So the take away is that we had all the resources we needed, lots of money for firefighters and plenty of water in reservoirs. So either the situation is impossible and no plausible human effort could have saved these neighborhoods, or these resources were mismanaged and the planning was incompetent.
Does anyone know what the issue is? Is it the lack of sufficient controlled burns and forest thinning, leaving so much fuel that these fires become impossible to contain? $3.8B seems like plenty of money? Maybe it isn't?
If the answer from govt officials is to yell "climate change!" and then disappear in a puff of smoke well I think that's going to have a substantial effect on Southern CA property values.
(1). Like anything else in 21st century western world, decision making structures are beaurocratic to the point that 10 people need to get paid to get a new highway department truck ordered, another 5 need to sign off on firefighting equipment to be loaded on to it. not built or delivered or driven, ordered. This is the case in every state, either due to politics or due to cost protection policies.
(When it's then time to hire a driver, demands 110k a year minimum in most US states. And most of the time, their job isn't driving that firefighting equipped truck, it's sitting at the office.)
In this Firefighting scenario..... wildland firefighting can and does pay less than most fast food jobs on the coasts. Why is this the way it is?
We have as a society made wildland fire so taboo that it seems folly in most US states to employ a huge wildland firefighting department as a matter of the forestry department. And hey, most of the time it's "unskilled" and low stress!
(That is, until the fire comes and exponentially increases and destroys the most valuable land in america.)
Very hard to call in 10k emergency firefighters when the base pay is 16 dollars an hour in California.
(2). Air power in particular here is abysmal. I reguarly am tracking on flight tracking apps and acros this whole event haven't seen more than 10 copters across LA county and surrounding fighting the fires at the same time. That is unnaceptable in the most powerful, richest country in the history of the universe.
I understand that the SA winds prevent fixed wing aircraft from dropping fire retardant, but I am absolutley flabbergasted how the military and CALFIRE did not have dozens of rotary craft on rotation providing evac and water drops.
Does anyone know what the issue is? Is it the lack of sufficient controlled burns and forest thinning, leaving so much fuel that these fires become impossible to contain? $3.8B seems like plenty of money? Maybe it isn't?
If the answer from govt officials is to yell "climate change!" and then disappear in a puff of smoke well I think that's going to have a substantial effect on Southern CA property values.