2024 Wildfire Season

[foresterab]

California and the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning for yesterday. While this is somewhat to be expected and is basically a mobilization order to expect a bad day there was some unique language I've never seen used:

"A Particularly Dangerous Situation". A polite way of saying that extreme conditions are occurring and it is not a normal red flag warning.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1876768120167149894

Also remember fires are modelled based upon "average" conditions and not extreme due to the lack of information on extreme events. The Fire Behavior Analyst will then try to adjust predictions to align with observed behavior to in turn model future spread. So while I hope this is a one day isolated event unfortunately it looks like the area will be facing a couple of challenging days.

On a more positive note the major fire in Victoria Australia was declared under control today after a couple of weeks of work.

 

[daftandbarmy]

California and the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning for yesterday. While this is somewhat to be expected and is basically a mobilization order to expect a bad day there was some unique language I've never seen used:

"A Particularly Dangerous Situation". A polite way of saying that extreme conditions are occurring and it is not a normal red flag warning.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1876768120167149894

Also remember fires are modelled based upon "average" conditions and not extreme due to the lack of information on extreme events. The Fire Behavior Analyst will then try to adjust predictions to align with observed behavior to in turn model future spread. So while I hope this is a one day isolated event unfortunately it looks like the area will be facing a couple of challenging days.

On a more positive note the major fire in Victoria Australia was declared under control today after a couple of weeks of work.

That isn't good...

Fire hydrants ran dry as Pacific Palisades burned. L.A. city officials blame ‘tremendous demand’​

As wildfires raged across Los Angeles on Tuesday, crews battling the Palisades blaze faced an additional burden: Scores of fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades had little to no water flowing out.

“The hydrants are down,” said one firefighter in internal radio communications.

“Water supply just dropped,” said another.

By 3 a.m. Wednesday, all water storage tanks in the Palisades area “went dry,” diminishing the flow of water from hydrants in higher elevations, said Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the city’s utility.

“We had a tremendous demand on our system in the Palisades. We pushed the system to the extreme,” Quiñones said Wednesday morning. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”

Fire hydrants ran dry as Pacific Palisades burned. L.A. city officials blame 'tremendous demand'

Firefighters battling the Palisades fire dealt with hydrants that had little to no water flowing out. By 3 a.m. Wednesday, all hydrants 'went dry,' an LADWP official says.

www.latimes.com