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35 thoughts on “Here’s the start of the Palisades fire”

  2. cmayo

    I don't want anybody to lose their homes or lives, but it seems pretty damn clear that areas like this shouldn't habitated. We have no business building structures and living in a fire zone.

      1. chaboard

        If 'areas like this' includes obvious fire, earthquake, hurricane or tornado risk then there are very few places in the entire United States that we 'have business building' in.

        2. cmayo

          There's risk of an occurrence, typical intensity of occurrences, and frequency of occurrence.

          Nice of you to build a straw man out of simple existence of risk without paying any heed to frequency or intensity.

          How dumb.

          1. TheMelancholyDonkey

            Yes, it is very dumb to consider what to do about people that already live there. If you force them to move, do they get compensated for their property? Even if they don't sell immediately, any such designation will crater the resale value of their homes.

            It is also dumb to consider what the effects of such a decree would be in an area that already has a housing shortage.

            It's also dumb to respond to someone that writes, "We have no business building structures and living in a fire zone," as if they actually meant what they wrote.

      2. cmayo

        Why do I have to set the parameters? I'm just saying there should be some, when clearly there aren't any, currently. Do you disagree with that?

        1. TheMelancholyDonkey

          Given what you wrote in the first comment, you very much did set parameters. No building in a fire zone. If you want to walk that back, fine, but you at least have to admit that that's what you are doing.

          You are also incorrect when you say that there clearly are no parameters. There may or may not be government regulations on where you can build (though there are, in fact, such regulations and you just don't think that they are strict enough) but insurance companies very much do set some parameters.

          1. cmayo

            RE: government vs. insurance companies - sort of, kind of, but not really. And it's slow moving, with only a stick (you can't get insurance coverage) instead of a carrot (public funding to buy people out). I guess you just like sticks?

            You're moving the goal posts. The parameters are what's a fire zone and therefore shouldn't be built in.

            So fucking pedantic. So activated by the mere suggestion that maybe the built environment should be different in disaster-prone areas instead of hundreds of billions of dollars thrown away for stupid reasons.

            Grow a brain.

    2. CAbornandbred

      "I don't want anybody to lose their homes or lives, but it seems pretty damn clear that areas like this shouldn't habitated. We have no business building structures and living in a TORNADO or HURRICANE zone."

      FIFY This argument can be made for a pretty large swath of many states. It's not going to happen.

      1. cmayo

        Hurricanes, sure. Tornadoes are a bit of a stretch.

        You forgot floods and sea level rise. We shouldn't be building in those spots either, and we should be encouraging people to move out of them.

        Why is this so hard to understand? Y'all live in California or something? It must hit close to home because the defensiveness is real.

    3. Are you gonna eat that sandwich

      Have you seen photos of Palisades Village pre-firestorm? It looks like any wealthy suburban neighborhood in the US, not in an urban-wild interface.

      The fact that we’ve screwed with the climate so much that previously defensible areas are no longer defensible in extreme conditions says absolutely nothing about the wisdom of building there in the first place.

      1. cmayo

        "It looks like any wealthy suburban neighborhood in the US, not in an urban-wild interface."

        Thank you for making my point for me, as well as illustrating that you aren't aware of what makes these areas prone to fires.

      2. PaulDavisThe1st

        Palisades was *never* defensible against a Santa-Ana driven fire. It's just that such things don't happen very often.

    1. FrankM

      That and the fact that they had drenching rains early last year boosting overgrowth of vegetation on the hillsides, followed by six months of no rain at all, turning the overgrowth into firestarter.

    2. KenSchulz

      TIL the phrase ‘ember cast’. Well, actually a couple days ago. Some videos I saw outdid any Fourth of July fireworks for aerial sparks.

    3. painedumonde

      I bet there was a direct order: nobody interior unless life was threatened. It seems obvious, but it's not. Defensive firefighting is what is slanged as a water carnival.

  5. Salamander

    Even worse than what the fires are doing to California is the unbounded glee that the entire Republican party (or so it seems) is enjoying. That's the kind of thing that's setting on fire the fragile and flammable fabric of American society itself.

    This would be a good line of response for Democrats. Why are you all so happy about this? What's wrong with you, anyway?

  6. jdubs

    As suspected, it was the DEI grasses and DEI trees that are responsible. Just look at 'em, you can tell.

    If we had entrusted only the best grasses and trees to man those slopes, everything would be fine. When will we learn!?

  7. Kalimac

    Who took that first photo? (I don't mean their name, but who were they? Reporter? Random passerby?) Why were they there? If they saw the fire, why weren't there any firefighters around to put it out when there still was a chance?
    These are not accusations, just questions.

    1. Are you gonna eat that sandwich

      By no means am I certain, but there are innumerable trail cameras all over the Santa Monica mountains. So quite possibly this is a screenshot from a webcam.

    2. painedumonde

      Ah yes hump 500 gallons of water into the scrub with just duty companies in the area. Oh by the way cover the medical emergencies that just skyrocketed because of the smoke. And oh, yeah you're not going home tomorrow, your vacation is cancelled, Kelly Day?, nah. Helicopters fly in hundred mile an hour gusts with double the weight dangling below it. Sure sure.

      And I know you weren't accusing anybody.

      (⁠✿⁠^⁠‿⁠^⁠)

  8. D_Ohrk_E1

    The attacks on Newsom are part of a calculated plan to preemptively stop those politicians seen by conservatives as the most likely to be successful nationally from becoming viable superstars of the Democratic party. IOW, they see Newsom as a threat to win in 2028.

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