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Let's hope this thread is short on Bay Area Fire Season

Mike95060 said:
Seeing what these crews do rubs my “OOHRAH’s” in all the right ways.
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Hell ya it does!!! :thumbup

and.....

Hopefully any law breaking landlords get whats coming to them.
 
Hey guys, this is my good friend and LA resident Chase. If you want to make a direct impact his boots are on the ground doing work getting things to people in need NOW! You can donate to his venmo. I kicked him down what I could. If you want to as well please do. PM me if you want more details.

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dravnx said:
If a freeway can't stop a fire storm, a firebreak won't. Look at the topography of the hills where the fires started. Where, how do you propose cutting in a firebreak?
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No doubt, we may have had an extreme situation where nothing could have been done unless your home was concrete, but its clear that defensible space was poor.


Sure that underbrush looks green now, but how about in September or add another year and watch the build up.
 
Killroy1999 said:
No doubt, we may have had an extreme situation where nothing could have been done unless your home was concrete, but its clear that defensible space was poor.


Sure that underbrush looks green now, but how about in September or add another year and watch the build up.
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wrt this situation (any situation actually), there’s little point in speculating until the investigation is complete and the after action report is published.

but yeah, defensible space is a constant battle of promotion, persuasion and outright demand. we fight that here constantly. our entire community is in a heavily forested area, most zoned residential forest. the dude that got me involved with fire risk mitigation locally disparaged my allegation that we had made great progress. he said none of us were safe until every last property was in compliance (a serious challenge when dealing with ‘no one tells me what to do’ mountain folk).

wrt underbrush, green color is immaterial. depends on the sap content (e.g. mountain misery - grows everywhere on the forest floor up here, never turns brown, loaded with highly flammable sap, burns like gasoline soaked newspaper regardless of the time of year). also depends on the moisture content of otherwise fire resistant vegetation - may be green, but still tinder dry.
 
Ingenuity emerges. Folks are kluging together, or buying ready made parts/kits to preempt and fight fire. Ranch or urban, the general theme is drag it out to your pool (10k-ish gallons) and toss the snorkel in. Water is sucked by pump (15hp-ish engine) and pushed out multiple lines (via manifold). The lines are about 2" - 2.5" hose or PVC and go to 10' pole mounted/perimeter located ranch sprinklers shooting about 100'- wetting down the yard, field, roof, whatever its aimed: tick-tick-tick-tick. A couple 1.5" to 2" hand line hoses 150' with fire-fighting nozzles to attack any burns or smolders. Its a lot of draw, so I'd imagine the hand lines are just catching spots- its the pre-soaking the ranch sprinklers give that does all the work.

I'd found the company that makes/sells high quality kits, but I dump my browser history overnight. I'll post it if I see it again. Anyone seen these too?
 
Here it is, there are others but this is the big dog; https://brushfirebattlesystems.com/

Brushfire Battle Systems LLC was established in 2019 by David Whitman, Environmental Science teacher at a high school in Southern California. Born and raised in Southern California, David has witnessed the changing climate first hand. During his 15 years as a science teacher (and he still is), he has first hand knowledge of the changing rainfall patterns, bark beetle ravaged forests, declining snow packs in the Colorado river watershed and Sierra Nevada. The drought maps seem to be getting redder all the time. When Paradise, California burned to the ground in November of 2018, Mr. Whitman organized a fundraiser at his home to help the victims of the fire. He raised over $1,000 for the relief effort. At the same time, David starting researching how homeowners could better defend their homes from a quickly approaching wildfire. During this research, he kept running across burned down homes with full swimming pools filled with ash. Why, he questioned, couldn’t that water be put to use to protect the home, even if no one was home?

Additional research into the swimming pool fire pump industry led David to decide to engineer his own system, different than any other pump system on the market. The final product was Fire Engine 1.0. Based on a powerful Honda motor with a high pressure AND high volume pump; it moves water! The output is an actual fire hydrant thread. David realized that most of the pumps on the market all had one simple fire hose output. He attached a fire department grade valve called a wye to the pump, creating an industry leading two hose output. This system is like having your own fire hydrant in your backyard.

Another problem that David wanted to address was evacuation orders. How can you operate multiple fire hoses if you were asked to evacuate? To solve this problem, David built his water cannon line. Capable of delivering over 90 gallons a minute out 200 feet in diameter, the large water cannon is like a Cal-Fire helicopter dropping water on your property every 10 minutes. As seen in the pictures below, David did testing of multiple water cannons and discovered that with the proper nozzles installed, he could operate 3 water cannons at the same time! As the Forestville installation demonstrates, with proper placement, water cannons can provide an effective wall of water and increase local relative humidity around the home and property.

Every system is hand assembled and personally delivered either by David or his Northern California partner, Stuart Mitchell. Quality equipment and supplies is a priority for him. He stocks finished pumps, over 2000 feet of fire hose, and all of the related supplies for same or next day delivery in the greater Southern California area. He will provide training to the homeowner on the set-up, operation and maintenance of the system.

Brushfire Battle Systems is one of a couple pool fire pump vendors in California. David knows the competition and believes he has one of the best systems on the market. He’s done the research for you. Email or call him. You will have peace of mind knowing you are working with a company that truly cares about every customer and their need to protect their biggest assets.
 
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berth said:
Something occurred to me. I know fire crews are coming in to help with the local fires, I'm just wondering if SCE is able to borrow crews from PGE et al to come help restore electricity.
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Pg&e has already sent 100 people down to help with fire suppression and veg removal as well as sending their two Blackhawk helicopters to drop water.
 
Brokenlink said:
Pg&e has already sent 100 people down to help with fire suppression and veg removal as well as sending their two Blackhawk helicopters to drop water.
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We'll see that covered in rate increases across the state...with the standard mark-up, of course.
 
Brokenlink said:
Pg&e has already sent 100 people down to help with fire suppression and veg removal as well as sending their two Blackhawk helicopters to drop water.
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I have a question somewhat based on other Mike's post that you may have some insight on. Do you know how prescribed burns are scheduled? I'm reading stuff that has me wondering if reality is closer to other Mike's post, but I don't know. I remember seeing them pretty frequently around the levee's as a kid because they were near the local dirt riding spot, but not as much in later years. From how far up the chain of leadership, are prescribed burns decided?
 
I'm wondering why major news agencies are talking about 'raging fires' in current new articles when the website I use to track active fires is showing the two main fires are showing no current heat signature.

I know that air quality in the middle of LA is much better than usual.
 
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