Fire in Pacific Palisades

[Mikey]

Here we go again.

https://patch.com/california/los-angele ... ions-socal

Who will be next?

Running my irrigation a little extra for the next couple of days.

[Sudden Sam]

Here we go again.

https://patch.com/california/los-angele ... ions-socal

Who will be next?

Running my irrigation a little extra for the next couple of days.

Hope it doesn’t get as bad as anticipated. Stay safe, Mikey.

[Mikey]

Here we go again.

https://patch.com/california/los-angele ... ions-socal

Who will be next?

Running my irrigation a little extra for the next couple of days.

Hope it doesn’t get as bad as anticipated. Stay safe, Mikey.

Thanks Sam. You all stay warm this week.

It’s 35 here this morning but should to get up to 70.

We have a high wind watch for Tuesday and Wednesday, and a red flag (fire conditions) warning for Wednesday.

[Sudden Sam]

If we don’t lose power, we’ll be fine. I do worry about pipes, though.

I saw snow in Mobile as a kid, but I don’t recall temps/wind chill like what we’re about to experience.

I’ll take a burst pipe over fire any day. Can’t imagine what those who have lost everything out there are dealing with.

[Mikey]

I hope your infrastructure is up to it. Otherwise you could take a lot of shit here. Or not.

[Carson]

Californians are paying ridiculous property taxes, just to watch their property burn because someone spent the taxes on diversity cultural events instead of equipment repairs.

Showing your ignorance once again. Why is that not surprising? California is 19th lowest in property tax rates, making it the 32nd highest. Not even close to the top 50%

https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/pr ... s-by-state

Ok, strike out property.

[Mikey]

We had to evacuate for a day in 2017 when the “Lilac” fire came within about a mile from our house. I have to say that the resources they threw at that fire were impressive but the scale was minuscule compared to the fires last week in LA.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilac_Fire

[Mikey]

The fires here in 2007 worse than the one in 2017 because there multiple fires all over the state and they didn’t have nearly the aerial capabilities. Some close friends had to literally run for their lives when their house burned in the “Rice” fire. Even then it didn’t get closer to our house than several miles.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Fire

[dan's college room mate]

7500?

Wow. At some point, you need to just consider self insuring, if you can swing it financially.

Like I said, that’s about 3 times what we were paying a few years ago. We’re still paying a mortgage and I think we’re required to carry insurance. And if you consider what it would cost to rebuild it would be a pretty big gamble to try self insure.

It’s a risk for sure.

Life is about calculating risks and making a decision. If you could drop your expense by 4-5 k a year to drop fire coverage, maybe you direct that money to improving fireproofing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sudden Sam]

I hope your infrastructure is up to it. Otherwise you could take a lot of shit here. Or not.

We’ll find out soon.

[Left Seater]

Running my irrigation a little extra for the next couple of days.

Wait, you guys are in a drought and you are watering exterior landscaping?

Wouldn’t eliminating exterior water use make sense for the whole in such conditions? Or do you choose the Seater method and pay more to water the landscaping?

I am not judging as I use a lot of water for 2 people.

[88BuckeyeGrad]

Hope the Mikey manse and its surrounding realm escape the fires again. Please keep us up to date. And always remember it could be worse. You could be in Cleveland…. Fire risk is low. But other weather events could kill your ass.

[dan's college room mate]

Hope the Mikey manse and its surrounding realm escape the fires again. Please keep us up to date. And always remember it could be worse. You could be in Cleveland…. Fire risk is low. But other weather events could kill your ass.

I’ll bet there’s a few fukks in Cleveland who are having a hard time seeing the downside of it being a degree warmer on average today. About 19 degrees and breezy here today. I suspect Cleveland is slightly worse.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FiatLux]

You could be in Cleveland…. Fire risk is low.

Not if it's the river.

[dan's college room mate]

I think River fire season in Cleveland doesn’t start until around May.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FiatLux]

I think River fire season in Cleveland doesn’t start until around May.

51 Years Later, the Cuyahoga River Burns Again

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-a ... 2020-1969/




I blame Gavin Newsom and the desert lesbians.

[Sudden Sam]

I blame Gavin Newsom and the desert lesbians.

Their sophomore album kicks ass.

[FiatLux]

I blame Gavin Newsom and the desert lesbians.

Their sophomore album kicks ass.

You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till their next one comes out.

I think the title is "We finally got the job done, and destroyed all of LA."

Californians are eagerly awaiting its release.

[Sudden Sam]

I blame Gavin Newsom and the desert lesbians.

Their sophomore album kicks ass.

You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till their next one comes out.

I think the title is "We finally got the job done, and destroyed all of LA."

Californians are eagerly awaiting its release.

That’s a live album, I think. They cover the Dead’s Fire on the Mountain, Mother’s Finest’s Fire, and I’m on Fire by the Dwight Twilley Band.

[Mikey]

Running my irrigation a little extra for the next couple of days.

Wait, you guys are in a drought and you are watering exterior landscaping?

Wouldn’t eliminating exterior water use make sense for the whole in such conditions? Or do you choose the Seater method and pay more to water the landscaping?

I am not judging as I use a lot of water for 2 people.

I could probably write a dissertation about this. Actually, I probably couldn't but some folks have.

As far as I'm concerned we are always in a drought. Some years worse than others, and it depends not only on how much rain we get but when we get it. Despite what some habitual disseminators of misinformation would like you to believe, we are not in a dire situation regarding our water storage. This is the current situation in the reservoirs closest to where we live. Average of 71% capacity, which is pretty good considering the time of year. Our rainy season is from November through April and we rely in storage capacity (lakes and snowpack) for the rest of the year. Considering we haven't gotten any rain at all since April 7, 71% is pretty good. We just need to get some more before the rainy season is over. When people said last year that the drought is over, I called bullshit. It's only over until the next dry winter.




Our climate and plant communities are pretty unique compared to the rest of the country. We are in what they call "Coastal Sage Scrub" and somewhat in "Oak Woodland." We typically get zero rain between May and October, and maybe 15" to 30" from November through April. The most dangerous fire seasons are not generally in the summer, but in the late fall and winter during years when the rain doesn't come. It's also when the dry Santa Ana winds start blowing in from the east. Normally our prevailing winds come from the west and are not nearly so dry. That's exactly what we are seeing right now. We had two very wet winters, leading to unusually high fuel growth, and record hot and dry summer, and now no rain for over nine months. So everything is tinder dry and they got record strong winds in LA last week.

Our native plants are adapted to this kind of cycle, though it has been extreme this year. The most flammable brush is not the natives but non-native grasses and other plants introduced by the Spanish culeros in the 18th century, which have crowded out a lot of the original plants. Also a lot of semi-tropical landscape plants that have been popular for the past 100 years, but require a lot of summer water. I've been gradually transforming our yard over the past 20 years to "mostly" natives, some that are endemic to our area and others from other areas, like the Channel Islands, that are compatible. Once you get them established, they need almost no water. I've removed about 4,000 sq ft of grass, which I got tired of watering, fertilizing and fighting gophers.

I took this picture looking down our driveway a few weeks ago. This area has had no water, including rainfall or irrigation, since April, but is not stressed at all.



These plants are accustomed to no water in the summer but do like to get some in the winter. If you keep them hydrated they actually are very fire resistant. So, to answer Seater's question, it's better to have some well hydrated, and spaced natives than no plants at all. In fact, it's been shown that, especially on hillsides, if you clear all of the plants it makes the fire danger worse because a fireball can race up a hill unimpeded if it's just feeding on weeds and stuff. The natives actually provide a modicum of protection to the house.

We have a steep bank in front of the house, so i ran these sprinklers this morning for about 45 minutes. The natives don't like drip irrigation. These rotator heads simulate a gentle rain and not only wet the ground but the plants themselves. There's a lot of litter from the oak tree on the ground which, if left dry could be a fire hazard but, if wetted down can actually provide another degree of protection.



So, some of the things we strive for are defensible space (nothing flammable withing five feet, or more, of the structure); appropriate plants, kept hydrated and not packed too closely together. These pictures of the bank behind our house illustrate this pretty well. The first picture was from this morning. Things are pretty dormant, as they usually are by the end of the summer, but there is sufficient spacing. The next two pictures show how things change from season to season - March and July. Our situation isn't perfect, but we're doing what we can.

January




March




July




Probably TMI, but I hope I'm making sense.

[Roach]

Awesome mini-dissertation there Mikey!

[Mikey]

BTW...I pay around $150 per month before I use any water. My typical bill is around $225 to $250.

[HighPlainsGrifter]

Fukken stellar work on your property, Mikey. I wish everyone took the kind of proactive stance you've employed here.

[Mikey]

I don't want to put anybody down, especially anybody who has lost their home and/or their livelihood or even their lives recently. But a lot of people become very complacent about this stuff, thinking it won't happen to them or that somebody else will take care of it. Especially in some of the older and wealthier neighborhoods where they want to have an elegant yard with stuff growing right up against the house, hire somebody to take care of it, and maybe even still have shingle roofs. I was disabused of that notion in 2007 when we had several fires all going at the same time. We were supposed to evacuate but couldn't get out at first because the roads were clogged. Lost several hundred homes in our community alone, including one where some friends had to run with just the clothes they were wearing. We stuck it out without power for three days and the fires never got closer than a couple of miles, but it was obvious that we needed to be more proactive. It's a little easier here because all of the lots are about an acre and you don't have to worry so much about what your next door neighbor is doing. But even then, we are about 15 feet from the property line on one side and the neighbors have planted a screen of giant bird of paradise along the fence, which they probably think is pretty safe, but it's not actually. I just need to keep it trimmed on our side of the fence and make sure we are aware of anything in that direction.

[HighPlainsGrifter]

I worked in wildfire management...seems like two lifetimes ago. We were having a very dry year and if something lit, we never caught it before sundown. Even on flat ground the fires outpaced the speed of the trucks. When nothing was actively burning, we did community outreach in the county (city was handled by the city) and offered people a fire risk assessment. We had about 30% of homeowners accept our offer, an abysmal rate, in my opinion. I couldn't believe how many people had juniper trees touching their homes and wooden decks. I've seen juniper go up like a fireball. In fact, here's a juniper story. That same year we had a fire burn around a little rock island, leaving about an acre untouched. Junipers were sparse in the rock outcropping so we did some training. We lit one tiny needle near the base of the tree and started a stopwatch. In 20 seconds we couldn't get within 30 feet of it. 20 seconds. And people want these things shading their patios?

To my knowledge, none of the people we advised removed their trees. Some people mowed the grass and raked it up as though embers through the air aren't a real thing. The world is full of morons.

[Mikey]

See the picture of the driveway in my post above? When we moved here there were five 50 foot Italian cypresses on the left side and three on the right. They are very popular around here for their “Mediterranean” look. At the top of the left side was a 300 gallon propane tank, right next to the front corner of the garage where our main electrical panel was placed. I started seeing those trees as a giant fuse for the propane tank. The trees were removed about ten years ago. Finally got rid of the propane in 2020.

[Mikey]

Interesting story for HPG. We had a guy, I’m pretty sure he was from North Dakota (not kidding), come by to do an evaluation at about the same time we started making these changes. The service was provided by our insurance company. He gave us some really good advice on things we could do for better fire safety. One thing that I had never heard of was “bird stop” that fills in the spaces underneath the end of each row of concrete roof tiles. That seems like a no-brainer now.

That wasn’t you was it?

[HighPlainsGrifter]

Your neighbors be like....
Above-ground power lines...
foot desert tree...
high winds...





No, that wasn't me, lol. I didn't move to NoDak until 2008. I fought wildland fires in the Bitter Root range and a few other places in the Rocky Mountains. I was on a hot shot crew for a few years and we went all over the West but never made it to California. Never made it to smoke jumper, either. I got married instead.

[Diego in Seattle]

Mikey...in the first picture....the house that's far left...are they Grade A idiots?

I worked in wildfire management...seems like two lifetimes ago. We were having a very dry year and if something lit, we never caught it before sundown. Even on flat ground the fires outpaced the speed of the trucks.

What sort of winds were you dealing with?

[Left Seater]

Good pics and info Mikey.

We have mostly native plants in beds around our casa and those need little water. Well, everything needs some help when it is 105 for days on end, but they shrivle up and drop leaves and things and then come back as soon as it rains or you water them.

We have installed drip irrigation thru most of the yard and all of the flower beds. This encourages deep root growth which helps the plants thru the half of the year where it is hot and dry. We do get a good amount of rain, but more than half of our total comes from 5 or 6 storms a year. As such much of it runs off unless you do things to retain some of that in your yard.

We also live in a small town completely surrounded by San Antonio. The town has to purchase our water from San Antonio and since we are captive, they keep us on pretty much year round water rationing. In Stage 4 which we are in most of the summer and fall, you are only allowed to water with a sprinkler system 2 times per month. You can hand water at anytime, so you see a good number of people sitting in lawn chairs reading their paper or watching something on their phones holding a hose.

We don't worry about it because we installed the drip system in our front and side yard when we did the remodel and the yard was fubared anyway. We have a green carpet lawn all year and people are always trying to figure out how we do it. The thing is, having the lush carpet of grass actually helps lower the temp around the house and helps us with energy use and not having to run the AC as much to keep it at 68 in the house during the summer.

Of course there are always the neighborhood busy bodies that try to catch us watering illegally, but they can't due to the buried drip system.

[Mikey]

Things are getting a little dicey tonight. The wind is really kicking up, blowing from the NE, and there are now a couple of fires fairly close by. We are the small blue circle. The Pala and Lilac fires are both about five miles from here. They just called for evacuation in the area outlined in black near the Lilac fire. That’s in the same place where the fire started in 2017 that burned the entire river valley along Highway 76 (the road shown going from NE to SW). I’ll probably be up all night monitoring this.

[Mikey]

Fuck. Now there’s a third fire at the north end of town. It’s almost like someone’s running around starting these.

[Mikey]

Lilac fire is now 30 acres.

[Mikey]

Here's the latest -

Lilac fire is 50 acres with "moderate" spread. Two helicopters are on site. 50 engines, 16 hand crews, 10 dozers. The red shaded is "evacuation order" and the yellow is "evacuation warning." The evacuation order has been lifted for the Pala fire and forward progress stopped, so that's good news. According to the SDGE weather system the winds are coming from almost due north, so that's also good news, at least for us, since it's not blowing toward us. During daylight hours I will at least be able to see if any smoke is coming in our direction. Can't see any glow over the hills for now.

[Mikey]

Good pics and info Mikey.

We have mostly native plants in beds around our casa and those need little water. Well, everything needs some help when it is 105 for days on end, but they shrivle up and drop leaves and things and then come back as soon as it rains or you water them.

We have installed drip irrigation thru most of the yard and all of the flower beds. This encourages deep root growth which helps the plants thru the half of the year where it is hot and dry. We do get a good amount of rain, but more than half of our total comes from 5 or 6 storms a year. As such much of it runs off unless you do things to retain some of that in your yard.

We also live in a small town completely surrounded by San Antonio. The town has to purchase our water from San Antonio and since we are captive, they keep us on pretty much year round water rationing. In Stage 4 which we are in most of the summer and fall, you are only allowed to water with a sprinkler system 2 times per month. You can hand water at anytime, so you see a good number of people sitting in lawn chairs reading their paper or watching something on their phones holding a hose.

We don't worry about it because we installed the drip system in our front and side yard when we did the remodel and the yard was fubared anyway. We have a green carpet lawn all year and people are always trying to figure out how we do it. The thing is, having the lush carpet of grass actually helps lower the temp around the house and helps us with energy use and not having to run the AC as much to keep it at 68 in the house during the summer.

Of course there are always the neighborhood busy bodies that try to catch us watering illegally, but they can't due to the buried drip system.

Drip systems are certainly a lot more efficient than overhead watering. There is some discussion and disagreement within the native plant community around here as to which one is better for California natives. Many of the plants here will die if they get overwatered, especially in the summer. When you first plant them it's advised that you give them a whole lot of water, almost every day, for a few weeks or even months, to get the root systems going, and regular water for the first year. But after that you need to really back off. When we moved here in 1999, I didn't know shit about anything, and we had a lot of the back yard professionally landscaped. They put in mostly the standard semi-tropical and Mediterranean plants that are in the mainstream around here, and drip irrigation everywhere. But on the back bank they put a bunch of native ceanothus with drip irrigation. I watered them on the same schedule as everything else and they did great for about five years and then they all died. I had no idea why until I started learning about local natives. There's a guy from San Diego who is an acknowledged expert and has written several books, and I've seen a few of his lectures. He actually did a preliminary design for us about a decade ago, but was too expensive to hire. He is 100% on board with overhead using the MP rotators. The plants also like to get the dust rinsed off occasionally during dry weather.

[Left Seater]

Godspeed Mikey.

I remember encouraging my mom to leave her place in NM a few years ago. No sense waiting up all night waiting and wondering. She took a few things and got gone. She was asked to put notes on her exterior doors saying she had evacuated and that no humans or pets were remaining in the house. She also left 2 cases of water and one of Gatorade in her outdoor fire place for firefighters.

On another note I just mentioned this to Mrs Seater and she said USAA has their private firefighters in SoCal. You might reach out to USAA and let them know you are monitoring the situation and inquire about said private firefighters.

[88BuckeyeGrad]

Rack Mikey's pro-active fire protection. And its beautiful to boot!

Those fires are too close. Hoping for the best.

[smackaholic]

Godspeed Mikey.

I remember encouraging my mom to leave her place in NM a few years ago. No sense waiting up all night waiting and wondering. She took a few things and got gone. She was asked to put notes on her exterior doors saying she had evacuated and that no humans or pets were remaining in the house. She also left 2 cases of water and one of Gatorade in her outdoor fire place for firefighters.

On another note I just mentioned this to Mrs Seater and she said USAA has their private firefighters in SoCal. You might reach out to USAA and let them know you are monitoring the situation and inquire about said private firefighters.

Pretty fukking sad when an insurance company looks at the rolling clusterfukk that is local government and says fukk it, we'll put out our own fires.

[smackaholic]

Fuck. Now there’s a third fire at the north end of town. It’s almost like someone’s running around starting these.

Now why would anyone want to start more fires?

Might it be to get more support for their "it's the climate, stupid" position?

Nahhhhhh, couldn't possibly be that.

[Left Seater]

Pretty fukking sad when an insurance company looks at the rolling clusterfukk that is local government and says fukk it, we'll put out our own fires.

I see you working, but it is actually common in high fire areas. These private teams deploy to areas where risk is high and insurance companies have dense policy bases. When these fire fighters can help to protect or suppliment local efforts it helps protect the companies bottom line and keep rates lower for all policy holders in that state.

Far too many people and politicians don't understand these efforts. They see it as protection of the rich and not of their own bottom line.