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>these fires are blumpft's fault
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@dictatordave it's climate change (the fires have happened since prehistory)
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@sun @dictatordave Actually the fire records are quite incredible to look at. They are a rarity in soil samples till human arrival. In effect it’s truly anthropogenic.
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@sun @dictatordave Of course this is going back a long long way. However humans and Holocene could be actually seen as pyrocene more than anything. It was Prometheus and fire that marked dawn of humanity. Not the wheel or any technological advancement. It was the harnessing of fire, that goes out of control from time to time.
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@sun @dictatordave In fact just to go a step further. Fire is what made us, without that fire we would be nothing. Fire let us adapt and build. Fire let us create. Fire let us fire people. It’s all full circle. All things through fire, though at the same time fire is associated with hell. That is also an odd problem with it. It gives us greatness and brings us to hell. It’s giving and destroying.
As a species we should really discuss fire more. How to mitigate, harness and use fire for the species. What it means and why we do what we do. What we can build and stop letting it rule our lives when it’s out of control. We are better than that these days. We used fire to make fireproof materials. Asbestos was a bit of a problem but the reality is we can clearly make things that are not asbestos.
Adaptation is our biggest asset. We need to use that and adapt to reality and build for it. Just imo.
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@SlicerDicer @sun yea when it was just us fighting the natural world things were simple, now we have to fight the ghouls and parasites as well who create these disaster situations without consequence
whats interesting is that for as much over reach and bullshit legislation they bother with in cali, there aren't building codes that address fire breaks or cutting back of combustibles or planting of species that are fire resistant, or building practices that create more fire resistant housing, nothing
but hey they got rainbow cross walks and shit on the street, muh democracy, we're all saved
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@SlicerDicer @dictatordave let me rephrase, human habitation made the natural fires in the area catastrophic. plants there are adapted to burnoffs so we can assume they happened.
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@dictatordave @sun To put it another way. Fire is non discriminatory.
It doesn’t care your gender, rich, poor, politics, religion.
It only cares about 3 things. Fuel, Oxygen and Spark. The fire triangle is set? Everything burns equally and we all turn to ash.
Wood burns the same nationwide, tall grasses burn at same speed nationwide. Wind speeds can occur nationwide. It’s all a matter of the inherent randomness. Does this or that get selected to be the example. From Colorado to Texas to California to Canada. Nothing says anyone is safe. This is our life and our decisions we’ve made over long term.
Corrective action could be the most expensive thing we’ve ever done as a species. So that is the barrier. Mitigation with firebreaks and building codes does nothing to protect the former grandfathered in structures. That’s a fact. We never take proactive actions and we won’t. So the risk will be there long term.
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@dictatordave @sun Building codes are easy to modify. It should be nationwide. Fire breaks and combustible planting is largely irrelevant. The maintenance of the private lands should result in forfeiture if they don’t maintain. The idea people can own these properties and let fuel grow in native areas is the problem. We load the keg and let it go.
Make no mistake, this is not a liberal vs conservative issue or right vs left. The same conditions exist in ultra right Idaho as ultra left California. That’s the thing about collective action. It’s the collective whole regardless of party. Putting aside party differences the entire species behaves identical with this based on cost benefit ratio.
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@SlicerDicer @dictatordave I always appreciate your takes on this stuff.
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@SlicerDicer @sun mfw the state will find a way to tax people on the water they store to save their own properties from fires
you know it'd be the next thing
but you're right, the tanks and systems exist, i guess its just personal will, and honestly i'm fine with leaving it at that, but i dont want to hear word one that we need to now spend a gorillion dollars on cali cuz they didn't plan ahead
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@dictatordave @SlicerDicer @sun
> but i dont want to hear word one that we need to now spend a gorillion dollars on cali cuz they didn't plan ahead
that doesn't make any sense because Cali collects an insane amount of taxes and pumps it into the federal gov to offset all the other states. Cali can fund this themselves if we stop leeching off them to cover the shortfalls of the rest of the country.
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@dictatordave @sun It’s really trivial to add in storage tanks that are equal to septic systems and have staged water on site. The known knowns of what it takes to put out a standard fire or mitigate it till FD gets there means it could run on batteries, pumps and auxiliary tanks till then. That’s not a tall ask. It adds maybe $10,000 in cost when buildings are constructed to do so when the ground is open and all that. After the fact is a bit more but regardless it’s not a complex problem. It’s just willpower. Storing 3000 to 6000 gallons on site to guarantee water for suppression is not an impossible situation.
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@dictatordave @sun 100%
The cost to build what lasts is very expensive. However once it’s built that is real value. Perception based on looks does no justice. Pricing all things equally regardless of how constructed or what the risks are is insane.
I always complained about how smoke alarms vs fire suppression systems are a thing. We require it in commercial buildings but not our homes. When the damage from doing so scales immensely. Just on that metric the value is zero if anything goes wrong. It’s a 2000-3000 gallon problem vs a hundred of thousands to millions of gallons of water problem. The flashover time is on average 3-5 mins. It’s impossible to get emergency services deployed and activated on site in that time frame.
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@SlicerDicer @sun i've actually seen building codes updated over the past couple decades saying that over a certain % of renovation requires fire suppression, but then of course you get people cutting corners to not do it
its an expense but is it really a wild expense in the long run to have a dry cpvc system, i dont think so, but this is the world we live in, and they can easily be installed on existing domestic systems with the proper backflow preventers, but i guess if the infrastructure takes a shit on delivering the water you're still fukt, or if the system is overwhelmed by a massive fire
maybe these events will get people to look at alternative building that works with the land and avoids some destruction, maybe they'll get more into permaculture, but probably not
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@SlicerDicer @sun its funny that we build with 'standards' but at the same time ignore entropy when its convenient, none of this is built to last and it wont, and people just need to get over that fact
consider the vast majority of people who live in homes built over the past half century, if not longer, that will be clapped out completely if they aren't already, in the next decade or so
we're on the verge of a larger single family housing crisis and the people required to turn over neighborhoods en mass just isn't there
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@SlicerDicer @sun i'm well aware
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@dictatordave @sun That challenge is what paralyzes all governments, from left wing to right wing to centrist. It is the cost, the damage to what’s been said was what. The real cost means that what people thought they had in assets and valuation that was their plan for life is suddenly upside down. How do you do that without destroying people’s lives? I have no idea. I don’t think it can. That’s the problem with bad planning and bad decisions they come with consequences. That’s all I’m simply pointing out. We painted ourself into a corner with what things are. To get out of that corner requires that people reevaluate what they know to be what. That things are not what they seem and we are largely unprepared. Those who own homes would be far more at disadvantage to those who don’t own homes under this scenario. That the ones that own homes would bleed hard to fix or bleed to get out. Those who do not? Would be able to purchase at rock bottom prices to afford the upgrades and repairs. These things would be beneficial long term. However the cost is that how do you tell that large of a block of the population their lives are ruined and they owe debt on something that was fake. Nationwide.
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@dictatordave @sun Well I ran a general contacting business for years and the costs are quite extensive for rebuild just back to way it was. Working in construction is great, glad to see you understand the challenges. You must then know how complicated it would be to do to millions of people’s homes.
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@dictatordave @sun Do you know the cost of reengineering structures? What it would take? Are we willing to accept massive losses in equity for houses that are not modified to make them affordable for people to purchase. That allows them to meet the code? Who is to bear the brunt of this cost. I know how difficult it is to tear down walls and redo interiors, tear off siding and redo that. The replacement and upgrading of walls, studs, insulation, thermal barriers. modifications to roofs and all?
Is everyone here ok with reordering the asset values to agreeable to the cost difference of making this right?
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@SlicerDicer @sun fren, i'm not just talking out of my ass i work in construction for a living and have for decades, please dont try to lecture to me like you're the fucking font of all knowledge, this isn't reddit
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@SlicerDicer @sun look, if society can be reengineered to accept a bunch of criminality and bullshit, a bunch of old structures can be retrofitted for current conditions
especially when the state wants to act like they're the end all be all, its on them
i agree the natural world is indiscriminate but we dont live in the naked natural world, we live in a world where govs want to be mommy and daddy so they are on the hook for the disasters from their poor planning, these fires are at the least exacerbated by the policies of the area, it simply cannot be ignored
and i'd blame any other place just the same for their lack of preparation
shit i partially blame the residents for having no plan, who tf owns a home and doesn't have a thought about its preservation
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@SlicerDicer @dictatordave @sun wait are we supposed to be butthurt that Chicago didn't rebuild with wood?
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@dictatordave @sun Not really, just what you experience sets your toleration. Sufficiently bad situation sets what people want. In the case of concrete the fires were untenable. That’s why they did it, no one forced them to
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@SlicerDicer @sun cool story
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@SlicerDicer @sun that statement smacks of capitulation and slave mentality
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@dictatordave @sun I assume you’ve never been in survival conditions that are severe then. I’ve had multiple things from homeless in the extreme cold to hurricanes. What things are is what they are. You don’t compromise safety for looks. It is what it is, if you don’t want that don’t live there end of story.
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@SlicerDicer @sun what a hellscape
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@dictatordave @sun Survival is more important than aesthetic.
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@SlicerDicer @sun mfw the end conclusion will be to never offer private citizens mortgages
>see no one's house can burn down if you all have to live in concrete commie blocks
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@dictatordave @sun My example of concrete Washington was exactly that. Except it was chosen by the people after multiple incidents.
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@dictatordave @sun It doesn’t matter if you want to hear how it will cost this or that. The reality is to fix the problems will cost what they cost. That’s not something you can just ignore.
That’s exactly what the solution is, that needs to be backed by fire science. It needs to be tested, validated in a lab and then implemented. Build houses to burn them and do it over and over again till we find what will survive exactly. Then do that, update the ones we can with the best available methods that cost the least. That’s what will solve this. Time, money and resources.
Building standards from each decade must be tested and measured. Then apply accordingly, that will set the value of assets based on their performance. You will have assets that are updated worth more than those not updated. Insurance will be dependent upon the value and or risk.
In fact tax and government is the least likely for forcing change.
Banks, loans, insurance. Capitalism will solve this by either force or force. That’s what will come of this getting worse and worse. Forced or you don’t get insured. If you don’t get insured on a loan you get foreclosed. It goes to auction etc etc. follow that rabbit hole and that’s the very definition of capitalism. Profit and loss will determine this not from homeowner but from what makes homeowners possible.
Banks and Insurance instruments. Without this the asset values bear the risk of the individual and what they are willing to pay and or self insure. So that will cause massive reordering. It’s happened before and it will happen again.
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@feld @dictatordave @sun >> wait are we supposed to be butthurt that Chicago didn't rebuild with wood?
It was aesthetically pleasing
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@SlicerDicer @dictatordave @sun they're coming back to their roots though, O'Hare is going to get redesigned like PDX to use locally sourced wood
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@feld @SlicerDicer @dictatordave are you talking about federal income tax because cali state income tax and various other taxes by themselves are high
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@sun @SlicerDicer @dictatordave Cali pays in ~$600M every year and only gets back ~$120M in federal funding
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@feld @SlicerDicer @dictatordave los angeles fire dept budget alone is like 830 million dollars (that includes salaries, expenses are like 50 mil)
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@sun @SlicerDicer @dictatordave Yeah how much of that is also pensions? I haven't seen the breakdown yet but I've seen the full budget numbers quoted
Regardless, it doesn't really matter here. They ran out of water. And AFAIK the LAFD was not responsible for initially responding to the fire as it was the county's jurisdiction, not the city's.
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@feld @sun @dictatordave What would the other states do though?
They would tax more, that’s the only solution. Regardless of consequences.
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@SlicerDicer @dictatordave @sun yes they would have to actually bear the costs and consequences of their decisions.
dictatordave
Fish of Rage
I am Water
feld
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