]

I was watching a KTLA reporter this morning and he was showing a typical burned out home site. He was looking at what use to be a car and describing it as having 'melted into a puddle.' If a fire is so hot it can melt metal, I doubt a roof is going to make a house fireproof. If houses have soffit vents and wood trusses, fire finds them.

 

[Dublin ohio]

Tall steel transmission towers would solve much of the problem, upgrading the current design to withstand 150 mph winds instead of 70 mph.

We had a tornado rip through an area close to me last year. Some of those tall steel towers folded due to the wind. They were talking hurricane force winds in the Palisades. Towers would be fine for long distances, but that would not be viable once you get into the neighborhoods.

Perhaps new materials for wrapping the cables.

Overhead transmission and distribution wires are not insulated, they are bare wires for a couple of reasons. We don't have the technology to make a lightweight material with high insulation and temperature properties. You are talking about voltages of up to 34.5Kv for local distribution lines, transmission lines can be up to 800Kv. Once you go underground the wires have to be insulated and the wire size increases very substantially. Physics is a b**ch

 

[J Grant]

Well I think putting a focus on DEI over operational efficacy and efficiency does not help. Not sure what you are talking about, even Trump has attacked Newsom for his incompetence. I don't pretend, I think the corruption and incompetence in leadership is bad, I'm not gonna pretend its not because there are forced hiring standards based on how someone is born.

Attacking an individual, be it Newsom or an individual who happens to be a minority for proven incompetence is different than whenever a disaster hits, blanket attacking any or all minorities in a department or job as being part of a DEI hire and thus incompetent -

Still, no proof that a "focus" on DEI hire was ever a department priority for operational efficiency.y

 

[Sandra Koutsopoulos]

Prop 13 is not the devil in disguise, and the property taxes for long-time occupants certainly isn't a "pittance". My property taxes are $7000+/yr based on what I paid for the house 10 years ago; if my property taxes increased to reflect current value of my house, they would be about $18,000/yr, and would force me to leave the area. the Prop 13 was created in part to protect long-term residents (neighborhood stability), as well as elderly (like me pretty soon) who cannot keep up with the increased taxes on their fixed SS incomes, which would result in them being virtually cast out of the community into... where? A mobile home in the desert? IMO Prop 13 is a solid positive good thing here.