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The Great Los Angeles Fire of 2025

Kaitzilla

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For the last 36 hours, multiple fires have ravaged areas to the north of Los Angeles, USA's 2nd largest city.
The biggest one is to the northwest of LA in Pacific Palisades.

So far about $60 billion in damages and 180000+ evacuated with 5 deaths.


Out-of-control blazes are still raging in Los Angeles, with firefighters unable to contain one of Southern California’s worst natural disasters in history

Roughly 30,000 acres were on fire, and at least five people were dead early Thursday, with more than 180,000 residents ordered to evacuate, and more than 425,000 without power. More than 2,000 structures have been lost in the Pacific Palisades fire and in the Eaton fire in and around Altadena, with critical fire weather forecast through Friday night, local officials said. Forecasters said no rain is expected over the next week.

 
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Some celebrities have also lost their homes.


Paris Hilton
Billy Crystal
Cary Elwes
Ricki Lake
Joan River's daughter Melissa
Anna Faris
Spencer Pratt and Heide Montage
James Woods
Adrian Brody
Diane Warren
Cameron Mathison

**Edit**
Anthony Hopkins
Jeff Bridges
Jhené Aiko
Beyonce's mother Tina Knowles
Candy Spelling, widow of Aaron Spelling
John Goodman
Eugene Levy
 
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The fires simply raged with 80mph (130kph) Santa Ana winds yesterday, but the winds are much calmer today.

They ran out of water during the middle of the fire that consumed (half?) the Pacific Palisades yesterday.


Here is the latest update I think from an hour ago.

 
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Canadians join the fight against Los Angeles-area wildfires​

Aircraft from B.C., Quebec helping out as 1,000 structures destroyed, at least 2 people killed

Firefighting aircraft provided by the Quebec government and a B.C.-based company are helping to battle the massive wildfires tearing through the Los Angeles area.

They include a pair of Canadian-made water-bombing planes out of Quebec, while Coulson Aviation helicopters are also "on the frontline" of the fight.

Coulson said in a social media post that its crews are "braving high winds and challenging conditions" in the fight against the Palisades fires.

They're among thousands of firefighters tackling multiple blazes that have killed at least two people and destroyed more than 1,000 structures across the Los Angeles area as of Wednesday morning, according to Los Angeles County's fire chief.

Images from the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood showed firefighters in front of large homes that were engulfed in flames, while residents escaped through fire, ferocious winds and clouds of smoke. At least 70,000 residents were ordered to evacuate, officials said Wednesday.

Coulson's social media post included a screenshot showing the flight paths of three of its water-bombing helicopters swirling repeatedly over the neighbourhood.

The company, which is based in Port Alberni, B.C., but also operates in the U.S. and Australia, says its aircraft in the firefight include its double-rotor Chinook and the smaller Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, contracted with local utility Southern California Edison.

That means Coulson's aircraft directly serves Los Angeles and Orange and Ventura counties and were among the first on the scene of the wildfires.

CEO Wayne Coulson told CBC News that his crews were dispatched to several fires across the L.A. area and would support ground crews as necessary.

"Unfortunately, in this particular fire, the wind was so violent, and the fire got started right away. It had about a three- to four-hour headstart before any aircraft could get on it," he told Gloria Macarenko, host of CBC's On The Coast.

"It's in the urban interface, and it's taking out hundreds and hundreds of homes," Coulson told The Canadian Press. "And a lot of those homes, of course, are very, very expensive.

"As soon as the wind dies down, we will get control of it relatively quickly. But it's just how much damage is done in the meantime."

No official requests for support from Canada: officials​

B.C. Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar said the province is standing by to assist California with the fires but has yet to receive a request.

"British Columbia knows all too well the devastating impacts of wildfires," he said in a statement emailed to CBC News.

"My thoughts are with the people of Los Angeles as they face this extremely challenging situation ... and B.C. will provide support in any way we can in the days ahead."

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which is operated by fire management agencies across Canada, said it has no resources deployed to the California firefighting effort, and there were no "anticipated requests."

A spokesperson for Quebec's Transport Department said the two Quebec government planes have been actively involved in fighting the fires since Tuesday.

The Canadian-made CL-415 firefighting planes are sent to California each fall as part of an annual contract that has existed since 1994, the department says on its website. It says the contract normally begins in September and lasts for between 90 and 180 days.

Pascal Duclos, head pilot for the Quebec government's aerial service, said he spent several hours in the air on Tuesday, dumping dozens of loads of water over fire-devastated areas from his plane.

"What I saw was houses that were in flames, cars that were in flames, people watering their roofs, who were trying to save the building, a lot of people on the ground, firefighters trying to get down a path to get to the source of the fire," he said Wednesday.

Stéphane Caron of Quebec's forest fire protection agency, SOPFEU, said the planes are dispatched with their own pilots, co-pilots and technicians.

Quebec Public Security Minister François Bonnardel posted a message of support on X to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, saying the province is ready to send additional firefighters to the state if they are needed.

"California is currently living through difficult times due to wildfires," Bonnardel wrote. "The governor … can count on the government of Quebec and on SOPFEU to support him, if necessary, in this fight."

Canadian residents in L.A.​

Canadians including Our Lady Peace singer Raine Maida and his family were among the more than 70,000 people forced to flee their homes.

"We've evacuated currently and our canyon is on fire," Maida told The Canadian Press.

Actor Eugene Levy, another prominent Canadian in L.A., told the Los Angeles Times that he faced gridlocked traffic as he attempted to vacate the area amid "black and intense" smoke.

Dayn Nanda, a Toronto-born talent booker living in West Hollywood, described the view from his apartment as "apocalyptic."

"Even just looking out of my window, the sky is full of black clouds and there's a noticeable difference in air quality," he said. "The winds are crazy. Things are falling over and breaking on my balcony."

Nanda said he moved to the city three years ago and knew wildfires were something to expect, but didn't imagine he'd ever experience anything of this magnitude. While he wasn't personally affected by the blaze, he said several colleagues have lost homes.

The 30-year-old said he posted on social media to offer his spare bedroom to anyone displaced by the fire.

The disaster prompted the NHL to postpone a home game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames on Wednesday.

The Kings said in a statement that the team appreciates the hard-working first responders who are trying to contain the fires and protect the community.

"We appreciate the league's support in keeping our fans, staff and players safe," the statement said.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...tish-columbia-wildfires-los-angeles-1.7426060
 
The Palisades Branch Library was completely destroyed by the fire. Their website says "Closed Until Further Notice".
 
They're losing entire suburbs in Los Angeles at the moment, that's even only happened here in Australia a couple of times, and at a smaller scale. The Palisades district here looks a several times the size of the suburban area destroyed in Canberra in 2003, which was in Australia a fairly unprecedented and unrepeated scale of truly urban fire disaster:

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The combination of already strong winds and a firestorm can make everything chaotic. Big fires create their own weather systems, the interaction of the firestorm and the macro wind system can mean chaos with suddenly changing wind directions within the fire.

I'm sure there'll be a lot of blame thrown around on fuel load reduction and fire break preparation and the under resourcing of firefighting. But at a certain point of wind speed, heat and low humidity, all that traditional expertise goes out the window because a full strength fire can just go through everything regardless. About 15 years ago after Black Saturday when a town was levelled and 170 people killed, Australian warning systems recognised this reality with adding a "catastrophic" fire danger level at the top, which indicated days when fires definitely couldn't be contained and would likely cause death. This certainly looks like that same level of conditions.

Which is to say, it very likely won't have mattered how much burning off was done in forests at ground level, when fire can just move through treetops and can jump hundreds of metres across firebreaks.

And you'll never guess what worldwide force of increased heating makes those catastrophic unstoppable combined heat and wind conditions more likely.
 
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Is this murderous wildfire also negatively affecting a bunch of rich people going to be the next Luigi?

There are rumors people are intentionally starting fires while resources are stretched thin.

I hope it is not true.


The latest Luigi news is P. Diddy is jealous how much more people in prison like Luigi than Diddy.

 
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Tbh there has probably never yet been a major bushfire disaster period without rumours of deliberate arson, it just comes with the territory.

Sometimes there's definitely true firebugs, sometimes there's inadvertent man made ignition like cigarettes or anything that sparks (the biggest fire near my city in the 2019-20 summer of fires was started by the heat coming off the spotlight of an army helicopter), most are natural occurrences like lightning. But it's the conditions that make the difference. And once there a spark, eucalypts are basically fuel air bombs.
 
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It really bothers me when these events happen, not because they are completely avoidable, but because there are common sense ways to mitigate the damage and severity of fires like this by simply employing brush removal and back fires. Yet, I rarely see this happen I never looked into why but I know its really rare that back fires are lit. In the past, the 80s and 90s I would occasionally see a controlled burn, but now its uncommon. From what I understand, and that's not much, is that there are all sorts of environmental bureaucratic hoops to jump through, federal and state, before the wheels on any action like start to move. As I speak I can think of multiple areas that are close to my home that are essentially fuel dumps for the next fire and it pisses me off. These, massive fire events in CA, have been an issue since the early aughts and very little has changed as far as the fire fighting strategy goes. That needs to end.
 
It's the middle of winter, that's normally when hazard reduction burns are done. You can't do them when it's too dry and windy, and you can't do them when it's too wet.

Everyone obviously understands that the ecosystems are pyrogenic and are safer with with regular low level burns, but the windows can be pretty short and in drought years, or in hot periods following intense rainfall and plant growth, you might not even get the chance before it's bushfire time. Global warming creating more periods like this.

Increasingly, the experience has also been what firefighters found in the summer of 2019-20, ie that conditions can get bad enough that it doesn't really matter whether ground level fuels have recently been reduced by prescribed burns:

Do hazard reduction burns actually work?
The short answer is "sometimes".

Obviously — in general terms — the less fuel, the smaller the fire and the less intensely it will burn.

However, research has shown that as weather conditions get hotter, drier and windier, fuel reduction becomes less effective.

In "catastrophic" conditions, raging fires no longer need undergrowth to spread — they simply incinerate everything in their path, often becoming dangerous "crown fires" in the treetops.

Canberra-based environmental scientist Cormac Farrell, who specialises in bushfire protection, says fuel reduction works well in milder conditions when blazes are mainly driven by the availability of fuel.

In catastrophic conditions, the wind becomes the driving factor more than anything else and the fuel load is less important.
Everything I'm seeing describes about these hot 100kph+ desert winds sounds like it's a nightmare well beyond the mild end of the spectrum. Entire suburbs burning isn't something that's going to be determined by whether there was hazard burning beforehand. Once it's in the treetops, being hurled forward by 100kph winds and, well, getting into timber framed suburban houses, we're past that point.
 
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It really bothers me when these events happen, not because they are completely avoidable, but because there are common sense ways to mitigate the damage and severity of fires like this by simply employing brush removal and back fires. Yet, I rarely see this happen I never looked into why but I know its really rare that back fires are lit. In the past, the 80s and 90s I would occasionally see a controlled burn, but now its uncommon. From what I understand, and that's not much, is that there are all sorts of environmental bureaucratic hoops to jump through, federal and state, before the wheels on any action like start to move. As I speak I can think of multiple areas that are close to my home that are essentially fuel dumps for the next fire and it pisses me off. These, massive fire events in CA, have been an issue since the early aughts and very little has changed as far as the fire fighting strategy goes. That needs to end.

In years past it has gone sideways.

I can only imagine the lawsuits if a fire started on purpose goes out of control. :crazyeye:


TAOS, N.M., May 20, 2022 (Reuters) - The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) on Friday called a temporary nationwide halt to controlled burns meant to reduce fire risk after the agency accidentally started part of New Mexico's largest ever wildfire.
The Hermits Peak Calf Canyon fire has burned over 300,000 acres (123,000 hectares), destroyed up to 1,500 properties and displaced tens of thousands of people, and is still out of control.
 
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It's the middle of winter, that's normally when hazard reduction burns are done. You can't do them when it's too dry and windy, and you can't do them when it's too wet.
(....)

Everything I'm seeing describes about these hot 100kph+ desert winds sounds like it's a nightmare well beyond the mild end of the spectrum. Entire suburbs burning isn't something that's going to be determined by whether there was hazard burning beforehand. Once it's in the treetops, being hurled forward by 100kph winds and, well, getting into timber framed suburban houses, we're past that point.

You still do that ? Build stone houses for crying out loud...
 
Everything I'm seeing describes about these hot 100kph+ desert winds sounds like it's a nightmare well beyond the mild end of the spectrum. Entire suburbs burning isn't something that's going to be determined by whether there was hazard burning beforehand. Once it's in the treetops, being hurled forward by 100kph winds and, well, getting into timber framed suburban houses, we're past that point.

One of these days, L.A. is going to get really unlucky. :sad:


Maybe the firefighter who talked to Rogan 6 months ago was just a pessimist!
 
You still do that ? Build stone houses for crying out loud...
Earthquake considerations mean a lot of wood frames, as I understand it.
 
Doesn't sound like a good building material in hot climates either
 
The fire likely would not spread from one house the next, and maybe easier to control idk.

But you are right there are other considerations when building.
 
I wonder why those crazy firestorms happen there so often. AFAIK California climate is basically Mediterranean, as in most southern europe. Nothing very special.
 
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