I found a much better article (5 page PDF) from the fire prevention expert quoted in this article, which details his method of prioritizing building fire-safe homes and dispels misconceptions of how wildfire spreads to homes:<p><a href="https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/woods/117_121.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/woods/117_121.pdf</a>
A professor of atmospheric science from the university of Washington has a couple posts he wrote about how the fires started and it seems like it was probably electrical, and could have been avoided (by turning off the grid in the area) given the very clear forecasts for extreme wind.<p><a href="https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/did-la-fire-disaster-have-to-happen.html" rel="nofollow">https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/did-la-fire-disaster-...</a><p><a href="https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-palisades-fire-start.html" rel="nofollow">https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-pal...</a><p>The other inconvenient truth is that the lack of good water management, prescribed burns, and forest management has been problematic across the country. Climate change isn’t the cause, even though attribution teams desperately try to make it that - it just makes things worse. But forests have dry fuel that will light up at some point and that’s regardless of climate change. There’s inadequate proactive planning for this.
I wonder what caused the fire to burn more heavily before anyone took action? The first few hours are usually very important. It's very difficult to control once it goes off totally.<p>Similar fire in Chongqing, China back in 2022. The fire was pretty close to the city. The total acre burnt was less than 1000 acres in total.<p><a href="https://www.lifeweek.com.cn/article/174896?from=information" rel="nofollow">https://www.lifeweek.com.cn/article/174896?from=information</a>
So many tall telephone and power poles with wires everywhere in LA, but rarely mentioned. Can’t survive really high winds.<p>It’s not clear why they’re not buried other than cost. A few bent poles must now be replaced in our neighborhood at great expense.<p>Looks like they’d be cheaper buried in the long run.
> “The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.”<p>I think this is well-known and not at all some sort of secret inconvenient truth. After any disastrous event, there will always be people coming out of the woodwork saying “you should have listened to me.”<p>Pretty unimpressed by this article, frankly.
> Building codes failed to address the requirements of specific environments, and infrastructure was laid out without attending to potential hazard.<p>Well, yeah. Americans tend to laugh at European construction codes, label us with words suggesting we live in a dictatorship... but with every report I see from the newest natural disaster in the US, be it fires, floods or hurricanes, I'm happy that building codes are very very strict here.<p>> For example, municipal and fire prevention agencies must give property owners advance — and continual — warnings to clear dead vegetation and to wet dry brush within 10 feet of the house with periodic, prolonged sprinklings.<p>Try that with your average American and the poor sod tasked with doing that will be at best yelled at with "leave my property", and that's assuming they can inspect the property to begin with.
I'm still looking for the incovenient truths because I couldn't find them in that article... A couple thousand words with no real insight or information.
> It may be the fire equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane<p>When I saw the pictures of the completely burnt out districts, the first thing I thought of was Hiroshima. At least we got most of the people out first this time, though.
It's inconvenient to the policy 'makers' who are more interested in their aspirations than their duty.<p>It's common sense to everyone else.