California Fire, Week 2: More Wind, More Fire, More Heartache,

A firewhirl forms this week in
the giant Palisades fire in
Los Angeles County, CA.

Lately this blog feels like it's turning into all California wildfire, all the time.

But this is such a big deal, such a wide ranging, incredible national disaster that you can't ignore the updates, the changes, the effects it has on all of us.  

Nobody can cover everything in one article or a few, of course. But it's important to stay at least a little informed about what's happening.  

At last check this morning, the death toll from the ongoing California fire calamity keeps climbing, and at last report was up to 16.

As the fires continue to rage, they'll find more bodies in many of the hard hit areas. Now that the ashes are beginning to cool in some hard hit areas, search teams say they will bring in cadaver dogs to do systematic grid searches in destroyed neighborhoods.

The above paragraph is easily among the most grim I've ever had to write in this blog. 

NOW WHAT?

Meanwhile, an incredible number of people are watching and waiting to see what the fires do next. At least 150,000 people are still under mandatory evacuation orders. Naturally, pretty much all of those evacuees want to go back to either see the ruins, or if they're lucky, return home. 

That desire has led to frustration as people are blocked from going back due to the dangers.  Authorities said there are downed power poles, live electrical wires, smoldering fires and unstable debris. 

Police initially worked with people to provide police escorts for those who wanted to go back to retrieve medications and pets. But they're stopping that because the number of people requesting the escorts is overwhelming. 

Which of course doesn't help for people worried about pets potentially starving to death in evacuated homes, or people skipping necessary medications. 

I hope that gets straightened out soon.

A Volkswagen bus appears to be the only thing left in
this California neighborhood in this Associated Press photo.

Winds temporarily diminished Saturday afternoon, though they picked up again early this morning. Another lull is in the forecast later today, and that should help firefighters with containment efforts ahead of the next blast of wind. 

The forecast for strong, arid winds in the fire zone over the next several days continues to look bad, possibly even worse than previous forecasts.

 At least now, there's more resources in place. Armies of firefighters from as far away as Idaho, Washington, New Mexico and the nations of Mexico and Canada are in southern California battling away. 

According to the Associated Press:

"Crews from California and nine other states are part of the ongoing response that includes 1,354 fire engines, 84 aircraft and more than 14,000 personnel."

I noticed in one threatened Brentwood neighborhood on Saturday, there was a fire truck parked in every third driveway.

The firestorms are likely the costliest and U.S. history. One estimate from AccuWeather pegged damages so far at between $135 and $150 billion. 

The strings of disasters - made worse than they otherwise would be by climate change - are likely a drag on the United States economy. 

The U.S. suffered 27 weather disasters in 2024 each costing more than $1 billion, with a total cost of $182.7 billion, the fourth highest on record, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. Assessments of these disaster are still ongoing, so that figure could rise. 

Everybody is of course watching what's going on in California, and there's obviously a market for video of this terrible event. I keep posting videos of the fires, so there you go.

Unfortunately, there's always people who want to monetize the disaster. Some people are flying drones into the fire zone, which is both illegal and dangerous. Unauthorized drone incidents into the fire area are now "well into the double digits," a FBI official said. 

One drone hit one of those big Super Scooper planes from Quebec. They're those big planes that you might have seen skimming the Pacific Ocean off of Santa Monica to fill tanks with water, then flying into the disaster zone to dump the water onto the flames. 

These planes are pretty damn cool. Unfortunately, the drone that hit the plane put that critical piece of firefighting equipment out of commission. I'm just glad the crew on that plane were able to land it safely.  

There's so much more to report and update, and watch this space for some of the more interesting and pertinent ones. 

VIDEOS

The best sources of news about the California fires is local.  Los Angeles television station KTLA has been an especially excellent source. This Saturday evening newscast is a master class in useful information, insights, emotion and comprehensive reporting. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that. 

A sad, post-fire drive down the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. You see pockets of intact buildings, but most of them for  miles are gone. Click on this link to view or of you see the image below, click on that: