California: Five Fires in Los Angeles Leaves Five Dead, Thousands of Homes Burned
Hydrants are starting to “stabilize.”
***I will update this blog with information…
Five Fires
Five fires continue to ravage Los Angeles, leaving five people dead and thousands of homes destroyed:
- Palisades Fire: Area between Malibu and Santa Monica, spanning across 17,200 acres.
- Eaton Fire: The Altadena neighborhood, burning across 10,600 acres.
- Hurst Fire and the Lidia Fire: San Fernando Valley across 855 and 348 acres.
- Sunset Fire: Hollywood Hills across 43 acres.
Hydrants “Stabilizing”
“It was a challenge early. No reports overnight of any issues with water (and) water pressure,” Jim Hudson of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told CNN’s John Berman. “We’ve worked around some mitigations for that, and the water system is starting to stabilize.”
Three million-gallon storage tanks in the Palisades area that service the fire hydrants had been proactively filled before the fires broke out, but it wasn’t enough to cover the “extreme demand,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Erik Scott said Wednesday.
“However, water availability was impacted at higher elevations, which affected some fire hydrants due to limited replenishment of water tanks in those areas. The extreme demand caused a slower refill rate for these tanks which created a challenge for our firefighting effort,” he wrote on X.
Sunset Fire
Late Wednesday night, a new fire broke out in Hollywood Hills.
It quickly gained steam and blew up. The Los Angeles Times reported it “appeared to be burning south toward Hollywood Boulevard.”
Authorities named it the Sunset Fire.
Officials immediately ordered an evacuation of the area. According to one post, LAFD told people to grab nothing and leave immediately.
The Hills houses the famous Hollywood sign and the Griffith Observatory.
A startling aerial view of the new fire that recently started in Hollywood Hills, California. It looks intense…#SunsetFire #CAwx pic.twitter.com/jY4UDYzNJb
— Collin Gross (@CollinGrossWx) January 9, 2025
Oh man. It’s ripping already. This looks like the hills above WeHo area/Hollywood Hills. pic.twitter.com/zakXA8tlB2
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 9, 2025
JUST IN: The Hollywood Hills have caught on fire, triggering an evacuation order all the way down to Hollywood Boulevard.
Fire crews are thin at the moment due to them fighting the 16,000-acre Palisades Fire and 600-acre Eaton Fire.
“A Mandatory Evacuation Order is now in place… pic.twitter.com/IeMiQ5aI7n
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 9, 2025
NEW evacuation WARNING on the Sunset Fire in Hollywood Hills. pic.twitter.com/yAsySBWf8K
— Anhedonia (@randomthingxs) January 9, 2025
🚨 #BREAKING: Traffic jams are forming as people evacuate the Hollywood Hills area after a new rapidly spreading fire is sparked
LAFD is telling residents to “GRAB NOTHING AND EVACUATE NOW.”
HEED THE WARNINGS! pic.twitter.com/R7XF1JsE9d
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 9, 2025
Fire Hydrants
A fire captain once again confirmed the fire hydrants have “little to none” water in them.
WATCH: Fire Captain asked how many fire hydrants in LA are full of water.
‘Little to NONE.’ pic.twitter.com/x7csUtQrjy
— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) January 9, 2025
David Muir
Jack Osbourne, son of Ozzy Osbourne, noticed ABC’s David Muir had clothes pins on his jacket.
“Nice Jacket Bro,” wrote Jack. “Glad you look nice and svelte with those clothes line pegs, while our city burns to the ground.”
Nice Jacket Bro. Glad you look nice and svelte with those clothes line pegs, while our city burns to the ground. @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/bGQ3zvF6lr
— Jack Osbourne (@JackOsbourne) January 9, 2025
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to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Maybe they could smother it with marshmallows.
No! They need the fire to carry out the new “boil water” alert.
Ty Mary. Prayers for them all, and their pets.
I hope that all the good people here that may be in that area are safe.
I concur with your sentiments. These unfortunate residents are battling fires, and the incompetence of those who are in charge.
It’s a two-front war.
They’re suffering from the incompetence of the people for whom they voted. They are wallowing in a misery of their own making.
Every time … there it is. Something bad happens to the people of CA and there’s always some fool here that decries … they deserved it because of how they voted.
‘Deserve’? No. Expect? Yeah, expect is very fair. Everyone has lots of choices even when they pretend not to. They simply choose one priority or set of priorities over another.
Everyone also ‘votes’ with their choice to remain in a fire prone, semi-arid location, subject to drought and periods of high winds governed by uncaring leaders who fail to make/allow simple mitigation measures of brush/ladder fuel clearance, refuse to fund water collection/storage to adequate levels and chronically underfund basic services like emergency services personnel/equipment in favor of wokiesta nonsense.
No one ‘deserves’ to have their homes wrecked by fire, flood, hurricane, tornado or other catastrophe….but if you choose to remain in an area with those risks then sooner or later one will impact your little slice of the earth on a long enough timeline. To expect otherwise is to foolishly disregard reality.
Let’s all take a moment and blame State Farm for the carnage. They were horrible for canceling so many insurance policies in that area, leaving the residents without hope to rebuild once this is over. /s
Let’s take a moment to celebrate diversity and equity in California! A mayor doing the state’s business in Africa after she saved the county millions of dollars in wasteful spending on personnel and equipment, the governor making sure the residents have evacuation plans and his support, the President who wanted to tell everyone how he almost lost his Corvette in a fire (and how he can relate), the state’s emergency management and fire department for firing people who refused to protect the community by refusing the COVID “vaccine’” and many others who contributed to the success of putting out these fires so quickly.
May they receive the same level of assistance from FEMA as North Carolina received.
So many people vote blue there they won’t have any reason to skip neighborhoods. (Plus, all the signs in their yards will have melted.)
At least Joe Biden decided to visit SoCal. He couldn’t get off the beach long enough, or take enough meds, to get to NC.
It’s like flood insurance, it’s basically uninsurable. All the policies go bad at once, where insurance works by distributing risk over a large base that doesn’t all go bad at once. The lucky ones pay for the unlucky ones and everybody stays in business.
Government flood insurance is a transfer of wealth to the original owner by raising the value of the property, but that’s just part of the cost to subsequent owners. Without insurance you just don’t build expensive stuff there.
Southern California is ecologically a desert so somewhat dry.
YouTube is offering me live commentary on the fires, with fire pics and inane commentary. I was wondering about transferring the commentary to the traditional Christmas Yule Log videos.
That section of LA is chaparral scrub land, not desert.
Chaparral is designed to burn. It’s part of its life cycle.
It’s not desert.
You’re a mean-spirited prick, do you know that? Of course you know it.
And the gov’t sets the rates. And doesn’t allow them to raise them to correspond to the risk.
I wouldn’t stay in that market, either.
Born & raised (mostly) in Southern California. While there is a large part of the state that is a desert, that doesn’t begin until Joshua Tree(ish). What’s burning right now is considered a ‘Mediterranean Climate’ area, essentially the same climate as southern Spain, Italy & Greece….which also have to manage forest fires, particularly Spain & Greece. Coastal California below Camp Pendleton is considered Semi-Arid. Deserts don’t have forest fires because the any trees there are sparse. There’s little combustible material, if any at all.
Having said all that, you’re exactly correct about flood insurance. People inland are subsidizing coastal homeowners, particularly those right on the sea/surf boundary. It’s a transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the haves.
James Woods knew when his house was on fire – because the house still had power, and the alarm system was sending his cell phone notifications that the smoke detectors were going off.
That has to be one really eery and hopeless feeling. Your house calling for help that won’t come.
Scott Adams says he built his (N Cal) house as fireproof, namely nothing flammable that an ember might fall on.
Goody gumdrops for Him.
It can still melt
Wasn’t the Hollywood sign in severe danger of burning down a handful of years ago with another “wildfire”. I think that one was assumed to be arson, though I can’t really recall and I might even be misremembering this whole thing.
Arson seems to be in play. Are they terrorist?
https://x.com/hubermanlab/status/1877236580676493784
Homeless encampments are almost certainly responsible for some of these fires. The encampments are everywhere.
I guess my childhood home will go or is gone. 5631 Green Oak Dr.
I wonder when their property tax is due.
In North Carolina, property owners were told that their taxes were due the other day, no matter if the dwelling was still standing or not.
The State will not be denied.
My wife & I were wondering about that as well. I guess property taxes get assessed even if there are no ‘improvements’ on the property left standing. That….blows. Also, there’s going to be an income tax reckoning looming on the near horizon. Many of these homeowners are some of the highest net-worth/income earners in the state. With no place to live, how many will move out of state…taking that tax base with them? Then there’s the loss of sales tax revenue as well. There are a lot of businesses – high-end retail & restaurants – that were paying sales taxes on Monday that won’t be paying sales tax next Monday, nor any for the foreseeable future. This is an economy calamity in addition to a human calamity.
Death and taxes
This video of LAPD using bags (maybe purses?) to gather water drops to try and extinguish an ember fire is the perfect example of the abject mismanagement of California. It’s something no one would believe absent the video existing.
https://x.com/UpdateNews724/status/1877363807409901941
Look on the bright side (if a Dem poli)… the decreased number of homes and businesses means the fire dept budget can be cut even more.
The Great L.A. Fire. Clearing brush and such is so anti-environmental for the Left where Nature must be free to grow. Fire mitigation is not high on the Greens list.
notes:
HotAir’s article on the collapse of the insurance industry in CA is spot on. Their numbers of who is using the FAIR plan were eye-opening.
Few know what happens when the insurance funds are bankrupt- they basically go and hit up every insurer to make up the difference. It is against the law for an insurance agent to tell you that when selling a policy (go take the training to be an insurance producer if you don’t believe me).
So you are probably witnessing the collapse of the insurance industry in CA.
I know from insiders that legal teams are already looking to use mass events like this as reasons to exclude areas, or to pull out. If the industry collapses and they use the insurer of last resort method- no major player will remain in CA.
While some of the wealthier have the ability to self insure for property damage, it’s not an option for those w/ mortgages. California’s collapse is getting more likely.
If I end up in Florida- my plan is to by modest house and self insure as the hazard premiums are ridiculous.
Also- don’t think our enemies haven’t noticed how weak our wildfire response is?
1 guy and some time released propellants and the entire west coast is in toast next august. add some booby traps and it gets really bad.
Good point. One guy is a little optimistic. A few dozen teams dispatched to several Western States during drought conditions though? Gather up some homeless tweakers pay them to do it, drop.them off with the means? Timed at peak fire.season with scarce resources already stretched thin? Some more serious folks acting as snipers v personnel and saboteurs of fire equipment? Very scary possibility.
During WWII, the Japanese actually tried this using fire balloons launched from Japan, carried by the Tradewinds all the way to the west coast of North America. I think they launched almost 10K of these bombs (I don’t think I can use their name without triggering content moderation). The firebombs created very little damage. But, these were devices that didn’t benefit from any kind of guidance system. It might be different today with technology what it is.
Newsom approved the destruction of four water reservoirs to protect the smelt or some other fish. As a result, all the record-breaking rainfall from last spring ran into the ocean.
The Delta Smelt is an invasive bait fish. Sort of like Eastern Dems having migrated to the West Coast.
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