Bubble Wrap?? General Chat

California is a very large state, size wise and people ( California used to have the seventh largest economy in the world). I live 350 miles north of these fires, and @Toedtoes lives north of me, maybe another 100ish miles. Luckily we aren’t currently getting any of the smoke from these fires either

I am glad that you are both safe.
Shocking news this morning that arson may be involved in some of the California fires. It seems odd that there was no water available, and so near the ocean too.

LA is basically a desert. They have very little water. It's been a major bone of contention that much of their water is piped down from Northern California. During droughts, those of us in the north have been on rations - having to refrain from flushing toilets, sharing bath water, etc, while the same amount of water gets piped to LA and they continue to water lawns, wash vehicles, etc.

Using sea water to fight fires can be done, but the saline can damage fire fighting equipment and can destroy plantlife and basically kill the soil for years to come.

Thanks for that insight Toed!

Found this post on a site abc Chicago.
A screenshot so I couldn't get it all, but this is the essence. She says the hotels have been helpful in taking single pets, but there is a need for taking multiple pets of all types - dogs, llamas, horses etc.
So fortunate that there is an unused veterinary hospital, but I think it might fill up very quickly.

I found this on the Best Friends website. Their main sanctuary is located in Utah, but they have strong ties with LA and have an adoption center there.

https://bestfriends.org/emergency-response/los-angeles-wildfires

It is hopeful that folks interested in providing temporary homes could contact them and get put in contact with rescues, shelters and/or owners needing safe places for their animals.

Fortunately, the days of "just let the animal loose to fend for itself" are by and large gone and people are doing everything they can to keep their animals safe.

I feel so so sorry for all of these people, they’ve lost everything. I been watching it on the news and on Snapchat that people having been putting on there and thinking these poor people. That is a lot of area to cover with very little or no water.

It is unimaginably sad. One family had lost two homes - the one that they were living in and the one that they were building. Everyone that's interviewed seems so determined to rebuild the property and the community. I hope their determination is justified. The legal implications are likely to be another nightmare.

This is true Carole and like everywhere, you try and build a life for yourself and your family and things like this take it away from you just like that, to end up with nothing and to have to start all over again. It’s just awful.

Two-thirds of homes burned in CZU Fire never rebuilt 4 years later

Updated: 5:38 PM PDT Jun 21, 2024
Infinite Scroll Enabled

Ricardo Tovar
Digital Content Manager

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. —
Many of the homeowners in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires chose to walk away. That’s the findings from a grand jury report in Santa Cruz released on Friday.

In 2020, a thunderstorm produced thousands of lightning strikes in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, which, along with dry conditions, led to a massive wildfire that burned 86,000 acres. The CZU Fire destroyed nearly 1,000 structures, 697 were single-family homes.
Four years after the fire, only about one-third of the homes destroyed were rebuilt.

Homeowners cited being underinsured or underinsured, the cost of rebuilding and the inability to navigate the permitting process as the reasons for not rebuilding.

"The failure of county agencies to have an effective disaster response plan in place prior to the CZU Fire caused many fire victims to incur unnecessary expenses during the rebuilding process," noted the grand jury report.

The report recommends changes including:

• Establish a public-private partnership to help victims.
• Maintain the Recovery Permit Centers to expedite the building process for future disaster victims
• Expedite building process for future disaster victims.
• And improve the collaboration between firefighting agencies.

Based on what’s happened in Santa Cruz I think it’s going to be a rough road to rebuilding for many of the people who have lost, and who may still lose their homes to destruction by these fires

A lot may depend on the causes of these fires. As I mentioned before, this could be the catalyst to hold electrical companies accountable for updating their infrastructure.

Insurance is very difficult. Every time we have a costly disaster like this, the insurance companies raise the rates significantly. Some refuse to provide fire insurance at all. When the insuurance commission tries to limit the max rates to keep it affordable and require the companies to provide the additional policies, the companies threaten to pull out of the state completely. With flood insurance, FEMA has a program protecting homeowners in 100 year flood plains from being gouged by insurance companies - this doesn't help the person with a creek behind their home that overruns every year, but it protects those in low lying areas subject to flooding due to failed levees, etc. There are no protections for fire insurance. The companies can charge whatever they want for the most part. Few people can truly afford to fully insure their homes. They choose their policies based on premium costs alone. And those companies with the lowest premium rates are the most likely to delay paying out on claims or denying them outright.

I wonder how much responsibility might be shifted onto the local government too.
We have the similar problems with insurance companies in this country. Places that have never been subject to flooding in the past are now experiencing it for the second or third time. The cause is usually placed on global warming, but some of the blame must be increasing amount of development - either encroaching on former flood plains, or just because of the acreage that we are covering in brick and tarmac, diverting natural drainage channels. Either way, the people affected are starting to have difficulty in insuring their properties.
Many areas of the East coast are subject to land loss due to erosion. Roads and properties can be lost to the sea, sometimes quite dramatically. Property in these areas is also impossible to insure.

It appears that there may have been some exaggerations or misunderstandings when the news has been talking about how many homes have been lost. I’ll paste a bit from an article from USA Today.


The fires have consumed about 38,000 acres of land total, according to CalFire. The Palisades Fire, which sprang up on Tuesday and has burned more than 21,000 acres, became the most destructive in Los Angeles history. It was 11% contained as of Saturday morning. Of the over 5,000 structures destroyed, 426 are homes, Todd Hopkins with CalFire said.

I was unable to login the past two days. I login on my phone. I thought there was going to be a change to the forum to update it and combine it with a few other sites. What’s the hold up? I think this was stated months ago.

Azz wasn't positive the move would be made last he posted. I believe he was still researching/determining if it would be the best solution.

I have to correct myself. Most of the water LA gets is coming from the aquaducts. They divert water from the Colorado River to a large extent.

Of course, all the diverting of water from the river has destroyed the Colorado River delta. By the time the Colorado River hits the Mexico border there is barely any water trickling.

https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-...andscapes/colorado-river/restoring-the-delta/