These have been going on for a few days and reportedly the Santa Ana winds are going to be heightened again for another day or so.

I didn’t see a post about the fires and I’m not aware of a great article that captures the full story so I’m posting what I could find.

L.A. had a very dry second half of 2024 and now the dry winds are coming down from the desert which creates extremely hazardous conditions.

Winds swept embers far ahead of the fires which caused rapid spread. Some of the fires drove past the Wildland-Urban Interface and into fully residential areas.

There have been reports of arson and even arrests but personally I think trying to displace the blame onto people - in particular the underclass - is a social reaction many people and I’ll wait for solid evidence. At the very least, it seems clear to me that arson would be unnecessary and insufficient to explain the scale of the fires so the big story should be the conditions that enabled fire and ember cast and grounded air support.

Now, with so much material burnt - organic and synthetic - air quality has been periodically terrible throughout the county (largely depending on the winds from what I’ve read). I’ve seen a few comments saying the AQI number isn’t sufficiently capturing the air quality (that it is poorer than the AQI indicates). I don’t think I’ve heard that before but I plan to keep it in mind.

Meanwhile insurers have been pulling out of the region, and the growing lender of last resort - the state iirc - has a cap that is limited compared to some of the places that have been destroyed. There is currently discussion going on about how burdened the plan might be and how it will be handled.

Feel free to discuss anything about the wildfires here.