The weather forecasts for the Los Angeles area were nearly perfect for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Very strong winds and low relative humidity were predicted by the high-resolution models (such as the NWS HRRR model), with forecast winds greater than 60 mph. The region was bone-dry with little rain during the past months.
The NOAA's HRRR model prediction of wildfire potential on Monday indicated very high values in the Pacific Palisades region (see below). It is hard to imagine doing better.
The National Weather Service put out an ominous forecast for the danger of wildfire. I blogged about it on Monday because I was quite concerned.
Yet with all this warning, a huge fire (actually three major fires) occurred with at least 5 deaths. Over a thousand homes were destroyed. The damage will easily be in the billions of dollars. And the story is not over yet.
Did local governments take sufficient steps to stop this well-predicted disaster? Should Southern California Edison have been more aggressive in turning off power?
Update
The area of the Palisade fire this afternoon is shown below, with a current size of about 16,000 acres.
There are two other large fires, the Easton and Hurst fires.
Wednesday Max Wind Through Noon
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Even Edison's own maps this AM showed that large areas near the fires (and strong winds) were still energized.
Just frustrating..... such good weather predictions and still such unfortunate outcomes. We need to do better.
Great post Cliff. And an accurate forecast. Apocalyptic event. You begin to wonder if multiple fires were intentionally ignited by rogue actors. The "fuels" were certainly there and I'm getting a suspicion of a force of nefarious actors throwing the match on the fuel and walking away watching it burn. We will know in time, hopefully.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, SoCal Edison is beholden to stockholders, much like PSE is here. Ratepayers and communities come second. A strong argument for PUDs. To draw a local parallel: in the aftermath of last November's windstorm, PSE customers fared far worse than customers in PUD territory.
ReplyDeleteAfter the 2018 Camp Fire, prioritizing shareholder value over safety is no longer a very likely explanation in my opinion. PG&E booked $30 BILLION in costs related to that fire, including a $13.5 billion legal settlement.
DeleteIn other word's, hypothetically preserving 1-2 days worth of revenue by not de-energizing cost them over a decade's worth of profits.
Every utility in the US saw that. They're far too greedy to intentionally choose such a wildly imbalanced risk-reward option.
Negligence or malfeasance such as due to lacking a clear de-energization policy is more plausible.
How would you compare/contrast this with what happened in Lahaina?
ReplyDeleteCinder blocks and/or stucco should be the new normal for housing construction in California. Roofs should be metal or tile. No trees near the house.
ReplyDeleteYes, very good Comrade! It will be just like the paradise that was the USSR we miss so much. After all, we're well on our way anyway..
DeleteJHK Not sure what you mean by that. If you are alluding to loss of freedom, remember that we have had building codes for many years. It is about safety and durability. That's not to say that every homeowner who does his own construction has to follow the codes exactly, but when they sell, they are required to divulge any problems.
DeletePeriodic wildfires are a natural part of the lifecycle of the southern California chaparral ecosystem. Wet conditions promote shrub and bush growth. Sooner or later, dry conditions burn that growth off.
ReplyDeleteThe topography of the hills and valleys in that area of California causes them to act as wind strakes directing the flow of air into the urbanized areas to the west and south of the shrub and bush-covered hills.
Sooner or later, a wildfire was going to be sparked by some ignition source, either natural or man-made, and then be hugely amplified by strong winds, sending burning embers well beyond any fire barriers which might have been constructed between the hills and the urbanized areas.
The only possible means of avoiding this huge disaster would have been to use only non-combustible materials for construction of every house and building in the path of the wildfire.
It doesn't even need to be that extreme, you just need to build homes that can't be ignited by embers and manage landscaping around the home to manage how close a spreading fire can get. This can be accomplished by mostly conventional building methods.
DeleteGreat 99% Invisible podcast episode titled "built to burn" which covers the research.
Well you could clear underbrush, put up fire breaks and do some controlled Burns. Burns. My dad used to live in Malibu and he said when you would look out in the hills, you could see fire breaks. Crisscrossing the hills and there were controlled Burns. He told me years ago that if they continue with this lack of management, there would be a massive disaster.
DeleteYou did your job, as did the NWS.
ReplyDeleteYes they did. Gov. Newsom and PGE definitely did not.
DeleteMy guess is arson, but watching the firefighters battle the house fires with Christmas lights on trees lit up in the front yards (power still on) was mind boggling. Power was shut off miles away but not where the actual fire was.
ReplyDeleteIf the fire started as a backyard fire as so far stated, what role did forest management practices play, versus the relevance of power lines? In Hawaii it was powerline and brush... here it seems to be human and then poor forest management and fire prevention by homeowners and the state. Comment?
ReplyDeleteCliff, do you a preliminary analysis on whether climate change caused or impacted these fires? Using climate change as a reason for every natural disaster seems to be the norm.
ReplyDeleteWhich is honestly a disservice to making actual progress on climate change. If everything is an impact of climate change, then nothing really is because those actual impacts are just another noise in a cacophony. Much in the way it was an error early on to call it "global warming" and not "climate change", we should adopt a vernacular that describes how climate change has enhanced certain events. Whether that be drought sustaining longer, more vapor enhancing precipitation events, or dust storms of Saharan Africa.
DeleteI think this is, regrettably, a normal occurrence for southern California. The Santa Ana winds have always occurred. It is as much geographic as it is meteorologic. The ignition source may have changed but wind as a driving force of conflagration is just natural.
Perhaps the region is somewhat drier than say 100 years ago - I don't know - but fire in the desert southwest is usual. It is unfortunate so many people live in fire prone areas just as it is sad that so many people live below sea level in New Orleans, or former wetlands in Texas.
There are significant adjustments to civic planning and insurance that need to occur. It will upset people but there isn't a reason to persist in poor planning because it is what we are used to. Hard things are hard to do and are often disruptive, but as always we can adapt.
It does seem that one wildfire after another has begun upwind of densely populated, upscale, areas in California, and that's troubling. The "why" of three-four multiple tracks igniting simultaneously definitely needs investigation. Whatever the ignition source(s), it's it's been disappointing and alarming to witness insufficient "preparedness" in multiple ways, like the lack of well-situated reservoirs and what's looked like uncoordinated strategy. When forest fires occur, all efforts are focused on establishing worthwhile "fire lines" well ahead (downwind) of a fire's path. I watched the coverage, looking for that sort of response, and it's seemed woefully lacking ("exposure protection," in firefighting parlance). The conditions were known, the terrain understood. These events recur, what has been learned? I'll share a Ben Franklin quote: "Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it."
ReplyDeleteBack in 2018, some friends of ours bought a large plot of land in the semi-forested grassland south of Cheney as a place to build their retirement home, which they were constructing themselves as they had time.
ReplyDeleteThey first built a smaller outbuilding to be used as a place for storing their construction tools and materials, and for housing a farm tractor equipped with a backhoe and a blade.
The outbuilding was made in the same style as their larger future home using wood stud framing, 8" wood composite siding, and an asphalt tile roof.
Before they got started on this project, I offered my opinion that sooner or later, a wind-driven wildfire would sweep through their property. Both the outbuilding and the house should therefore use non-combustable materials for their construction, including metal siding and a metal roof for both structures.
There is no issue here, they said. We will leave 200 feet of cleared ground between the house & outbuilding and the vegetation. (Which they eventually did.)
My response was this: The 200 feet of cleared ground won't make the slightest bit of difference. When the wildfire comes through, it will be blowing hot embers like a blowtorch against the two structures as if that cleared ground isn't even there.
Four years later, the outbuilding was complete and work had begun on the house. A huge wind-driven wildfire swept through their property, quickly destroying the outbuilding and all the work which had been done up to that point on the house.
There was next to no trace of their stored building materials left. All their construction tools and equipment inside the outbuilding, including the farm tractor, were nothing but cooled pieces of molten metal.
They started over again the following spring, starting out by constructing a replacement outbuilding, one with steel interior framing, metal siding, and a metal roof.
"The 200 feet of cleared ground won't make the slightest bit of difference."
DeleteNeither will using so-called non-combustible materials that everyone likes to bring up. When the fire comes though, the neighborhood and surrounding area are finished. No one will be living there for many years. That's all there is to it.
JHK, that is simply not true. Being proactive and having fire resistant material, clean gutters, no mulch next to house in flower beds, and defensible space, ect makes a huge difference. Though not 100% I saw it while fighting the Carlton complex when Pateros burned. We ran out of water then too. While one house burned the others next to it ended up fine the difference ls were the things I spoke of. We saved a house when we got trapped up Indian Dan canyon, you know what caught fire, cat food bag on porch. And no we didn't pre treat the house as water was limited and our tender operator freaked out and left us. If we weren't there whole house be gone. The dozer with us, the foam of the seat caught fire. Remember the triangle take away one thing no fire.
DeleteBetah Blocher: "The 200 feet of cleared ground won't make the slightest bit of difference."
DeleteJHK: "Neither will using so-called non-combustible materials that everyone likes to bring up. When the fire comes though, the neighborhood and surrounding area are finished. No one will be living there for many years. That's all there is to it."
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When the destroyed Pacific Palisades neighborhoods are eventually rebuilt, the question of whether or not the use of non-combustible materials works, or it doesn't, in preventing the massive destruction of entire neighborhoods will be central to the decision local government makes in either allowing, or not allowing, those neighborhoods to be rebuilt.
If an analysis determines that the use of non-combustible materials is an important aid in preventing the loss of large numbers of structures located in close proximity to each other, then every house in a rebuilt Pacific Palisades will be forced to use those non-combustible materials.
Dictating the use of those materials for every rebuilt structure in a neighborhood totally destroyed by a previous wildfire will become a form of wildfire herd immunity for southern California's urban landscape.
Twenty years ago, I read an article in National Geographic concerning the gradual expansion of the urban area surrounding Naples, Italy. Suburban development was occuring near, and even on, the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.
The author of the National Geographic article had this to say at its conclusion. A future eruption will destroy the urban areas now encroaching on the slopes of the volcano. Future generations will rebuild those urban areas as the passage of time allows.
Exactly and also would you want to be one of the houses still standing in palisades? Great, your house survived, now you get to live there looking at all the destruction each day while your property value has cratered because the neighborhood is gone. Also, you want to up your homeowners insurance? Good luck with that. It’s probably been canceled.
DeleteI live in an area called Carbon Canyon in the city of Chino Hills,CA. We are located about 25 miles east of the Altadena fire. The canyon runs NE/SW, and point directly at the Cajon Pass. Socal Edison sent mass alerts out starting Monday morning that power cuts were most likely. We were more than okay with this as residents in fairly narrow, urban locked canyon that is currently a tinderbox. The wind here was less than what the western foothills saw, but still was gusting at ~70 mph. SCE did NOT kill our power until Wednesday morning at 6am (after the peak of the wind event). Our power remained out all day Wednesday and Thursday. There was/is a red flag warning issued through today (Friday) at noon. So what did SCE decide to do? They restored power at 8pm last night, because “the winds have stopped”(quoted from the text we received from them). The winds picked up an hour later and were gusting to ~45-55mph ALL night. As I type this at 7:20 am Friday the winds have subsided. So who is in charge at SCE that looked at the big picture, saw the devastation that their poor choices had already likely caused, and said, “yea, it’s important we restore power to fuel loaded canyon that is urban locked”.
DeleteI realized awhile ago that there will NEVER be proper management on any level in an area like Southern California. These events will continue and only get worse. I’m moving my family out after this school year. Luckily for everyone else in the country, chaos and mismanagement are normal for the folks who grew up here, so these events WONT create a mass exodus. I’m from rural VT, the type of place where you get held accountable for your poor choices. SCE will never be held accountable for this even if a judgement is made against them.
Construction density is a key point. Urban wildland interfaces shouldnt have the density that is allowed right now. Your house burning shouldn't threaten my house. Whether they datetime 50, 100 foot spacing they need to address that. Also, regulation on landscaping type. If going to live in area where water restictions happen in droubt, you shouldnt have a landscape that requires water to keep non combistable. Also, I am sure insurance will definaetly dictate the construction materials if people want to be covered when they rebuild. This isn't the people's fault, they don't know better, but policy makers better learn from it and impose new rules to help prevent this in future. It will happen again if they just are allowed to rebuild as is.also if we're me I would definately have swimming pool, that way I had a water source to save my own house, we used them to save lots of houses when we had water problems when the PUD cut power to our lift station pumps. We drafted water from the swimming pools.
Delete1) Santa Anna winds have always blown.
ReplyDelete2) Chaparral/Chamise/Manzanita & grasses are *meant* to burn.
3) Zoning regulations, fire resistant building codes, and wildland urban interface codes - especially defensible space - are grossly insufficient.
I grew up near Eaton Canyon, in the 50s, 60s and 70s. There were no homes above the golf course then. As others have said, wildfires are a fact of life there. Brush grows, dies, ignites, then grows again. Government failed to remove the brush near the homes.
ReplyDeleteConcrete camper fires were probably the source of ignition, but it could have been anything. Government was more concerned with pronouns and identity than effective fire prevention and preparation.
Remember, Go woke, go catastrophic fires.
Guess one other thing, Cliff. While not just warning govt. officials, these weather reports should warn people to prepare. Get essitials organized, police your yard outside (remove garbage cans from close proximity, rake leaves, clean gutters ect.). We all have skin in this game, it's not just the govt. fault.
ReplyDeleteDr. Swain banned me from his board for making similar obs and asking similar questions. Thanks for asking the question with hard to hear answers.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel better, he banned me too....
DeleteI am not sure how it makes me feel. Academia and her extensions are self-crippling though echo chambers. Was a good group over there but I'm over the censorship of ideas in order to sustain incomplete ideas. I'm tired of people supporting policies that have disabled our disaster response apparatus through a thousands cuts, evading culpability. I spent my life in media analysis and mass comm; this is all as clear as day to me.
DeleteAnyways, thanks for a rational take asking questions that are prudent and should be asked. This is not a zero sum emotional plate; we can be concerned for our socal brethren while simultaneously seeking accountability, and an explanation for the genesis and evolution of this event. The showdown between LAFD/LA Gov/LADWP looks to just be getting started. Reeks of Maui disconnect.
Forest service stopped controlled burning in October because it was too dry and resources were needed to fight fires. Note that houses built to be resistant to fires is just that "resistant" not fire proof. When temps. get above 2000 degrees note that not much can resist that except cinder block or concrete. It would be easy to blame local politicians but this is not too much different from Florida coastal communities with similar myopic politics. There are some places that need to be deserted and left to nature.
ReplyDelete