Would planting more palm trees on city streets help prevent the spread of fires?

January 18

With specific reference to the recent Southern California fires, would planting more palm trees instead of deciduous trees on city streets help limit the spread of fires?

There has been a lot of talk in the media about palm trees being out of fashion because they provide less shade and thus less cooling. I wonder if that may have had an impact on the spread of these fires…..

January 18

6 minutes ago, GMann said:

With specific reference to the recent Southern California fires, would planting more palm trees instead of deciduous trees on city streets help limit the spread of fires?

There has been a lot of talk in the media about palm trees being out of fashion because they provide less shade and thus less cooling. I wonder if that may have had an impact on the spread of these fires…..

If anything, i have a bad feeling you'll start to hear of cities suggesting removal / curtailing planting of them due to how they can throw embers during fires, esp during extreme wind events like what helped spread the fires last week...

If they're still up / can be found, you might check out Michael Steinburg's ( @norcalstormchasing, on Threads ) footage from inside both fire zones as they were progressing thru the week.. Several short vids. of palms ...and fully leaved trees quickly turning into torches once ignited.

Not sure who shot it but there is a video out there -somewhere- of what looks like a clump of Pygmy Dates in front of a Mc Donalds?? where you can see ..They're trimmed of -any- dead stuff, but the top of one of the trunks, right under the perfectly green crown, is on fire, and throwing LOTS of embers..

Absolutely crazy what occurred out there that will likely have profound effects on -everything- moving forward..

January 19

Biggest problem is lack of controlled burns. California is a coastal desert. There is a lot of fuel on the forest floor. *Normally, there would be occasional fires that consume this fuel and help seeds to germinate.

California doesn't do necessary controlled burns and when fires happen, it tries to extinguish them quickly.

The post-fire scenes I've seen are remarkable. Not even burned houses remaining. The fires are so hot, that properties look like giant ashtrays, filled with cinders.

No, street palms would have no affect on the probability of fires.

January 19

8 minutes ago, SeanK said:

1: Biggest problem is lack of controlled burns. California is a coastal desert. There is a lot of fuel on the forest floor. *Normally, there would be occasional fires that consume this fuel and help seeds to germinate.

1: California doesn't do necessary controlled burns and when fires happen, it tries to extinguish them quickly.

2: The post-fire scenes I've seen are remarkable. Not even burned houses remaining. The fires are so hot, that properties look like giant ashtrays, filled with cinders.

3: No, street palms would have no affect on the probability of fires.

Laughable at best, and a really bad arm chair take on the situation..

#1: California does PLENTY of prescribed burns, every year..

#2: You do realize that when you have 100MPH winds and ember storms created by those winds, On top of the fact that many areas in S. Cal haven't seen any rain since ...last APRIL, anything that catches on fire of this magnitude is likely destined to burn ..To the foundation..

#3: Is this really your opinion? 🤦‍♂️ Might examine footage a bit more closely. PLENTY of " Street Palm " specimens went up ..and contributed firebrands / ember cast into the fire itself.. in both of these fires, and countless others, over and over again..

After this experience, Guarantee discussions among various municipalities out there about inclusion of palms in future landscaping, esp in the really high risk WUI zones will come up..

As far as the vegetation type itself, yes it is dense.. that is called " Chaparral " ..it has always been there, and experienced periodic fire ...Forest vs. Chaparral? Totally different vegetation types... Completely different behavior during... / response after a fire..

Please educate yourself on California ecology..

January 19

1 hour ago, Silas_Sancona said:

Laughable at best, and a really bad arm chair take on the situation..

#1: California does PLENTY of prescribed burns, every year..

#2: You do realize that when you have 100MPH winds and ember storms created by those winds, On top of the fact that many areas in S. Cal haven't seen any rain since ...last APRIL, anything that catches on fire of this magnitude is likely destined to burn ..To the foundation..

#3: Is this really your opinion? 🤦‍♂️ Might examine footage a bit more closely. PLENTY of " Street Palm " specimens went up ..and contributed firebrands / ember cast into the fire itself.. in both of these fires, and countless others, over and over again..

After this experience, Guarantee discussions among various municipalities out there about inclusion of palms in future landscaping, esp in the really high risk WUI zones will come up..

As far as the vegetation type itself, yes it is dense.. that is called " Chaparral " ..it has always been there, and experienced periodic fire ...Forest vs. Chaparral? Totally different vegetation types... Completely different behavior during... / response after a fire..

Please educate yourself on California ecology..

I don't follow your train of thought. Given the number of large fires out there over the past 10 years, it is inarguable that California is mismanaging it's forests and that they are now burning faster and hotter.

Perhaps if Newsom hadn't destroyed 4 dams there would have been water available for firefighters.

January 19

3 minutes ago, SeanK said:

I don't follow your train of thought. Given the number of large fires out there over the past 10 years, it is inarguable that California is mismanaging it's forests and that they are now burning faster and hotter.

Perhaps if Newsom hadn't destroyed 4 dams there would have been water available for firefighters.

Do yourself a favor and ditch the odd political angle... Ain't going anywhere here.. Keep it ..and anything else aimed at CA strictly to yourself. Thanks.

As far as my frame ..not train.. of thought? comes from growing up there and a full understanding of how the various ecosystems in my state / region of the country work..

Big fires have occurred out there for ....eons... They are not something " new "

Lexington, 1985, Oakland Hills, 1991,   Large fires in the mountains east of San Jose, around Big Sur / within the greater Los Padres National Forest ..Pre 1995.. ...On top of all the others that occurred up to that timeframe across the state ..and west.. Remember many of them.. Absolutely not some new fangled " phenomenon "

When the long term weather trend in a region of a country ..or world... tilts in a direction that leads to greater warming / increasing drying, ..and there are more people / infrastructure around that can provide ignition sources, There will be more fires..   Woah!

Will never comprehend how this is such a hard to grasp concept for some people..

In a nutshell, despite the odd " theories " swirling around out there like ..Cow " exhaust ",   Whatever Uptick in large fires has been seen in the last 1, 2 decades in Ca ..or anywhere else in the West... has very little to do with any " bad " management.. Period.

As i said, please learn some things, Factual things ...things based in science, ..not just parroting Faux " theories "

January 19

Hey guys let’s not do politics . I come here for a break from all that. I have lived in Southern California for 65 years, I love where I live and we have a weather phenomenon with offshore winds . Every area has weather phenomena and politics or blame will not stop them . Hurricanes , flooding , or high winds don’t care what your politics are , nature has the power to, not us. We do our best to survive , we all want the same thing . Harry

January 19

22 hours ago, Silas_Sancona said:

If anything, i have a bad feeling you'll start to hear of cities suggesting removal / curtailing planting of them due to how they can throw embers during fires, esp during extreme wind events like what helped spread the fires last week...

If they're still up / can be found, you might check out Michael Steinburg's ( @norcalstormchasing, on Threads ) footage from inside both fire zones as they were progressing thru the week.. Several short vids. of palms ...and fully leaved trees quickly turning into torches once ignited.

Not sure who shot it but there is a video out there -somewhere- of what looks like a clump of Pygmy Dates in front of a Mc Donalds?? where you can see ..They're trimmed of -any- dead stuff, but the top of one of the trunks, right under the perfectly green crown, is on fire, and throwing LOTS of embers..

Absolutely crazy what occurred out there that will likely have profound effects on -everything- moving forward..

When I saw on the news, a Phoenix canariensis dropping lots of burning embers that were being blown down the street, I realized how flammable palms are, even when the dead fronds are removed. I saw in another video, the old boots on Washingtonia robusta lining a street on fire. Yes, the Southern California landscape will never be the same after this one.

January 19

19 hours ago, Harry’s Palms said:

Hey guys let’s not do politics . I come here for a break from all that. I have lived in Southern California for 65 years, I love where I live and we have a weather phenomenon with offshore winds . Every area has weather phenomena and politics or blame will not stop them . Hurricanes , flooding , or high winds don’t care what your politics are , nature has the power to, not us. We do our best to survive , we all want the same thing . Harry

Harry your point is well made which is why it is important to push back on misinformation. Yes, we do have forests in California and many have burned in recent years (Paradise fire) and others in Northern California. Many of those burned on Federal lands not managed by the state. Can we learn from those experiences? Most certainly yes.

The fires in Southern California have erupted in a completely different habitat, as you well know and Nathan pointed out. As our population has expanded we have built in zones that have increased risk. Some communities have been fortunate for decades despite being in high risk zones, but given enough time, luck can run out. Santa Ana winds are hard to understand unless you have lived with them.

As far as clearing "forest floors" that abut residential areas in SouthernCalifornia, we need to educate on that. Nathan describes the chaparall accurately. If it were cleared like what occurs in fires, we introduce a new risk of mudslides and erosion when it rains. What is an appropriate buffer in 60 mph winds gusting to 80 or 90? Anyone telling you the answers are simple just doesn't understand that if the answers were easy they would be implemented. This is education, not politics. Armchair speculation without information leads to incorrect results, so let's share the information.

January 20

49 minutes ago, NorCalWill said:

When I saw on the news, a Phoenix canariensis dropping lots of burning embers that were being blown down the street, I realized how flammable palms are, even when the dead fronds are removed. I saw in another video, the old boots on Washingtonia robusta lining a street on fire. Yes, the Southern California landscape will never be the same after this one.

43 minutes ago, Tracy said:

Harry your point is well made which is why it is important to push back on misinformation. Yes, we do have forests in California and many have burned in recent years (Paradise fire) and others in Northern California. Many of those burned on Federal lands not managed by the state. Can we learn from those experiences? Most certainly yes.

The fires in Southern California have erupted in a completely different habitat, as you well know and Nathan pointed out. As our population has expanded we have built in zones that have increased risk. Some communities have been fortunate for decades despite being in high risk zones, but given enough time, luck can run out. Santa Ana winds are hard to understand unless you have lived with them.

As far as clearing "forest floors" that abut residential areas in SouthernCalifornia, we need to educate on that. Nathan describes the chaparall accurately. If it were cleared like what occurs in fires, we introduce a new risk of mudslides and erosion when it rains. What is an appropriate buffer in 60 mph winds gusting to 80 or 90? Anyone telling you the answers are simple just doesn't understand that if the answers were easy they would be implemented. This is education, not politics. Armchair speculation without information leads to incorrect results, so let's share the information.

It's a very complex situation with more layers than an Football- sized Onion..

On one hand, you have folks who will want to clear Chaparral- type vegetation, far away from where neighborhoods butt up against such areas but, as you mention, Clear out the native vegetation, and you increase the risk of mudslides, ...which also destroy homes / anything else in their path...

Stopping a fire can be tough enough.. Forget trying to stop an entire mountainside when it decides to come down.

..Adding yet another layer, ..a point that hasn't really been brought up much, but also needs to be discussed more

..What replaces that " woody " vegetation when it is torn out? ..More vegetation ..often in the form of finer / flashier fuels like the various annual grasses / weedy things that were introduced and are already spreading like ..wildfire.. Oats, Brome, Chetgrass, Foxtail Grass ...just to name a few.. ...that stuff often burns much faster than the woodier fuels.. Ever watch a thick, grassy hillside go up? it's often pretty quick, even under reasonably tame conditions.. Add in 60-100mph winds? Good luck trying to stop it ...before... it has already advanced ..1/2 a mile or more. Hearing of multiple football field length fire runs ...within say a 10 of 15 min timeframe during some of these fires is absolutely crazy to comprehend..

Thank goodness Buffelgrass isn't as big of an issue out there as it is becoming here -yet- That stuff can burn fast, and often very hot.. Same with Stinknet ..a god awful annual that burns like Chamise. An FYI, Fountain Grass is almost as bad as it's Buffelgrass cousin.. Yank it, if you see it..

During their recent podcast collab., Zeke Lunder ( The lookout ) and Mike Steinburg ( norcalstormchasing ) brought up the fire that tore through Scripps Ranch awhile back and how despite efforts to clear back the native vegetation -as far as they could to provide what they assumed was a more than adequate amount of defensible space- houses -many of them- still burned..

Simply put, ..isn't anything anyone can do under exceptionally extreme conditions, which unfortunately are more likely to occur more often going forward..

As far as any water retention ponds that may have been in some stage of repair / retrofitting project(s) when the fires broke out ..Ever hear of being caught in X or Y situation with your pants down?..

Anderson Reservoir up by San Jose, has been drained to 3% of it's capacity for a retrofitting project to fix the dam due to several analysis pointing to serious risk of failure during a big enough quake due to how it had been designed originally..

If a serious fire were to occur anywhere nearby while that source of water isn't available, ..that's just bad timing / something you can't plan for / see coming..

As far as future decisions / changes to any landscape - related things, i'm hoping very knowledgeable plant people like Don Hodel will be greatly involved in any public or private city council meetings / discourse before any significant changes are made to codes, etc ..if they are..

Palms have just as much of a place in landscapes as any other plant group ..though maybe not in some areas / circumstances going forward.

Future " new " analysis regarding where and how they might be used is smart to look into/ discuss.

Is just as important to not allow any deg. of " Palm Phobia " to pop up, and/ or be spread. Is just as unacceptable as not quickly stamping out any other form of misinformation..

January 20

5 minutes ago, Silas_Sancona said:

It's a very complex situation with more layers than an Football- sized Onion..

On one hand, you have folks who will want to clear Chaparral- type vegetation, far away from where neighborhoods butt up against such areas but, as you mention, Clear out the native vegetation, and you increase the risk of mudslides, ...which also destroy homes / anything else in their path...

Stopping a fire can be tough enough.. Forget trying to stop an entire mountainside when it decides to come down.

..Adding yet another layer, ..a point that hasn't really been brought up much, but also needs to be discussed more

..What replaces that " woody " vegetation when it is torn out? ..More vegetation ..often in the form of finer / flashier fuels like the various annual grasses / weedy things that were introduced and are already spreading like ..wildfire.. Oats, Brome, Chetgrass, Foxtail Grass ...just to name a few.. ...that stuff often burns much faster than the woodier fuels.. Ever watch a thick, grassy hillside go up? it's often pretty quick, even under reasonably tame conditions.. Add in 60-100mph winds? Good luck trying to stop it ...before... it has already advanced ..1/2 a mile or more. Hearing of multiple football field length fire runs ...within say a 10 of 15 min timeframe during some of these fires is absolutely crazy to comprehend..

Thank goodness Buffelgrass isn't as big of an issue out there as it is becoming here -yet- That stuff can burn fast, and often very hot.. Same with Stinknet ..a god awful annual that burns like Chamise. An FYI, Fountain Grass is almost as bad as it's Buffelgrass cousin.. Yank it, if you see it..

During their recent podcast collab., Zeke Lunder ( The lookout ) and Mike Steinburg ( norcalstormchasing ) brought up the fire that tore through Scripps Ranch awhile back and how despite efforts to clear back the native vegetation -as far as they could to provide what they assumed was a more than adequate amount of defensible space- houses -many of them- still burned..

Simply put, ..isn't anything anyone can do under exceptionally extreme conditions, which unfortunately are more likely to occur more often going forward..

As far as any water retention ponds that may have been in some stage of repair / retrofitting project(s) when the fires broke out ..Ever hear of being caught in X or Y situation with your pants down?..

Anderson Reservoir up by San Jose, has been drained to 3% of it's capacity for a retrofitting project to fix the dam due to several analysis pointing to serious risk of failure during a big enough quake due to how it had been designed originally..

If a serious fire were to occur anywhere nearby while that source of water isn't available, ..that's just bad timing / something you can't plan for / see coming..

As far as future decisions / changes to any landscape - related things, i'm hoping very knowledgeable plant people like Don Hodel will be greatly involved in any public or private city council meetings / discourse before any significant changes are made to codes, etc ..if they are..

Palms have just as much of a place in landscapes as any other plant group ..though maybe not in some areas / circumstances going forward.

Future " new " analysis regarding where and how they might be used is smart to look into/ discuss.

Is just as important to not allow any deg. of " Palm Phobia " to pop up, and/ or be spread. Is just as unacceptable as not quickly stamping out any other form of misinformation..

Ironically we face a housing shortage and an affordability challenge and some of the solutions to these push in different directions here. There are things that can be done with materials selection to better fire harden homes but it isn't the cheapest form of construction (arguably the initial investment probably pays off in the long run). Building more affordable housing requires higher density which gets plenty of NImby push back. I am sure there will be people on both sides of wanting to rebuild quickly and affordable housing while others will push for more fire safety hardened and expensive Building codes. One thing that makes sense in the most risky areas is keeping plantings a distance from housing structures. We can expect fire insurance will require this in increasing areas to reduce their risk as an insurer. It will be an economic decision.

Clearing natural chaparall isn't an option without creating other problems. Look at the mudslides in Montecito after fires up there if one needs a refresher on that.. perhaps people not familiar with the topological variations here in California don't understand mudslide risks. Despite the dry conditions now, Southern California could still experience late season rain if the ENSO cycle shifts as predicted in Spring. Miracle March has happened before which would be another disaster in the fire exposed areas.

I certainly hope we don't see any of the new invasive species you mentioned any time soon.

January 20

16 minutes ago, Tracy said:

Ironically we face a housing shortage and an affordability challenge and some of the solutions to these push in different directions here. There are things that can be done with materials selection to better fire harden homes but it isn't the cheapest form of construction (arguably the initial investment probably pays off in the long run). Building more affordable housing requires higher density which gets plenty of NImby push back. I am sure there will be people on both sides of wanting to rebuild quickly and affordable housing while others will push for more fire safety hardened and expensive Building codes. One thing that makes sense in the most risky areas is keeping plantings a distance from housing structures. We can expect fire insurance will require this in increasing areas to reduce their risk as an insurer. It will be an economic decision.

Clearing natural chaparall isn't an option without creating other problems. Look at the mudslides in Montecito after fires up there if one needs a refresher on that.. perhaps people not familiar with the topological variations here in California don't understand mudslide risks. Despite the dry conditions now, Southern California could still experience late season rain if the ENSO cycle shifts as predicted in Spring. Miracle March has happened before which would be another disaster in the fire exposed areas.

I certainly hope we don't see any of the new invasive species you mentioned any time soon.

Yep, ^this will probably be the biggest long-term discussion priority... How do we rebuild? Where? ..how dense, or not? ..etc, etc... I will say that honestly, it's time to ditch using sticks to build with..

Agree 100%, clearing it won't mitigate " the dangers " .. When you ( ..and / or anyone else who would like to educate themselves on the subject ) have some time, the link below, published in 2020, is a GREAT intro. primer into Chaparral..

Link: https://lpfw.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2020_Baker-and-Halsey_Chaparral-Conservation.pdf

Regarding the invasives, various stuff like Wild Oats, Bromus < non- native species >, Chetgrass ..among several other annual " foraging " grasses.. are well established sps that were introduced decades ago.. Same w/ Fountain / Pampas grass, which have also spread into areas outside of gardens, and can be extremely flammable.

Stinknet, aka: Globe Chamomile, and Buffel Grass are fairly new players locally, ...to some deg at least. Unfortunately, both are quickly marching west / north in CA., ...and locally.

Inat maps:

Regarding grasses, Here's an interesting side note many people probably aren't aware of... in the Sonoran Desert, both here and in Mexico, grasses are a major component of the overall vegetation profile. That said, before the non native stuff was introduced and began spreading around ( Many of the same species seen across CA as well ), if a fire started in say a Saguaro / Palo Verde woodland, in many cases, one could walk behind the fire as it slowly crept across the ground, rarely seriously burning anything except the grasses themselves / other seasonal annual stuff growing at the time the fire moved through.. Why? because the native grass cover is more patchy / thinner, and far less dense in coverage compared to how the non natives cover the ground in many areas after a wet spring now.

W/ the non native stuff invading more areas, you're seeing much more destructive fires that kill things like Saguaro ....and Joshua Trees out there ....as well as posing increasingly serious threats to homes here and across other areas of the state where fires were never a serious threat, even if they occurred on the valley floors from time to time...

Regarding rainfall, there may be a brief window for some showers in spots in the near future out there, ..but, don't get your hopes up for anything significant. None of the longer tern models suggest any hints of a major pattern change that would bring an extended wet period. Infact, Quite possible a big ridge may set up over CA and the S.W. by the start of Feb. ...What is showing up in the models right now at least..

For now, looks like another serious Santa Ana event is on tap for the start of the week.

Daniel Swain did a very long and extremely informative Y.T. session a few hours ago discussing it, among a bunch of other related topics.

Lastly, ..more locally, i'm already pretty concerned about what lies ahead come spring. We already had an 8K+ fire up on the Rim ( Horton Fire / Payson area ) that started ..in December..

Snow pack in most areas up north, ...and in the mountains to the east, and down south is dismal -at best- this year and likely will be gone by March if it warms up as quickly as it may next month..

If a fire can burn 8k acres, ...in the dead of winter, up in a part of the state that is typically cool ..often w/ at least some snow on the ground at times this time of year, that is not a good omen of what may lie ahead.

Day #149 .or 150 since we've seen rain ..Anything significant anyway, even where it has " rained " around the valley since October .... It's a long haul between March and when Monsoon season begins, ...IF it this year isn't " Super Dry Monsoon " ...#3..

January 20

Interesting discussion. We have the same issues here in Australia, with our ridiculously fire adapted, flammable vegetation, and suburbs encroaching on the bush and farmland.

I work in industrial building design for a structural engineering company, and every new build that we have worked on for the last 10 plus years has been subject to a bushfire management code, to hopefully mitigate tragedies, as we've seen in California, and Australia in recent years.

Post the catastrophic 2009 fires in Victoria, federal legislation was bought in to regulate the materials and landscape management of all new builds, commercial or residential. Every site is assessed by a qualified consultant and given a Bushfire Attack Level, or BAL, based on the likely exposure to radiant heat in a fire front. This number dictates the severity of material restrictions...ie from BAL Low, where any traditional materials can be used, to BAl FZ, Flame Zone, where you're essentially looking at a concrete bunker!

This is easily enforced during the design and building stages of a development, but landscape management is the bigger problem. The bushfire plan sets out hazard controlled areas around a building, but gardens grow and evolve, so at some point the original concept becomes compromised. Where this leaves home owners regarding insurance is untested to date, as the code hasn't been in place long enough for that problem to arise...a house designed to withstand a low BAL number might in 20 years be surrounded by a dense garden instead of a cleared hazard zone...I forecast problems on the horizon. The intention is noble, the practical application is fraught and the costs of mitigation are high. But what's the alternative?

As for palms and flammability...a bit of a non issue I'd think...any plant given enough exposure to radiant heat will burn eventually...watch a 40m oil laden eucalypt explode in front of the flame front and you have a whole other problem.

January 21

I don’t think anything or anybody can stop a fire like that, basically it’s survival mode for your life I have seen large bushfires and in Australia it’s a common occurrence, you just learn to live with it. Get out and survive forget your possessions you can replace them your life you can’t. Prepare act survive is a motto in my area. I feel for the people of California. There is always the questions of what if after such a disaster people want answers and point blame it’s understandable. I have sprinkles on my roof a full water tank and pump iam getting out with the wife and my cat and hopefully I can return to a house after I start the pump up.

January 22

I live in an area of Southern California that gets wildfires. In the 45 years I have lived here I have seen many, many from my house!

A few years ago, I seen fire retardant drops from airplanes from my house!

This year I am building a garage on my property. At the same time, I am replacing the siding on my house with plaster. The louvres for the attic and vents for my subfloor on the house and the louvres for the attic on my garage I will go with Volcan fire resistant products! Most of the houses recently that burned down started with wind driven ambers blowing into their attics thru louvers!

There was thought put into what plants would be planted in the one very narrow planter I have against the house!

5 feet wide concrete on three sides of the garage, driveway on the other side.

Bottom line it's not hard to make a house fire hardened!

I will diligently fallow any evacuation orders given even after prepping the house for fires!!!

Like Happy Palms posted, you can make it much harder to have your house burn down during a wildfire event!

My thoughts,

Randy

January 22

21 minutes ago, yachtingone said:

I live in an area of Southern California that gets wildfires. In the 45 years I have lived here I have seen many, many from my house!

A few years ago, I seen fire retardant drops from airplanes from my house!

This year I am building a garage on my property. At the same time, I am replacing the siding on my house with plaster. The louvres for the attic and vents for my subfloor on the house and the louvres for the attic on my garage I will go with Volcan fire resistant products! Most of the houses recently that burned down started with wind driven ambers blowing into their attics thru louvers!

There was thought put into what plants would be planted in the one very narrow planter I have against the house!

5 feet wide concrete on three sides of the garage, driveway on the other side.

Bottom line it's not hard to make a house fire hardened!

I will diligently fallow any evacuation orders given even after prepping the house for fires!!!

Like Happy Palms posted, you can make it much harder to have your house burn down during a wildfire event!

My thoughts,

Randy

I have lived with the big fires most of my life and the CA fire could have happened on a golf course. That dreadful wind made the flames unstoppable. Regular controlled burn offs do a lot to prevent bad fires but what you plant needs to thought over too. Tall trees that can fall on houses or block driveways etc need to be placed where they do no harm. The south of France also gets bad fires. It is the same combination of causes too. Maquis bushes, trees in the wrong places and the Mistral winds and the place goes up like a bomb. In Qld many houses are wooden and raised high above the ground....just disasters waiting to happen.

Peachy

January 22

Washingtonia are natural fire cycle palms, they routinely burn in the wild, so I don’t think they are conducive to suppressing fire. The actual answer is build less homes and plant more palms but that won’t happen. Everybody wants to live in LA no matter how crowded it is and how frequently it burns.

January 23

I was just reading through the debate on the wildfires, and thought it was interesting and I wanted to put out a little info because after my experience this past summer, wildfires are a really interesting topic to me now...

I grew up in California, and in my mind the wildfires were always just a natural disaster that happened, I didn't really spend too much time focusing on how they actually worked, or how they were managed. I live in Florida now, but I returned out West from April-October to spend the whole (traditional) fire season working as a federal wildland firefighter on a 20 person hand crew, which is really as close as you can get to the fire and as hands-on as you can get with the fires themselves. We fought fires in California, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming. I learned alot about them, so hopefully there's a few things that I could clear up.

As for the comments about controlled burning, and our mismanagement of fires. This is not really so much a political thing, or a California-specific thing either. This is more complex than that and there's alot of history here, and a whole bunch of variables like climate, past decisions, landscape changes, new development, etc.

In the 1930s, there was a good number of massive fires, and in response the Forest Service adopted a very aggressive approach to fighting fire, and began alot of the methodology that we have been using in recent history. In 1935 specifically, they adopted the methodology that they wanted all wildfires controlled immediately after the initial report. This has been our methodology when it comes to fighting fire as a nation for quite awhile.... "you see flames, circle them, put it out!". If humans weren't there to do that, the land would just burn. It's not political, and whether it was a good idea or not is anyone's guess. What is undebatable though, is that because we took this approach for so long we have hindered some of nature's process of burning the land. This is one of the factors that has led to an accumulation of fuels in our wildlands which has led to bigger fires, which we are dealing with now. This doesn't automatically mean that it was a bad decision to fight fires so aggressively. It's just a decision we made nation-wide, and there has been an effect from that. This is also far from the only factor in increasing wildfire intensity. Just one of many.

The landscape has also changed in several ways, and many areas in our nation have more fuel cover than they did decades ago. There is also an increasing spread of the population. We now have many people living in areas that were previously uninhabited. This increases the WUI (Wildland Urban Interface), and makes wildand fire fighting much more difficult. 50 years ago, if a certain area burned, it didn't really matter because there wasn't anybody living there. Now there is people living there, so it's a big deal.

In regards to the prescribed burns, they are absolutely being done by wildland crews. I participated in several. And it's the main job of crews that stay on through the winter. There are entire crews called "fuels crews" that are dedicated to this. But we have ALOT of land in this country, and very few wildland firefighters comparatively. It's impossible to prevent these things from happening by just doing controlled burns or any other human intervention. If you spend time out West in the wilderness areas, you will quickly realize how insurmountable of a task this is, due to the vast size of the area.

In the wildfire community, all of these things are being discussed in regards to the accumulation of fuels, controlled burns, how to efficiently manage fires now, etc. Methods are used such as the "big box method", where a wildfire is not extinguished immediately and is allowed to burn out a larger area and we just head miles out in front of the fire, build fireline, and burn out all the fuels in advance of the fire, then allow the fire to go all the way to that point and then the fire dies out because we've already burned everything in a controlled way and on our terms. This is a different approach then just encircling the fire immediately and extinguishing it, and allows nature some more room to work and do what's natural for us.

Anyways, hope that clears a few things up that I also wasn't aware of before this Summer. Basically there's numerous factors.. previous decisions as a nation, increasing population and growing WUI (people living in areas they didn't before), accumulation of fuels, overall "land:people" ratio being skewed heavily towards the land winning out big time.... many factors.

January 23

The homes that get rebuilt perhaps should be built out of block. My home south of the border is made out of concrete, rebar and insulation block.

It can survive earthquakes, fires, termites and is energy efficient. Something to think about.

January 23

13 minutes ago, tacobender said:

The homes that get rebuilt perhaps should be built out of block. My home south of the border is made out of concrete, rebar and insulation block.

It can survive earthquakes, fires, termites and is energy efficient. Something to think about.

Might not be as " pretty " to some but, agree 100% ..Block, Concrete, and /or Stone ...only house i'd live in, or build myself...

Metal could work too, though very few could afford the cost of utilizing that option..

Stick builds = 👎 option in future rebuilding...

January 23

Totally agree in regards to concrete, stucco, and stone as building materials. Our house here is concrete, and when we were buying in Florida, that was the only houses we'd even look at.

It blows my mind that they have houses built of sticks out on barrier islands in Florida.

January 23

Southern California chapparal has evolved for periodic burning.

Washingtonia petioles are a known source of firebrands propelled forward by the Santa Ana winds.

The four dams removed on the Klamath river are 700 miles north of Los Angeles.

January 23

7 minutes ago, RainforestCafe said:

Totally agree in regards to concrete, stucco, and stone as building materials. Our house here is concrete, and when we were buying in Florida, that was the only houses we'd even look at.

It blows my mind that they have houses built of sticks out on barrier islands in Florida.

New construction in florida was just about all concrete block when I bought in 2009, and roofs were required to withstand 130 mph. Old homes like you speak of are not insured and homeowners wont get any settlement. My sisters house(concrete block) was flooded out on anna maria island and they said no insurance unless you rebuild and elevate the house 12' to limit flood damage.

January 24

On 1/18/2025 at 7:23 PM, SeanK said:

Biggest problem is lack of controlled burns. California is a coastal desert. There is a lot of fuel on the forest floor. *Normally, there would be occasional fires that consume this fuel and help seeds to germinate.

California doesn't do necessary controlled burns and when fires happen, it tries to extinguish them quickly.

The post-fire scenes I've seen are remarkable. Not even burned houses remaining. The fires are so hot, that properties look like giant ashtrays, filled with cinders.

No, street palms would have no affect on the probability of fires.

Another thing to add since its a COASTAL DESERT you have lots of wind coming from the west which over the water helps prevent the wind from slowing down so it can stay at a constant speed obviously also it being a desert with not a lot of rainfall is the worst-case scenario for wildfires to spread (State-wise)

January 24

4 hours ago, Palmerr said:

Another thing to add since its a COASTAL DESERT you have lots of wind coming from the west which over the water helps prevent the wind from slowing down so it can stay at a constant speed obviously also it being a desert with not a lot of rainfall is the worst-case scenario for wildfires to spread (State-wise)

Please read this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_winds

January 24

Here is a good overview of fire dynamics in California.

https://www.sfgate.com/la/article/los-angeles-fires-nightmare-20038192.php

January 25

7 hours ago, Darold Petty said:

Here is a good overview of fire dynamics in California.

https://www.sfgate.com/la/article/los-angeles-fires-nightmare-20038192.php

A good synopsis Darold. I believe it reinforces my earlier point that there are no quick and simple answers. We have plenty of neighborhoods throughout the State that are in these types of wildland/urban interfaces. Even changing building codes does nothing for the current housing inventory that we all live within. Progress has to start somewhere though.

January 25

My sister is currently building her retirement home in the actual forest outside Grass Valley, CA. It is completely off-grid, with photovoltaic panels, battery storage, a well, and septic tank system. The code requirements are incredibly strict. Fortunately she has employed a top notch, local architect. One of the requirements is that the domestic water system must include a large storage tank of several thousand gallons, with fittings compliant for use by firefighters. The house also has, (of course) a metal roof and 3 hour fire rated exterior walls.

January 25

On 1/18/2025 at 8:07 PM, Silas_Sancona said:

Laughable at best, and a really bad arm chair take on the situation..

#1: California does PLENTY of prescribed burns, every year..

#2: You do realize that when you have 100MPH winds and ember storms created by those winds, On top of the fact that many areas in S. Cal haven't seen any rain since ...last APRIL, anything that catches on fire of this magnitude is likely destined to burn ..To the foundation..

#3: Is this really your opinion? 🤦‍♂️ Might examine footage a bit more closely. PLENTY of " Street Palm " specimens went up ..and contributed firebrands / ember cast into the fire itself.. in both of these fires, and countless others, over and over again..

After this experience, Guarantee discussions among various municipalities out there about inclusion of palms in future landscaping, esp in the really high risk WUI zones will come up..

As far as the vegetation type itself, yes it is dense.. that is called " Chaparral " ..it has always been there, and experienced periodic fire ...Forest vs. Chaparral? Totally different vegetation types... Completely different behavior during... / response after a fire..

Please educate yourself on California ecology..

How do you quantify when the amount of prescribed burning becomes "plenty"?

January 25

1 minute ago, redbeard917 said:

How do you quantify when the amount of prescribed burning becomes "plenty"?

Quick search on the net = numerous excellent articles diving into just how many acres have undergone prescribed burns in CA through the years.. Aside from that, i'll trust what is shared by the experts on the subject -and growing up seeing countless prescribed burns being done ..Here, and in CA. through the years.

Clearing vegetation wouldn't necessarily prevent new fires from being sparked by embers travelling 1, 2, or 5 miles out ahead of a fire front during extreme wind events.

When the local vegetation is already extremely dry and overly receptive to ignition, combined with that type of wind event, = Humans / human dwellings are at nature's mercy.. Simple as that.

Daniel Swain did a great summary on one of his Y.T. live streams last week regarding the role evaporative demand played into ..will increasingly contribute to... these kinds of fire events, esp. here in the west..

Lastly, another extremely important detail regarding the subject of prescribed burning ....burning an area too often is just as harmful as suppressing any and all fire.. Any trustworthy ecologist will tell you the same exact thing.

Fire in fire prone habitats = fact of life that has always existed.. " modern " humans can either learn to accept, respect, and adapt alongside fire, ..or suffer the consequences brought about by intentional non acceptance.. They will never beat nature..

January 25

Yeah, I did some reading. Just wondering what your threshold for "plenty" was. Most of the publications indicated they saw a need to increase the amount of burning, which implies the current amount is insufficient.

January 26

On 1/23/2025 at 11:50 PM, Darold Petty said:

Please read this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_winds

I know the meteorology behind it well climatology Santa ana doesn't come from the sea (sorry i was talking about a scenario since its coastal I didn't mean the Los Angeles fires were caused by the coastal winds my fault should have been clearer! Though yeah Santa ana is when a high pressure system of the great basin province sinks air into the great basin and spirals it outward in a clockwise direction (Like all High pressure systems in the northern hemisphere) which takes dry air towards SoCal and other places too which helps spark wildfire activity especially when there has literally been little to no rain in some areas like Los Angeles Goodness such a bad situation I'm sorry to all of you people who were affected. I do know what caused it (Not wind from the ocean) just saying that in some cases can help wildfires Coastal desert with splotches of greenery not the best scenario but hey not common either just one of those things that aligns really well weather and geographically like tornado alley and the Sahel (Where the Sahara meets the rainforest) helps create tropical waves which can turn into Tropical cyclones or just another rainstorm!) Without the sahel we would see a lot less tropical cyclones in the atlantic and the pacific too! Cool isnt it!

January 26

Im such a meteorology nerd!

Monday at 01:44 AM

On 1/18/2025 at 9:00 PM, Silas_Sancona said:

Do yourself a favor and ditch the odd political angle... Ain't going anywhere here.. Keep it ..and anything else aimed at CA strictly to yourself. Thanks.

As far as my frame ..not train.. of thought? comes from growing up there and a full understanding of how the various ecosystems in my state / region of the country work..

Big fires have occurred out there for ....eons... They are not something " new "

Lexington, 1985, Oakland Hills, 1991,   Large fires in the mountains east of San Jose, around Big Sur / within the greater Los Padres National Forest ..Pre 1995.. ...On top of all the others that occurred up to that timeframe across the state ..and west.. Remember many of them.. Absolutely not some new fangled " phenomenon "

When the long term weather trend in a region of a country ..or world... tilts in a direction that leads to greater warming / increasing drying, ..and there are more people / infrastructure around that can provide ignition sources, There will be more fires..   Woah!

Will never comprehend how this is such a hard to grasp concept for some people..

In a nutshell, despite the odd " theories " swirling around out there like ..Cow " exhaust ",   Whatever Uptick in large fires has been seen in the last 1, 2 decades in Ca ..or anywhere else in the West... has very little to do with any " bad " management.. Period.

As i said, please learn some things, Factual things ...things based in science, ..not just parroting Faux " theories "

The man had a take on this situation that you disagreed with and, as always, you use the veil of a computer screen to grandstand and patronize those who disagree with you.

I wish you'd speak like this to someone in person who had the stones not to take it from you, but I'm sure you don't.

Everyone that uses this website knows that you have the most expansive, encyclopedic knowledge of all things pertinent to the natural world that any human has ever attained. Perhaps you would merely be so kind as to afford us meager peons a modicum of grace when you correct our buffoonish ignorance.

@bubba

Tuesday at 05:08 PM

On 1/26/2025 at 2:20 PM, Palmerr said:

Im such a meteorology nerd!

I have been looping weather channel on tv since my parents got cable in the early 80s!

My heart goes out to all the burn victims and losses of magnificent historical properties! Truly a momentous event and deeply tragic.

Tuesday at 06:35 PM

These most recent fires have been an eye-opener for sure. Many of the really devastating fires in California occurred in more remote areas, and I often thought "well, I'm safe from that," living near the coast in a fairly dense suburb with lots of services nearby. Now it's clear there are no places safe from fire in California. The truth is my cute little 1941 kit house would burn like wadded-up newspaper if there were any serious fire nearby -- regardless of any landscaping decisions. The only decision for me, should there be a fire, is "which escape route is best?"

After my experience with the volcanic eruption 2 streets away from my 2nd home on Hawaii Island, I have drawn a firm line between life and possessions. One is essential, the other is nothing. Having a list of Needs and secondary Wants to toss in a bag before One Last Look is my fire response plan.

Tuesday at 08:15 PM

On 1/18/2025 at 6:18 PM, SeanK said:

Perhaps if Newsom hadn't destroyed 4 dams there would have been water available for firefighters.

Bless your heart. The agreement to restore the Klamath River was signed when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. Please, do *not* start with water issues. You know what they say out here in the West:

"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over."

Anyhow, I saw there were a few comments about structural integrity and construction materials. Here's an interesting thread on that: https://bsky.app/profile/holz-bau.bsky.social/post/3lffh6txedc2p

Tuesday at 09:58 PM

On 1/18/2025 at 4:23 PM, SeanK said:

Biggest problem is lack of controlled burns. California is a coastal desert. There is a lot of fuel on the forest floor. *Normally, there would be occasional fires that consume this fuel and help seeds to germinate.

California doesn't do necessary controlled burns and when fires happen, it tries to extinguish them quickly.

The post-fire scenes I've seen are remarkable. Not even burned houses remaining. The fires are so hot, that properties look like giant ashtrays, filled with cinders.

No, street palms would have no affect on the probability of fires.

On 1/18/2025 at 6:18 PM, SeanK said:

I don't follow your train of thought. Given the number of large fires out there over the past 10 years, it is inarguable that California is mismanaging it's forests and that they are now burning faster and hotter.

Perhaps if Newsom hadn't destroyed 4 dams there would have been water available for firefighters.

Wow really missed this whole water issue. I think simply from reading the post, I come to realize you are misinformed about California in general and for how our water system works. For starters, the area that recently burned is far from being a forest. The rhetoric of "clearing the forest of fuel" does not translate well at all in chaparral vegetation - what exactly are you clearing? The entirety of the vegetative cover? I mean, sure, you can take a scraper and scrape the mountainside bare of vegetation but at the sight of any rain, it would resprout like a chia pet. That's assuming you can drive a scraper up and down the steep mountainsides, over boulders and rocks and off down sheer cliffs. Also, good luck with the mudslides with any amount of rain.

Just to get a few things cleared up: California does controlled burns all the time. I'm not sure where the rhetoric comes from but it sure has a big audience. Second, CalFire will let a fire burn if it's not threatening the human population, not sure where that rhetoric comes from either, but we don't put out every fire. That would be impossible. Again, for those unfamiliar with the terrain - try extinguishing a wildfire in the deep sierra at 9k feet in elevation, far from any roads or access points. Those fires will burn all summer and they'll be extinguished by winter snows. I know because from my home in Fresno I see plumes of smoke coming from the Sierra all summer long most summers.

Newsom destroying dams??? Not sure what talking point this is about. I'm not here as a Newsome apologist - but there's water to be had. Has anyone in the city of Los Angeles ever gone without water? I don't think so. Water is always prioritized for urban areas - so the fact that fire fighters in the Palisades ran out of water was not because the city lacked access to water. Sure, mismanagement at the local level with ensuring the LOCAL dam had repairs and held water played a part - but let's not pretend the city of Los Angeles was on any type of water ration. We have plenty of water storage capacity - what we lack is water falling from the sky in the way of snow and rain. When was the San Luis Reservoir or Millerton Lake ever at full capacity? Or New Melones, or San Pedro, or Folsom, or Oroville, or... you get the point. When water rationing happens, it's farmers who are largely left to ration and sell what they get. Los Angeles, San Francisco and all of the cities in the state are first to get their water allotments. Heck, even Fresno (at the foot of one of the largest rivers coming out of the Sierra) rations residential water while it sends water (via the Delta & CA Aqueduct) to Los Angeles for unbridled use. (yes, water flows north first, then south)

BTW, if we didn't let any fresh water go out of our dams into the Delta, we'd be pumping sea water into the aqueduct and into taps in Los Angeles. The encroaching sea water would pollute some of the most fertile farmland in the nation as well. Let's stop with the misinformation and political rhetoric. Not only do salmon and smelt need fresh water in the delta, so do 18M plus humans in Southern California.

Tuesday at 10:10 PM

On 1/23/2025 at 4:07 PM, Palmerr said:

Another thing to add since its a COASTAL DESERT you have lots of wind coming from the west which over the water helps prevent the wind from slowing down so it can stay at a constant speed obviously also it being a desert with not a lot of rainfall is the worst-case scenario for wildfires to spread (State-wise)

The winds come from the east. Also, fire is a reality in ALL of California, not just the coastal chaparral. From sea level to mountains over 14,000 in elevation, all of it is fire prone.

Wednesday at 01:18 AM

Best city council meeting I've been to in years....

WELCOME GUEST

Would planting more palm trees on city streets help prevent the spread of fires?

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