Unless you live in the LA area this has probably just been background noise, but a particularly dry winter has joined forces with the Santa Ana winds to create, what I’m told, the worst fire event in Southern California in history.
The basics:
The OG, the first fire, is the the Palisades fire.
The Pacific Palisades is a massively affluent area of Los Angeles with homes averaging $3.4 million with some as much as $10 million or more. It is currently 6% contained. This fire also hopped over to Malibu which has destroyed most of its shoreline buildings.
This is where you get a teary eyed James Woods and, because this is the world we live in, people being really shitty about it.
Also, a reporter not recognizing Steve Gutenberg as he tries to clear abandoned cars.
Said cars were eventually moved with a bulldozer. Even the bulldozed don’t seem broken up about it, most saying that the stuff in the car was more important.
Now, while I have my fair share of class rage and listening to people talk about losing their exclusive Ducati collection doesn’t exactly pull on my heart strings, maybe now isn’t the time and also a bunch of non-celebrities/millionaires have lost everything and getting too snarky about this feels a bit too much like dancing on their graves.
Then there’s the Eaton fire in the San Gabriel valley. This affects Alta Dena and Pasadena (where the Rose Bowl and parade happens). Drove into this one on accident because I wasn’t listening to the radio so I only thought it was the Palisades. At that time blown over trees were a bigger deal, at least to me. And that’s what’s really important…moving on.
This has apparently brought the Bunny Museum to a bitter end, a thing I didn’t know existed until it didn’t. As a fan of bunnies…well, all things in perspective. Altadena (apparently no space…not going to back and correct anything) also has a bunch of loose peacocks. If you ask about the peacocks, you’re told the fine for harming a peacock. Just a weird thing you now know too.
Not getting a ton of coverage, the the Hurst fire Not a ton of coverage, so I don’t really know what’s going on there.
Last night, while I was less than a mile away, the Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills. That one was mostly an area not built out.
Then there’s the Kenneth fire, where a glitch in the emergency alert briefly meant I had an evacuation alert and now have been fielding calls from people on and off during the day who seem vaguely disappointed that I’m not in any danger.
Now, opportunism from the world’s shittiest people hasn’t been contained to mocking James Woods’ tears. The lying piece of shit that is our president elect chose to use this tragedy still on going to lie on social media about issues with the fire hydrants. Citing a long term boogeyman, the smelt, the flaming piece of shit we’ve apparently handed the country back to suggested that instead of the massive unprecedented fires that drew water pressure faster that it was designed for as well as houses connected to the water system burning, it was some unrelated bullshit associated with the smelt. You’d have to be an all day sucker to believe such a thing, but here we are.
https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-cal ... b1039e959f
LA mayor Karen Bass is taking criticism for not stopping the fire with her mayor powers. I’m sure there will be a lot of things done wrong when the aftermath is gone over. Seems, well, like America to score political points while the fires still rage.
In douchenozzle news, some knucklefuck flew his drone into one of two ‘super scooper’ aircraft. It’s now grounded. They’re the only craft who can use sea water. Which I thought would salt the earth, but maybe that’s not the most important thing right now or I just don’t really know enough.
[URL=https://ktla.com/news/california/wildfires/20-people-arrested-for-looting-in-los-angeles-area-wildfire-zones/]20 people have been arrested for looting.
[URL=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/01/10/los-angeles-fire-arson-kenneth-man-arrested-palisades/]Can’t find a non-loaded non-paywall take on this story where Kenneth fire people blame a homeless man for starting the fire. I’ve been listening to the news all day, the comments in the article don’t match the ones on the radio where it very much seemed like the police were humoring the rabble. Who knows. Maybe it’s evolved, but the only ones calling it ‘an arrest’ are sensationalist sources.
And that’s more than you wanted to know about the current fires in Southern California. We’ve had half an inch of rain (by now we should have at least six inches), there’s no rain on the horizon. With the winds this will leave the area in high fire risk unless rain falls.
