Outside Topic SoCal Fires - Printable Version
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RE: SoCal Fires - 2006alum - 01-13-2025
Having now received several more complaints about politics, let's give this thread a 12 hour breather. Please please please stop - you know who you are and this is not the place or the forum for political rants.
My condolences to everyone who knows someone who's lost their house and possessions, and crossing my fingers that that list does not keep growing in the days ahead. Hoping for a miracle here.
RE: SoCal Fires - 2006alum - 01-13-2025
I'm opening this back up so warrenloui can share some information about webinars related to SoCal insurance. Let's please keep this strictly informational and stop with the finger pointing and hand wringing. Thank you, and fingers crossed the next 24-48 hours go well.
RE: SoCal Fires - fullmetal - 01-13-2025
I'm not Warren, but I saw the post in the alumni group and figured it was the same information.
Quote:Dear Stanford in LA Alumni: My family and I were trying to figure out the best way to help out in the wake of the fires. Being a family with three lawyers and one lawyer in the making, we decided to use our law firm connections to coordinate a presentation on insurance recovery. (Ironically, the idea came from the one non-lawyer in the family.)
The insurance law experts at Covington & Burling have kindly agreed to present the webinar and are busily planning for the presentation.
If you would like to participate in the webinar, please RSVP through this form: www.louifamily.com/firewebinar, so we can send you details and the link to join. We are waiting to hear from the lawyers the specific date and time, but we are expecting it will be on Friday.
In the meantime, our friends at Covington & Burling recommend reviewing this guide by United Policyholders: uphelp.org.
RE: SoCal Fires - warrenloui - 01-14-2025
(01-13-2025, 09:03 PM)fullmetal Wrote: I'm not Warren, but I saw the post in the alumni group and figured it was the same information.
Quote:Dear Stanford in LA Alumni: My family and I were trying to figure out the best way to help out in the wake of the fires. Being a family with three lawyers and one lawyer in the making, we decided to use our law firm connections to coordinate a presentation on insurance recovery. (Ironically, the idea came from the one non-lawyer in the family.)
The insurance law experts at Covington & Burling have kindly agreed to present the webinar and are busily planning for the presentation.
If you would like to participate in the webinar, please RSVP through this form: www.louifamily.com/firewebinar, so we can send you details and the link to join. We are waiting to hear from the lawyers the specific date and time, but we are expecting it will be on Friday.
In the meantime, our friends at Covington & Burling recommend reviewing this guide by United Policyholders: uphelp.org.
Thanks for posting this. We recruited for assistance one of our dear friends, Marialuisa Gallozzi, an insurance law partner at Covington & Burling, one of the nation’s leading law firms. In her practice representing policy holders, Marialuisa has helped secure over half a billion dollars for high-value first-party losses and third-party liabilities. At our request, she is coordinating an online presentation by California insurance law experts, including a Q&A. We are working on a time for friday.
thanks.
f
RE: SoCal Fires - TrumpCard - 01-14-2025
Covington is an excellent firm and undoubtedly will have a useful webinar. I’m not a coverage specialist, but one point to note is that a lot of people are underinsured. In many cases, neither the insurer nor the broker is really to blame for that. Both the insurer and the broker tend to have an incentive to sell more insurance than less. But the economics of insuring high risk areas can pervert incentives. And there are instances where the insurer or broker is just negligent in appraising the property. When I got my mortgage and insurance policy, the appraiser spent no more than 15 minutes looking at my house, and if that’s the norm, mistakes can easily happen.
RE: SoCal Fires - Maple Leaf - 01-14-2025
(01-14-2025, 08:55 AM)TrumpCard Wrote: Covington is an excellent firm and undoubtedly will have a useful webinar. I’m not a coverage specialist, but one point to note is that a lot of people are underinsured. In many cases, neither the insurer nor the broker is really to blame for that. Both the insurer and the broker tend to have an incentive to sell more insurance than less. But the economics of insuring high risk areas can pervert incentives. And there are instances where the insurer or broker is just negligent in appraising the property. When I got my mortgage and insurance policy, the appraiser spent no more than 15 minutes looking at my house, and if that’s the norm, mistakes can easily happen.i
I will add if your house or any other structure has unique features most appraisers will mis them, especially if is not something they can physically see. For example if there is a in-floor radiant heating system, foundation sized for 2nd story addition, selected finishes beyond the norm like terrazzo flooring, custom made cabinets with specific features especially if designed for someone with physical disabilities. Be sure to have such items listed in the policy. If offered I would recommend taking rider which includes reconstruction per the CURRENT building code and not replacement in kind of the original structure.
RE: SoCal Fires - Mick - 01-14-2025
(01-14-2025, 09:47 AM)Maple Leaf Wrote:(01-14-2025, 08:55 AM)TrumpCard Wrote: Covington is an excellent firm and undoubtedly will have a useful webinar. I’m not a coverage specialist, but one point to note is that a lot of people are underinsured. In many cases, neither the insurer nor the broker is really to blame for that. Both the insurer and the broker tend to have an incentive to sell more insurance than less. But the economics of insuring high risk areas can pervert incentives. And there are instances where the insurer or broker is just negligent in appraising the property. When I got my mortgage and insurance policy, the appraiser spent no more than 15 minutes looking at my house, and if that’s the norm, mistakes can easily happen.i
I will add if your house or any other structure has unique features most appraisers will mis them, especially if is not something they can physically see. For example if there is a in-floor radiant heating system, foundation sized for 2nd story addition, selected finishes beyond the norm like terrazzo flooring, custom made cabinets with specific features especially if designed for someone with physical disabilities. Be sure to have such items listed in the policy. If offered I would recommend taking rider which includes reconstruction per the CURRENT building code and not replacement in kind of the original structure.
Not the world's worst idea to video your entire house when you purchase the policy and upgrade the video (and policy) upon major changes.
Decent advice when filing a fire insurance claim: Top 10 Tips for Filing Fire Insurance Claims - FindLaw
RE: SoCal Fires - martyup - 01-14-2025
Great advice Maple Leaf and Mick. Whether you live in So Cal or not, every homeowner should heed this advice.
RE: SoCal Fires - dabigv13 - 01-14-2025
Lots of mutual assistance on this fire. I saw trucks from Moab and Weber in Utah driving around Santa Monica earlier today.
The one fortunate thing about the fire is it's occurring in what should already be the end of fire season on the west coast, except that SoCal has been abnormally dry. So at least other US departments can safely come help us out.
RE: SoCal Fires - cardcrimson - 01-14-2025
Interesting video on LA and the fires. Apolitical. Just in case, I ran it past a mod who thought it "Awesome".
Keith Morrison is a Canadian journalist, working for Dateline on NBC:
https://x.com/Zigmanfreud/status/1878670412139434400
RE: SoCal Fires - jacket3ree - 01-14-2025
Thanks for posting that Cardcrimson. Morrison is one of my wife's favorites.
10,000 homes represents approximately 0.3 percent of the housing stock in Los Angeles County. If you live in one of those 10,000 homes, this is tragic beyond belief. I wish all Angelenos Godspeed.
RE: SoCal Fires - Sam Leopold - 01-14-2025
(01-14-2025, 06:30 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: Interesting video on LA and the fires. Apolitical. Just in case, I ran it past a mod who thought it "Awesome".
Keith Morrison is a Canadian journalist, working for Dateline on NBC:
https://x.com/Zigmanfreud/status/1878670412139434400
The homes lost in the fire of 1993 almost included my own. The Irvine Company, otherwise rightly maligned by the populace of Orange County for wide-ranging rent seeking practices, was developing a neighborhood on the other side of Newport Coast Drive and that ended up saving our &%$, allowing Newport Beach FD to hold Newport Coast Drive as a fire line. Even that wouldn't have been enough on its own, though, as we also needed the wind to change, and it did. My brother thought we were done for. His teacher at the time lived in Laguna and lost her home in that fire. For some reason, I was never worried. To this day, I still don't know why.....
RE: SoCal Fires - M T - 01-14-2025
(01-14-2025, 06:30 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: Interesting video on LA and the fires.That video is the last segment of this NBC special “Fire & Ash: Devastation in Los Angeles “
Keith Morrison is a Canadian journalist, working for Dateline on NBC
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/fire-ash-devastation-in-l-a-full-broadcast-nbc-dateline-229062725643
(I always think it best to reference the original publication, not some reposting)
RE: SoCal Fires - BostonCard - 01-16-2025
Some good news, the red flag warning for the LA area was lifted, and many of the evacuation orders are starting to be lifted (though not in areas that have been affected by fires). The Palisades fire is now 22% contained, and I expect with winds dying down that further progress will be made quickly. The Eaton fire is now 55% contained, and the Hurst fire is 100% contained.
By the way, I wanted to put in a plug for the Watch Duty app. It basically is a consolidated view of all things fire-related for basically the entire western US. https://www.watchduty.org
It’s run by a non-profit, is free for individual use, though there is a membership option that gives you special features and a pro membership.
BC
RE: SoCal Fires - Mick - 01-17-2025
(01-10-2025, 11:11 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(01-10-2025, 10:36 PM)Mick Wrote: The Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades was offline because of repairs to its cover...a 117-million gallon reservoir has been empty and offline since February 2024. Would that have alleviated the loss of water to the hydrants?
Quote:Those responsible for leaving the reservoir unfilled going into fire season WITH WARNINGS
I would encourage both of you to read Jacketree's lengthy discussion. Unless I completely misread what he wrote, having that reservoir completely filled would not have made any difference in the water pressure of the hydrants because the water pressure is dictated by the availability of water in the local pressure zones, and those systems are designed to deliver enough water for peak use plus a single structure fire, and whatever tanks are in that pressure zone.
No municipal water system is designed to provide enough water from hydrants to fight multiple house fires and wild fire at the same time, full stop. The reservoir being unfilled might have been a sign of poor governance, but if I read jacketree's post correctly, it is not responsible for the inability to fight the fire.
BC
I was confused because when the reservoir was built, the LA Times reported that "the facility will store 115 million gallons of water for domestic and fire fighting purposes..." and "reservoir will boost domestic and emergency supply for Pacific Palisades."
Eric Spiegelman on X: "The water pressure also failed during the 1961 Bel Air and Topanga Fires. In the years after, LAFD and DWP planned a number of improvements, for those specific areas, to make sure that never happened again. One of those improvements was the construction of the Santa Ynez https://t.co/LQCrSZaw5H" / X
RE: SoCal Fires - GK3 - 01-17-2025
(01-17-2025, 12:06 PM)Mick Wrote:(01-10-2025, 11:11 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(01-10-2025, 10:36 PM)Mick Wrote: The Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades was offline because of repairs to its cover...a 117-million gallon reservoir has been empty and offline since February 2024. Would that have alleviated the loss of water to the hydrants?
Quote:Those responsible for leaving the reservoir unfilled going into fire season WITH WARNINGS
I would encourage both of you to read Jacketree's lengthy discussion. Unless I completely misread what he wrote, having that reservoir completely filled would not have made any difference in the water pressure of the hydrants because the water pressure is dictated by the availability of water in the local pressure zones, and those systems are designed to deliver enough water for peak use plus a single structure fire, and whatever tanks are in that pressure zone.
No municipal water system is designed to provide enough water from hydrants to fight multiple house fires and wild fire at the same time, full stop. The reservoir being unfilled might have been a sign of poor governance, but if I read jacketree's post correctly, it is not responsible for the inability to fight the fire.
BC
I was confused because when the reservoir was built, the LA Times reported that "the facility will store 115 million gallons of water for domestic and fire fighting purposes..." and "reservoir will boost domestic and emergency supply for Pacific Palisades."
Eric Spiegelman on X: "The water pressure also failed during the 1961 Bel Air and Topanga Fires. In the years after, LAFD and DWP planned a number of improvements, for those specific areas, to make sure that never happened again. One of those improvements was the construction of the Santa Ynez https://t.co/LQCrSZaw5H" / X
I would be interested in JacketTree discussing this problem in more detail. I found this article which is enough to but me to sleep, but I think you can clearly see that if too many hydrants on the same line are opened you are going to run out of water. You can only pump so much water into a line every minute. When enough hydrants come on line it seems that the demand can exceed the ability of the system to provide it so you run out of water. I don't see how you fix this problem without completely rebuilding the system. When the fire exceeds the ability of the a system to provide enough water and a high enough pressure you end up with what happened. As I think JT pointedd out the systems are not designed to fight the fires that occurred as they were to big and too hot.
RE: SoCal Fires - 82lsju - 01-17-2025
(01-17-2025, 04:03 PM)GK3 Wrote:(01-17-2025, 12:06 PM)Mick Wrote:(01-10-2025, 11:11 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(01-10-2025, 10:36 PM)Mick Wrote: The Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades was offline because of repairs to its cover...a 117-million gallon reservoir has been empty and offline since February 2024. Would that have alleviated the loss of water to the hydrants?
Quote:Those responsible for leaving the reservoir unfilled going into fire season WITH WARNINGS
I would encourage both of you to read Jacketree's lengthy discussion. Unless I completely misread what he wrote, having that reservoir completely filled would not have made any difference in the water pressure of the hydrants because the water pressure is dictated by the availability of water in the local pressure zones, and those systems are designed to deliver enough water for peak use plus a single structure fire, and whatever tanks are in that pressure zone.
No municipal water system is designed to provide enough water from hydrants to fight multiple house fires and wild fire at the same time, full stop. The reservoir being unfilled might have been a sign of poor governance, but if I read jacketree's post correctly, it is not responsible for the inability to fight the fire.
BC
I was confused because when the reservoir was built, the LA Times reported that "the facility will store 115 million gallons of water for domestic and fire fighting purposes..." and "reservoir will boost domestic and emergency supply for Pacific Palisades."
Eric Spiegelman on X: "The water pressure also failed during the 1961 Bel Air and Topanga Fires. In the years after, LAFD and DWP planned a number of improvements, for those specific areas, to make sure that never happened again. One of those improvements was the construction of the Santa Ynez https://t.co/LQCrSZaw5H" / X
I would be interested in JacketTree discussing this problem in more detail. I found this article which is enough to but me to sleep, but I think you can clearly see that if too many hydrants on the same line are opened you are going to run out of water. You can only pump so much water into a line every minute. When enough hydrants come on line it seems that the demand can exceed the ability of the system to provide it so you run out of water. I don't see how you fix this problem without completely rebuilding the system. When the fire exceeds the ability of the a system to provide enough water and a high enough pressure you end up with what happened. As I think JT pointedd out the systems are not designed to fight the fires that occurred as they were to big and too hot.
this article talks about some specifics of the water supply and the trunk line
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/reservoir-pacific-palisades-was-commission-fire-started-rcna187217
Quote:Adams explained that typical water service to the Pacific Palisades relies on a “trunk line” 30 inches in diameter that flows from the Upper Stone Canyon Reservoir, along Sunset Boulevard, and down toward the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which is lower in elevation.
When the Palisades Fire broke out, firefighters and homeowners began to use incredible amounts of water. Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, previously said there was about four times as much demand on the Palisades system as is typical.
If the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been in service, water managers could have “split the system in two pieces” and used water from Santa Ynez to provide water to some parts of the Pacific Palisades, Adams said. “Santa Ynez could have acted like a small water tank and provided some relief.”
...
Such a move would have reduced demand and helped to increase water pressure elsewhere.
Still, he said, water likely couldn’t flow fast enough to meet firefighters’ incredible demands.
“The limiting factor was the pipe,” Adams said, adding that water infrastructure is designed to allow firefighters to extinguish a few houses or a commercial building, not a wildfire.
“Systems are designed for a typical city-based fire, not an entire city catching on fire,” he said. ”There’s no domestic water system that’s built to this scale.”
RE: SoCal Fires - jacket3ree - 01-17-2025
First, I know nothing about how the Santa Ynez Reservoir works operationally, I've never seen a schematic, I have never worked in Palisades, and I'm generalizing how municipal fire protection systems work.
Somewhere above in the thread I guessed that to deliver water to 1,000 homes on fire at 1,500 gpm each for two hours, assuming that could even be delivered by the system (doubtful), would draw 90 million gallons out of storage, noting that the demand on the ground with a bunch of open hydrants would probably be even higher. Basically a fully operational Santa Ynez Reservoir would have held enough water to fight that many fires for something like two hours before running dry. Again, whether that could be delivered by the system to all the hydrants and whether the available fire fighting force could have done that remain pure speculation. It's not like the fire only lasted two hours. A system like that generally would not be designed or built or capable of replenishing the gravity storage in Santa Ynez Reservoir anywhere nearly as quickly as the continued demand after the reservoir was drained in those two hours or so. So everything probably still would have burned just like it did, more or less, particularly with near hurricane force winds and the fire creating its own weather.
Someone will probably do a "but for" (that reservoir being out of service) extended period simulation of the water system and that will be discussed in detail by engineers, elected officials, department heads, and lawyers alike.
RE: SoCal Fires - M T - 01-18-2025
Regarding soffits and vents as allowing ignition of a house, I reflected upon how my attic gable vent fan would present a danger as it would cause the hot gases and embers to be sucked into the other vents. So, if I am faced with a fire threat, I need to shut that down or turn off the power to my house.
I previously put in a link to FEMA's Home Builder’s Guide to Construction in Wildfire Zones. It isn't just the vents that are problematic; it is the embers and hot gases that will rise up along the wall of the structure and then collect at the overhanging roof like a dam. A non-combustible soffit that is horizontal will let more of that heat escape rather than my roof which has an acute angle with the overhanging roof and exposed wood rafters of the roof.
In the case of a distant fire with a strong wind distributing embers, I would think the vents (ridge vents, soffit or attic vents, gable vents, through-roof vents) are the primary concern. When I replaced my wood shingle roof with a composition roof, a number of through-roof vents were installed to allow the attic to have sufficient air circulation. But those apparently are the worst risk for embers.
I'm sure you're seen the guy on his roof, spraying the roof with a hose. If he had a fire-resistant roof, I wonder if it would have been better to be walking around the house, watching for embers getting into his vents. Maybe having a cool roof (from the water & evaporation) reduced the convective airflow into his vents?
I also thought about the 1-hour rating recommended for soffits. In a fire like this, the threat lasted much longer than an hour. But, if the nearby fuel (shrubs; the neighbor's house) mostly burns out in a half hour, maybe an hour is long enough.
I would not be surprised if California starts pushing for fire-protection retrofits (like earthquake retrofits) and advisory inspections (as we have for energy use).
RE: SoCal Fires - M T - 01-19-2025
The BBC put up a nice article on the air fight against the fires. Maps with flight paths & time charts of altitudes, some video.