Griffith Park Fire in Los Angeles

[etherealtb]

Hey guys, I've been a bit freaked watching the coverage of the fire here in LA last night. Its right in the neighborhood that I grew up and all of my very favorite places in LA are up in this area. It has been threatening some of our historic houses here in LA, including the Lovell Health House tinyurl.com/367tfx. Other fav places of mine include the Griffith Observatory tinyurl.com/2vnsw8 the Greek Theatre tinyurl.com/2phkry and the lovely Fern Dell Park.



The fire is 40% under control for now, but for those who don't live in fire areas, that doesn't mean much. Sadly, a huge portion of the lovely natural fauna in Griffith Park has already been destroyed. This really makes me sad, as there isn't much here in LA that isn't imported or fake (and I don't just mean the people, I mean the plants, trees, etc.) almost everything here isn't natural or native, except in our relatively unspoiled mountains.

As a person who has a love-hate relationship with LA, one reason I love to go up to Griffith Park is that going up into the mountains here is like going into the past and seeing what the hell it was here in Southern California that people fell in love with over a hundred years ago and made them move here in droves. When you are up there and can see how beautiful, lovely and unspoiled it is, you get a little inkling as to what attracted people here in the first place and wistfully wish things hadn't changed so much.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hopes up that things will be okay. Pray (or if you aren't religious) send good thoughts our way!

[sevensisters]

Are you in an area near the fire, etherealtb? Please take care. And I think maxx is in LA. Both of you, keep safe. It's such a shame so much is being destroyed. Are they near to controlling the fire yet?

[etherealtb]

No, I'm not near the danger area, but as I said, lots of my favorite places are. As of right now, it is supposed to be 50% contained. Our firefighters really are doing an amazing job, I mean, its only due to them that no houses have been lost, because those fires got REALLY close.

[quoll]

Late coming to this one - hope your favourite areas managed to survive. Once they get going there is nothing to stop a bushfire and being in one is the scariest experience of my life. We had one rip through the suburbs of our city a few years ago and it burned 500 homes. I was working in the evacuation centre for that area at the time and we had 3500 people trek through the doors with their animals and meagre posessions. It was as black as pitch in the middle of a summer day and the only light was a bright, almost iridescent red glow from the fire. Dead scary! I am full of admiration for the firefighters who, in our neck of the woods, are mainly volunteers who put themselves on the line year after year.

Now, a few years later, the bush has regenerated, as the bush does, but some blocks still havent been built on. Others have built homes which far outdid their previous more modest accommodation and quite a few have moved out of the area.

[etherealtb]

quoll said:

Late coming to this one - hope your favourite areas managed to survive. Once they get going there is nothing to stop a bushfire and being in one is the scariest experience of my life. We had one rip through the suburbs of our city a few years ago and it burned 500 homes. I was working in the evacuation centre for that area at the time and we had 3500 people trek through the doors with their animals and meagre posessions.

Oh, my God! That's so scary. 500 homes! That's almost unimaginable. I dreaded just that sort of situation when I grew up in a fire area.

I assume fires are particularly bad in Australia in areas where there are a lot of eucalyptus trees? I know they want to get rid of them in high fire areas here in California, as apparently because of the oil in them, they act like giant torches that are extremely difficult to put out. Apparently the few that were in Griffith Park, along with some "European pines" caused problmes. Its sad, b/c eucalypti (sp?) fit in so well with our landscape here and they require so little water, which is always an issue for plants in CA.

It was as black as pitch in the middle of a summer day and the only light was a bright, almost iridescent red glow from the fire. Dead scary!

I remember a situation like that when I was a little kid! There were so many fires spread all over the greater LA area, that the sun was blotted out (like you said) AND there was ash raining down as we played outside. (Can you believe they let us play outside in those conditions? They'd never do that nowadays, thank heavens!)

I am full of admiration for the firefighters who, in our neck of the woods, are mainly volunteers who put themselves on the line year after year.

Aren't they amazing?

Now, a few years later, the bush has regenerated, as the bush does, but some blocks still havent been built on. Others have built homes which far outdid their previous more modest accommodation and quite a few have moved out of the area.

Yeah, there are still some empty house foundations in the Malibu area as well, which is surprising, since its such valuable property. I do hope that whoever rebuilt made their new places more fireproof. We have *very* strict fire building codes here in Los Angeles County. For example, no wood roofs have been allowed since the 70's (and older houses had to replace theirs.) And your brush *must* be cut bay 100 yards, or the fire department will do it for you and send you the bill. They don't play: they can't afford to. It's all these precautions, I'm sure, that save my old neighborhood.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the future though, becaus this is a REALLY early start for the fire season, and more and worse fires I'm sure will be ahead.

[maxx02]

Only 3" of rain this year. What do we usually get about 12"? or is it more like 20"

[etherealtb]

maxx02 said:

Only 3" of rain this year. What do we usually get about 12"? or is it more like 20"

Probably the average is around 12, but that's counting the years we get drenched and years like now, where we don't get anything. Its feast or famine in arid areas, ya know?

[quoll]

Sounds like drought the world over! We are on stage 4 restrictions now apparently and they are writing guidelines for reducing home consumption - bang goes my 15 minute sanity saving showers!

Sometimes having just that little bit of rain at the beginning of the season is even more dangerous for fires - it shoots up a quick load of fuel which then dies back. What really gets to me is that many fires are started by arsonists (ours wasnt thank heavens!). There is no figuring the sick minds of people who take a match to tinder dry bush! I hope that you dont have a bad year and that this is the one and only!

Our fires were fuelled by freak weather conditions and yes we had eucalypts but we also had pine plantations which went up like a rocket in a bushfire the year before and effectively burned us a fire break so that when the big one came through, the damage was, in fact, much less than had we had the pines there too. The damage without the previous year's fire would have been ten times as bad (and there is no exaggeration there, the fire would have gone right across the city!)

[ree]

I think we've all been watching the fires in LA and those in
Georgia and wishing you who live there all the best. I can't
imagine a more frightening scenario than a enormous fire.
I grew up in the middle of thousands of acres of pine timber,
but we were lucky that we nearly always had plenty of rain.