L.A. FIREs ... 27 Dead, 18 Missing, Nearly 100 Arrested, Over 12,000 Structures Destroyed and 200k Evacuated!

[MetalSludgeCEO]

Anyone in the So. Calif. area?

The Malibu, Topanga and Pacific Palisades are currently torching next level!

And... the winds are just starting, we're supposed to have 60-80 MPH winds, with gusts in the 90-100 MPH possible through Thursday.

Every channel is currently showing some very gnarly footage...

Yikes!

$tEvil

[Turner Coates]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwMAbDmR8Q4

[eddie lee roth]

Oh so it’s the black smoke you have a problem with now?

Just joking by the way. Sounds bad.

[EzyRider]

When I was driving in to work this morning I saw a bunch of clouds/smoke and I thought 'crap there is a big fire' but then wondered if maybe it was just the wind kicking up soot/dirt from the fire we had down here in South OC a few months back. (this has happened the last few times and it blows a fine layer of soot on everything, totally sucks)

Maybe this fire is what I was seeing though, but it seems like it would be too far away to see it (but maybe not?)

I went for a MTB ride to Whiting Ranch at lunch and no fires could be seen, just windy AF (I got blown of my bike at one point)!!

[MisterSinister]

Hey, I guess nobody followed President Dump’s advice and “cleaned the [forest] floors”.

[MetalSludgeCEO]

The news is showing dozens, between 100-200 cars all left abandoned by people, who opted to run from the fire as there was a max traffic jam with flames all over.

With that...

When fire-fighters and response teams arrived, the streets/roads were blocked with all of the abandoned cars... so what to do?

They took bull-dozers, and literally bull-dozed everyone's cars out of the way... plowed right through shoving all of these cars off the roads!

There are roads that look like parking lots, with cars all smashed into each other, almost like a freeway pile-up!

Lots of very expensive vehicles too... this is only going to get worse as the winds are supposed to peak, in the next few days.

Damn... the insurance claims are going to be nuts!

$tEvil

[gtrjay]

Just talked to old friend who is 20 min from LAX said winds are bad but they aren’t in trouble where he is. But he has friends that have done what $tevil said “left their cars and ran”

[Nate S Axel]

Will you and LAglamrocker have to relocate to Vegas until it's over?

[MetalSludgeCEO]

Watch a bull-dozer push cars into a pile on the side of the road, so fire-fighters and emergency vehicles can get through!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hQUxLz8Xs

$ludge

[MetalSludgeCEO]

Will you and LAglamrocker have to relocate to Vegas until it's over?

No.

$tEvil

[HueyRamone]

Watch a bull-dozer push cars into a pile on the side of the road, so fire-fighters and emergency vehicles can get through!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hQUxLz8Xs

$ludge

Cray. But I dont get what that Bulldozer is doing. hes just bashing that black Audi over and over, never moving it anywhere.

[LAglamrocker]

I would consider it but UNLV doesn’t have girls beach volleyball team but Vegas does have cool hidden bars at Cosmopolitan

I need to escape Laguna winter for few days only 66* today

[EzyRider]

I figured it would be mix of Mercedes/BMW/Audi/Cyber Trucks and only mildly disappointed

It's the same clip of the dude ramming the black Audi though, need some footage of a SL-63 or a Cyber Truck getting rammed by a massive dozer!!

That guy had the best job in LA today!!

[pieceofme]

Unsurprisingly deaths are now being reported

[Whatever Happened To…]

Thoughts and prayers.

[dmbrocker]

Will you and LAglamrocker have to relocate to Vegas until it's over?

He’s relocating to Thailand. Vegas doesn’t have ladyboys.

[Nate S Axel]

Don't forget to bet if the fire will be contained by Friday!
https://x.com/NewsWire_US/status/1877038716121747765

[Black Stuff]

in all seriousness, stay safe, CEO!!!

[Playboyliquor59]

From my front yard this morning

[Nate S Axel]

Know anybody? After the Mayor cut the fire department's budget by almost $20 million, it's tough for the average person to get private firefighters!

[MattleyCrue]

I feel terrible for every one affected by this. More importantly all of the animals that are dying. Sending good thoughts your way if you are affected!

I was bitching about brushing some snow off cars today. I guess I’ll take that in 10 degrees over these fires.

Stay safe to all

[Sleek]

[LitaStrauss]

Know anybody? After the Mayor cut the fire department's budget by almost $20 million, it's tough for the average person to get private firefighters!

Stuff like this is so stupid. Everybody wants to blame somebody, as if it's somebody's fault this is happening. If you want to blame anything, blame global warming and extreme weather. Things like this are only going to become more common.

Besides, LA was never prepared for this type of thing because there are too many people living there and the area is too big. There's only so much they can do. Wait until "the big one" finally hits LA and it will really be a shit show.

[HNB]

Cutting the Fire Department budget by 20MILL, not following proper brush clear procedures amongst other things are to blame and those that run for office and then decide to leave the country at the start of the fire doesn't help. Saying "Climate Change" doesn't lessen the threat and reeling in preparations for this is beyond incomprehensible. There have been Red Flag warnings for weeks in LA and High Wind warnings. Hydrants with no water or water pressure etc, heads SHOULD Roll. It's a natural disaster yes but it's up to the elected dipshits (Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom and all of the DEI hires) to prepare for the inevitable. They didn't.

They should be ran out of town and the state. You're a fool if you don't hold them accountable. Its "literally" their job.

[Nate S Axel]

Will the Hollywood sign make it?
https://wzakcleveland.com/4852857/fire- ... wood-sign/

[Whatever Happened To…]

[Hatchets Molly]

I was reading an article about what celebs' homes are ashes. pretty crazy. rich, poor, or in between, no one should have to watch their entire existence burn to the ground. and steve guttenberg out there moving cars. news reporter talking to him must be too young for police academy and 3 men and a baby.

[Whatever Happened To…]

This is so completely fucked. Check out this drone footage: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ngels.html

Seriously, I wish everyone well dealing with this. Hope any Sludgers in the area are safe.

[LitaStrauss]

Cutting the Fire Department budget by 20MILL, not following proper brush clear procedures amongst other things are to blame and those that run for office and then decide to leave the country at the start of the fire doesn't help. Saying "Climate Change" doesn't lessen the threat and reeling in preparations for this is beyond incomprehensible. There have been Red Flag warnings for weeks in LA and High Wind warnings. Hydrants with no water or water pressure etc, heads SHOULD Roll. It's a natural disaster yes but it's up to the elected dipshits (Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom and all of the DEI hires) to prepare for the inevitable. They didn't.

They should be ran out of town and the state. You're a fool if you don't hold them accountable. Its "literally" their job.

And you're a fool if you don't understand how climate change has caused all this.
https://apnews.com/article/fire-devasta ... fb22c8fcc5

"Southern California is experiencing its most devastating winter fires in more than four decades. Fires don’t usually blaze at this time of year, but specific ingredients have come together to defy the calendar in a fast and deadly manner. Start with supersized Santa Ana winds whipping flames and embers at 100 mph — much faster than normal — and cross that with the return of extreme drought. Add on weather whiplash that grew tons of plants in downpours then record high temperatures that dried them out to make easy-to-burn fuel. Then there’s a plunging and unusual jet stream, and lots of power lines flapping in those powerful gusts. Experts say that’s what is turning wildfires into a deadly urban conflagration.

“Tiny, mighty and fast” fires have blazed through America’s west in the last couple of decades as the world warms, said University of Colorado fire scientist Jennifer Balch. She published a study in the journal Science last October that looked at 60,000 fires since 2001 and found that the fastest-growing ones have more than doubled in frequency since 2001 and caused far more destruction that slower, larger blazes.

“Fires have gotten faster,” Balch said Wednesday. “The big culprit we’re suspecting is a warming climate that’s making it easier to burn fuels when conditions are just right.”

Summer fires are bigger usually, but they don’t burn nearly as fast. Winter fires “are much more destructive because they happen much more quickly” said U.S. Geological Survey fire scientist Jon Keeley.

AccuWeather estimated damage from the latest fires could reach $57 billion, with the private firm’s chief meteorologist, Jonathan Porter, saying “it may become the worst wildfire in modern California history based on the number of structures burned and economic loss.”

“It’s really just the perfect alignment of everything in the atmosphere to give you this pattern and strong wind,” said Tim Brown, director of the Western Regional Climate Center.

Wind speed and the speed of spreading flames are clearly linked.

“The impact increases exponentially as wind speed increases,” said fire scientist Mike Flannigan of Thompson Rivers University in Canada. If firefighters can get to the flames within 10 minutes or so, its spread can be contained, but “15 minutes, it’s too late and it’s gone. The horse has left the barn.”

There’s no sure link between Santa Ana winds — gusts from the east that come down the mountains, gain speed and hit the coast — to human-caused climate change, said Daniel Swain, climate scientist for the California Institute for Water Resources. But a condition that led to those winds is a big plunge in the temperature of the jet stream — the river of air that moves weather systems across the globe — which helped bring cold air to the eastern two-thirds of the nation, said University of California Merced climate and fire scientist John Abatzoglou. Other scientists have preliminarily linked those jet stream plunges to climate change.

Santa Ana winds are happening later and later in the year, moving more from the drier fall to the wetter winter, Keeley said. Normally, that would reduce fire threats, but this isn’t a normal time.

After two soaking winters, when atmospheric rivers dumped huge amounts of water on the region causing lots of plants to grow, a fast onset of drought dried them out, providing perfect tinder, according to Swain and Abatzoglou.

Swain says this weather whiplash is happening more often.

There is a clear link between climate change and the more frequent dry falls and winters that provide fuel for fires, Swain said.

The human factor in this can’t be ignored, said Keeley.

“I think that we need to look at it from the perspective of global changes. And climate is just one global change. And certainly one of the other important global changes is population growth. And California has been growing at a phenomenal rate in the last 20 years,” Keeley said. “You add more people and that means you add more power lines and more potential for failure to occur.”

While the ignition sources for these fires have yet to be determined, Flannigan bets they’ll end up being power lines blown down by high winds. That’s what started California’s devastating fires in 2016 and 2017, leading to utility Pacific Gas & Electric declaring bankruptcy after facing $30 billion in lawsuits.

An analysis of 423 California wildfires that have grown to at least 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) since 1984 shows only four of those burned during the winter. About two-thirds of those larger fires sparked in June, July or August.

Federal data shows just six wildfires have burned more than 2 square miles (5 square kilometers) in any January in California since 1984. Until the Palisades and Eaton fires this year, the largest had been the Viejas Fire, which burned 17.1 square miles (44.3 square kilometers) in 2001 in the mountains east of San Diego.

These devastating fires couldn’t happen without the dry and hot conditions, nor would they be blazing without the extreme wind speed, Abatzoglou and others said.

“Winter wildfires should be an oxymoron,” University of Colorado’s Balch said. “Well, because, you know, temperatures drop and we get precipitation. We’re supposed to get precipitation.”

Fire officials used to talk about fire seasons, said David Acuña, a battalion chief for Cal Fire: “Now we talk about fire years.”



Yes, cutting the fire department budget by 20 million was a horrible idea but it wouldn't have stopped this fire at all. Clearing out brush might have helped a little, but this fire was beyond all that. If you want to blame anybody, blame the politicians of the past that let global warming to get where it is now. They all have their heads in the sand.

Blaming any one or two people for this is as stupid as when right wingers wanted to blame democrats for hurricanes because "they controlled the weather." Extreme weather events are part of our life now unless some dramatic changes are made.

[Hatchets Molly]

I have a hard time imagining the geography of this tragedy. I'm seeing mention of Hollywood Hills, and I know many celebrities have been wiped out. Is this close to where Gene and Paul live or the Hollywood sign or Griffith Observatory, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Dr.?

I know several fires are burning (Malibu). I've seen some footage of what looked like a pretty nice shopping avenue turned to nothing.