LAC residents: Check in

[yoda]

Some serious tragedies going on in the home of our sport at the moment.

L.A. Local 'Maters: When you can, check in and let us know if we can assist y'all. Stay safe, have that Go bag in place, and move when they tell you to.

 

[Cliff]

Watching fires on TV. Was within 2000' of Hollywood Blvd last nite. Grew up in Glendale, not too far from Altedena fire.

 

[glofria]

So far all clear here. The winds have died down quite a bit, but the damage is done.

Anyone who's driven a open cockpit car and forgote to drop their viser can relate to these winds.

 

[Dragracer]

Am in the Inland Empire (Menifee) and the wind has just started. It's gusting at 25-30 and it's supposed to pick up significantly throughout the day thru friday. Hope the fires stay away.

 

[Ramjet]

We are about 120/130 Straight Line miles from there and SCE (Edison) is already sending us notices 3 times a day so far that if the wind picks up or even forcasts to a certain point they are going to shut down all power to the area on the spot. The only good (?) thing right here is that almost everything around us has already burned. No one is following the no clearing the under growth rule which just acts as fire starter material.

 

[LAZYC]

We are about 120/130 Straight Line miles from there and SCE (Edison) is already sending us notices 3 times a day so far that if the wind picks up or even forcasts to a certain point they are going to shut down all power to the area on the spot. The only good (?) thing right here is that almost everything around us has already burned. No one is following the no clearing the under growth rule which just acts as fire starter material.

In Shadow Hills just east of SFV no fire but lots of smoke, Tuesday night was a real scary night high winds and power hits all night, left a mess of branches and leaves, already filled two large green barrels with the leftover ****, it's not over yet, been thru this before, but this one is really scary.

 

[BamBam2140]

I live about 20 minutes from Pomona Dragway, My wife’s 84 year old Grandma lives up in Alta Dena and received a mandatory evacuation at around 3:00am Tuesday, My wife and I went to pick her up and arrived around 4:30am, It was like Hell on earth up there, We could see the fire was very close and the winds felt like Hurricane Force winds, Very low visibility because of the smoke, Police cars and firefighters driving around everywhere, All of the other residents of the neighborhood were leaving at the same time and due to traffic it took us quite awhile to get out of there, Thankfully her home was spared But a lot of homes on the other side of her street were burned

 

[Fueler1]

I live 3miles from the Ventura blvd small fire that popped up last night and thankfully they got that out quick. Very Smokey here

 

[chop]

We are about 120/130 Straight Line miles from there and SCE (Edison) is already sending us notices 3 times a day so far that if the wind picks up or even forcasts to a certain point they are going to shut down all power to the area on the spot. The only good (?) thing right here is that almost everything around us has already burned. No one is following the no clearing the under growth rule which just acts as fire starter material.

Why does the government not allow clearing of underbrush?

 

[Professional Fan]

My daughter's family evacuated from Santa Monica two days ago. She thinks their house is OK so far.

 

[Randy]

Why does the government not allow clearing of underbrush?

They have decided that nature should take care of itself. Not too many years ago a fire started above Shasta City and they decided to let it burn because it was caused by nature (lightning strike). When it started burning down homes and business they decided to fight it. Only problem was it was so big by the time they decided to fight it, it was devastating.

There's a family near San Diego that cleared brush behind their home in an effort to be responsible, and were fined over $53,000 for doing it. The family got the local NBC News affiliate involved and they reduced the fine to $9,000.

City of San Diego fines family $53,367 for clearing brush in nature preserve behind home

The City of San Diego fined a family $53,367 after a homeowner cleared away brush in a city-owned nature preserve. The family say it was done to reduce wildfire risks by creating defensible space.

www.nbcsandiego.com

Back years ago when I was a kid, I remember they would allow people to gather firewood on the floors in the national forests, they would do controlled burns during off season to reduce risks of out of control wildfires, and they would maintain at risk areas to avoid all this. The environmentalists fought, maintaining that doing this was destroying the planet. Under the current leadership in California they've gone nuts, cutting off water, and cutting fire department budgets.

 

[glofria]

What Randy says is all true. But like a lot of other aspects here in CA, the state and local governments have gone too far. In the case of these fires, they have no rational explanation for the decisions made.

As so many accurately stated, California is a mess.

 

[Nick Rienstra]

I am so sorry for all involved. This should never happen on this scale but…..Politics!!!!! This is another reminder that if you’re not involved in politics, the politics will involve you one way or another. Start holding these people accountable!

BTW: Elections have consequences! Stolen elections have worse consequences!

 

[chop]

What Randy says is all true. But like a lot of other aspects here in CA, the state and local governments have gone too far. In the case of these fires, they have no rational explanation for the decisions made.

As so many accurately stated, California is a mess.

I live in Alabama and Alabama gets a bad rap for being backwards, redneck hillbilly's but I'll take our freedom over a state like California any day. If you act halfway right nobody bothers you here. I live in a nice neighborhood and there are subdivisions around me but my property is not part of a subdivision. My property is zoned A1 which means agriculture and if I had a mind to I could fence it in and keep livestock. I wouldn't ever do that but I have the freedom to if I wanted to. I read about all of the stuff that goes on in California and it's almost unbelievable. I know it's a beautiful state, I've been there but what in the hell happened? That's a rhetorical question because I know what happened but why?

 

[mick]

have been following this tragedy since tuesday. of all the commentary across all media, one comment stood out. it went something like this;
'there was a time a few years ago when certain parts of the state new the S.A. winds were coming, they would position firetrucks at strategic positions
just in case' ...... asking those of you who live there, does this sound like a true statement?

 

[glofria]

Mike, undoubtaly for many of these political figures it's about presenting a possitve view. I feel in their minds that having roving fire trucks would cause panic (which was the case anyways). As the old saying goes, good intenetion but bad results.

Not to drive this issue, but here is an example of how California operates anymore.

Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline and empty when firestorm exploded

A reservoir in the Palisades that holds 117 million gallons of water was offline this month for previously scheduled maintenance.

www.latimes.com

 

[mick]

gino, that is an interesting article. it does state the reservoir is intended for potable water, not a backup in event of wildfire scenarios.
the reservoir had tear in cover and can not be used in that state of condition for potable water, hence reservoir was empty.
also states a full reservoir would have extended fire fighter water pressure a little while longer, but would have eventually ran dry.

 

[roscoe37]

have been following this tragedy since tuesday. of all the commentary across all media, one comment stood out. it went something like this;
'there was a time a few years ago when certain parts of the state new the S.A. winds were coming, they would position firetrucks at strategic positions
just in case' ...... asking those of you who live there, does this sound like a true statement?

they still do. i ran in to some trucks from northern calif at Hart park last month ,and they said they were sent down here and parked because of the s.a .there were no fires then.i was wondering why they dont have some big trucks 5000 gal like gas trucks to haul water. i live in tujunga

 

[Dragracer]

I live in Southern California and have my whole life. These fires have nothing about what the political people have done or not done. They have nothing to do with cleaning up FEDERAL forests. This has not been a forest fire. We are having the worst wind event in over 40 years. Every year we have what they call Santa Ana's and we are normally prepared for them. This time we have had constant winds of 40+ mph with gusts to 95 mph. Normally we have water dropping helicopters and water and Foschek dropping planes. Due to the extreme winds these assets were grounded due the high winds for the first 2 days. This is a total disaster - Pacific Palisades is no longer. The schools, churches and most of the homes are gone. It looks Nagasaki after we dropped the bomb in WW2. Palisades fire started in the backyard of a home by a spark from something. It was known this had the possibility of being bad and fire equipment was pre-staged in anticipation. Never could it have been thought we would have anything close to this bad not only for 1 fire but multiple ones at the same time. The fire dept was using 10 times more water than the whole city of LA uses in a day. This is no one's fault. Disasters happen. You can't blame the State, LA or others any more than you can blame a hurricane or tornado on someone.. It is expected we will have another wind event next week. Hopefully it's not as bad as this one. There are fire departments here from all California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Canada plus over 400 National Guard. The first priority here is saving lives then structures. At this time less than a dozen have died. Criticism at this time does no good. Just pray/hope we are through the worst. Over 60,000 structures have been totally destroyed-it's a disaster of monumental proportions and will take years to recover.

 

[65 Goatboy]

I live in Southern California and have my whole life. These fires have nothing about what the political people have done or not done. They have nothing to do with cleaning up FEDERAL forests. This has not been a forest fire. We are having the worst wind event in over 40 years. Every year we have what they call Santa Ana's and we are normally prepared for them. This time we have had constant winds of 40+ mph with gusts to 95 mph. Normally we have water dropping helicopters and water and Foschek dropping planes. Due to the extreme winds these assets were grounded due the high winds for the first 2 days. This is a total disaster - Pacific Palisades is no longer. The schools, churches and most of the homes are gone. It looks Nagasaki after we dropped the bomb in WW2. Palisades fire started in the backyard of a home by a spark from something. It was known this had the possibility of being bad and fire equipment was pre-staged in anticipation. Never could it have been thought we would have anything close to this bad not only for 1 fire but multiple ones at the same time. The fire dept was using 10 times more water than the whole city of LA uses in a day. This is no one's fault. Disasters happen. You can't blame the State, LA or others any more than you can blame a hurricane or tornado on someone.. It is expected we will have another wind event next week. Hopefully it's not as bad as this one. There are fire departments here from all California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Canada plus over 400 National Guard. The first priority here is saving lives then structures. At this time less than a dozen have died. Criticism at this time does no good. Just pray/hope we are through the worst. Over 60,000 structures have been totally destroyed-it's a disaster of monumental proportions and will take years to recover.

Terry, very well stated.
Politics should stay out of this disaster especially while it is occuring. People have died and lost their homes and communities.