What I find confusing is that I live in N Cal, in a rural backwoods, and was well informed about the potential for extremely serious fire danger in the So Cal region. The extremely dry conditions following wet years, tinder-like vegetation, extraordinarily strong Santa Ana winds, etc.
I don’t understand how the mayor could have missed that. I don’t even watch major news outlets.
I dont think she missed anything. She underestimated the level of impact that was forming.
I was on one of the prepo alphas, we got there pretty quickly and got to work. Hydrant pressure was never good. I remember by about 18:30 I was pumping about 250gpm while pulling -30inHg out of my 2.5” supply. It felt like I was drafting the hydrant. While this was less than ideal, we did manage to save multiple homes.
Later in the evening when the pressure was pretty much gone, our save rate really dropped. Early the next morning we were told the reservoir was empty and they were attempting to fill it and were asked to report if pressure improved. It didn’t.
While I agree that this was going to be catastrophic no matter what, I feel I can confidently say, if we had a decent water supply we could have saved a LOT of homes.
How many engines were on hydrants? Curious on main sizes and whats normal up there. You guys took a beating. My hats off to you for doing what you could.
Thanks, we tried.
In the second neighborhood we were in, there was probably 3 strike teams for 150 houses. So it wasn’t like there was an engine parked at every hydrant. We would fill our tank slowly, the go find a home we thought we could save, strategically dump the tank thinking we did good work , go refill slowly, get back to the house and it would have multiple more starts…. Repeat. The ember cast was insane, and these 5,000sqft homes are 10-15’ from each other with 20’ privacy hedges in between sure didn’t help.
On the second morning we made a good save. We finally had more engines, so we had 4 or 5 engines searching for good hydrants and shuttled water to one engine pumping. Between all of us we were able to supply the one. Saving the home.
I’ve been on some good fires, notably the Esperanza and the Sayer, this was by far the craziest. The Sayer was nuts, standing in front of that font coming down the canyon was incredible, but we had a good hydrant and stood our ground and made some good saves. But this was on another level. Other more salty than me may disagree, but this was my fire of a lifetime.
Until the next one. Feel like we have been hearing these “career fires”
Only to be upstaged by the next season.
Can we stop using that phrase? lol
I feel like I’ve been to more “career fires” at this point than medium jobs.
No more career fire talk ok lol. Back to regular programming…
I agree with the consensus. The fire chief said some dumb stuff to the press that had me shaking my head. You can’t throw your boss under the bus when you work at the pleasure of the mayor. That’s insubordination, no matter if you are right or wrong, whether you have a crap boss or are underfunded. You can play politics and soundbites later.
One thing that was weird about this one is you sure could see it coming. I tipped off a buddy the night before, it was pretty much advertised, like porno for pryros, man. On the day of the fire, aircraft were grounded, not only due to wind, but Air Force One was at LAX with its no-fly zone. From what I’ve seen in the backcountry, you got a real small window to knock these things down. Mad props to everyone who hit it as quick as they could, as best as they could. The Runyon Canyon stop was a tight operation.
I’m not a firefighter or privy to the logistics but I wonder if the effort could have benefited from better pre-positioning. Please indulge me one stupid question, directed to any of the boots-on-the-ground here. As the hydrants were failing, would a fleet of say 100 water-tenders made any difference? Perhaps that may be a worthwhile mobile investment, maybe I’m wrong. Live long and prosper.
100 water tenders is not a reasonable right of bang solution. Having communities own their own risk is. I think thats where we need to get is defining “reasonable” response capabilities and what the tax payer is burdened with. This stuff is not free.
Crowley lost her reinstatement appeal, she needed 10 votes, 2 for and 13 against.
My understanding is the appeal was pro-forma and not expected to be successful. Crowley cannot continue down the path of wrongful termination lawsuit until she exhausts the “normal” process of appeal and review.
My understanding she is still employed in the department at a lower level postion and if that’s correct she was technically demoted not terminated .
After her firing, Crowley exercised her civil service right to remain with the LAFD at a lower rank in a different position. Eyewitness news has learned that she will be the assistant chief assigned to the Operations Valley Bureau.