this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
54 points (98.2% liked)

News

23967 readers
6441 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
JonsJava
rjc
Thekingoflorda
Tenthrow
gedaliyah
little_cow
jeffw
enu
WrenFeathers
54
California wildfires: investigators explore possible link between new year’s fireworks and Palisades blaze (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 week ago by MicroWave to c/news
10 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Summary

California officials are investigating whether the deadly Palisades fire, which has killed 24 and destroyed thousands of homes, is linked to a smaller New Year's Day fire.

Reports suggest fireworks may have caused the earlier blaze, with wind and dry conditions potentially rekindling it days later.

The fire began in Pacific Palisades' brushy area, and experts warn that smoldering embers can reignite under such conditions.

Investigations into nearby fires, including the Eaton and Hurst fires, are ongoing, with containment efforts underway.

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] givesomefucks 27 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It honestly doesn't really matter what exactly started it, because it takes something so small we can never stop all the factors.

Hell, in other environments animals like birds have learned how to spread it because it helps their foraging.

What we need to focus on is the conditions that allow it to spread like this. Which is climate change and privatizing water in a drought stricken state and then exporting it.

Addressing those causes will piss off billionaires, so they'll blame it on fireworks because they know people will fight cuz Merica.

[–] ChicoSuave 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The region experienced high winds seasonally prior to climate change. Look at a topographical map of the southern California region - the deserts get hot and the high pressure pushes through the mountains (the San Gabriel range is one of the only east-west mountain ranges in the world), passing through the wide open savannah of the southern coast. The current wind conditions are a normal part of the winter cycle in SoCal.

Focusing on the conditions doesn't put energy and resources isn't a good use. It really is a matter of finding what caused it and stopping that. There are no fire spreading birds out in CA (or this would be a known and common source of the annual fires). Each time the fires are burning, they are because of something a human did, like driving with metal scraping the road and creating sparks. Or power lines that hang over mountains getting knocked down by the predictable winds. Or gender reveal parties and other idiots who spread fire to celebrate. Or casually flicking a cigarette out of a car window. It's always people.

[–] givesomefucks -3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

100 things could have started it...

Take what caused it down, pass it around, and you got 99 problems still.

Even if a fire starting bird ain't one.

Each time the fires are burning, they are because of something a human did,

That can be your opinion. It still wouldn't be correct, but you can definitely have that as an opinion. Like how people think the Earth is flat, the moon is fake, and Elon Musk is a genius.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Centuries of fire suppression across the state have led to massive fuel stockpiles for fires. Controlled burns have been recommended and blocked for decades.

[–] givesomefucks 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The issue here is the wealthy lobbying to lower fire risk areas in order to build more houses and not have to follow expensive building codes.

Houses burn faster than forest, so these new houses catch fire more easily and dominoes into areas that were traditionally safe also catching fire. Like the outer ring used fire proofing techniques, the new expansions didn't have to, and they burnt more than forest would, meaning the old houses with the fire proofing techniques didn't have enough anymore.

The recent expansion in the Palisades for 100 million dollar homes just burnt down working classes neighborhoods.

Don't get tricked into blaming it on anything else except climate change as an overall factor.

It was rich people not caring about anything other than money, trickling down to fuck over regular people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I disagree with your premise that this is all evil corp. The fact is that demand drives housing. Someone is going to buy and build on that property. Full stop.

I am not aware of any fire proofing techniques for homes in a situation like this. References please.

As mentioned above, we've had nearly 100 years of fire suppression practices that kept fuel from burning. I'm not sure how else to mitigate the properties other than clearing all trees and bushes. I don't think it would help in this situation.

I agree that climate change is a problem and a contributing fsctor.

[–] givesomefucks -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Someone is going to buy and build on that property. Full stop.

They weren't able t before because of the fire risk rating...

Which the rich lobbies to change so they could build mansions there, land that was cheap because of that rating.

The existence of those homes that also skipped fire safety regulations due to the lowered raring caused hotter fires to burn the houses on what used to be on the boundary to have their fire safety measured made insufficient.

As mentioned above, we’ve had nearly 100 years of fire suppression practices that kept fuel from burning

And the rating was changed less than a decade ago...

Which is why prior methods proved insufficient...

I dunno man, I can't think of a simpler way to put it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Hell, in other environments animals like birds have learned how to spread it because it helps their foraging.

Wait, what? You know of an instance where birds were using fire?

I mean, limited tool use by some birds, sure, but I've never heard of fire.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's Australia (of course) they have fire hawks that will try to use fire to flush out prey at times.