Knowing that the materials and contents of the twin towers might have been more limited in variety, I can understand where the products of combustion from the combination of tire shops, electronic shops, homes and businesses might be more hazardous or difficult to evaluate.

K/R

At the WTC there was also the added hazardous substances like jet fuel.

...was the amount of asbestos used to insulate the interiors.

When silverstien took over the lease on the twin towers, he immediately applied to NYC for demolition permits (twice) because the cost of removing the asbestos (as required by law) was more than the revenue he could get by renting the spaces, but he never did remove the asbestos.

That was before he took out the terrorism insurance coverage on the buildings.

With all New Underground Utilities, People need to have the County have Goats and Sheep to Graze the Hills and Valleys of the open space 12 months a year. They have Prisoners who need a second Chance to start a new life. With sheep, they could lean on the job of shearing wool and spinning it into thread for handcrafted clothes, blankets, and Rugs—herders of animals—to keep track of them.

Even before I read your suggestion.

There are Indigenous communities that have already revived the once routine task of seasonal controlled burns as acts of land stewardship in some areas. They had been forbidden and had to be approved by local government before being recommenced.

Where I live, there's a nature reserve that's routinely managed through controlled burning by the forest service. They advertise the burning in advance to alert and remind residents of the routine.

It's exceptionally effective and beneficial. But I don't believe we have katabatic winds here, which are quite complicating in California.

They're more appropriate in hurricane territory.

How much will have to be covered by building size and anticipated EQ risk.
If you think housing is expensive now wait until you see the bill for re-enforced concrete.
Plus one and 2 story wood framed buildings preform reasonably well in earthquakes assuming correct construction.
And remember that oncrete has a huge carbon footprint.

Another issue is the specific plants in and around the structures. Eucalyptus is a really bad fire risk and very popular as it is thick providing privacy and shade. Relatives of our had their house survive as of a few days ago at the south west side of the Eaton fire in Altadena, while everyone else burned around them.

Tile or metal roofs don't burn. That helps. Keeping potential flamables away from your buildng also helps. Making sure you don't have exposed ends of rood trusses and all the eaves are enclosed helps.
Another issue is that many modern windows with great ratings for heat transfer are plastic. That melts then burns. Once the window opens you let in the fire. Wood frames preform better.
Don't ever use shake for your roof. That is just kindling.

Good luck this climate disaster will be bad for everyone from now on. We had these types of fires in NJ and NY this fall, for the first time.

My understanding is that trying to get goats into many places, fence them in for their temp grazing duties, guard them from predators, is very difficult bc of the inaccessible terrain.

would be the poster before I opened the post from the "New in Issue Forums" page.

Thank you for bringing the esoteric and obscure to DU. Please consider this as a compliment, in case it wasn't clear.

I might not always say it, but I always enjoy your posts. Thanks again.

Same issue when it comes to flood waters. Particularly wading through flood waters. Think of every dangerous, toxic chemical in your house, garage, basement, under you kitchen and bathroom counters, in your car, in your appliances. Now add the nastiness and pathogens from your septic tank or sewer line. Mix up all that awfulness and dump it in the water. That's what you're exposed to when wading through urban / suburban flood water.

But for LA, that same awfulness is in the very air they're breathing. Scary stuff.

I had not thought about this in this way.

Thank you.

Almost 3 years to the day a very similar fire tore through 2 towns near Boulder Colorado. Extreme winds aproching 100mph made the fire basically unfightable. In around 4 hours over 1000 homes were burned to the ground. Looking at the pics of the aftermath was shocking with mostly just basements with ash and some metal debris in them. Lucky there was only 2 deaths. 3 years later about 70% of the homes have been rebuilt.

The parallels to the comments coming out of the LA fires are amazing. Fire hydrants with no water is one of them. The system just could not keep up with all the water getting pumped out of it by all the regional fire trucks that rushed into try to help. The pipes in the residential areas are not large enough to supply the shear volume being asked of it. One of the city water systems managers even disabled the water treatment system to all their system to keep suppling as much volume of raw water as they could. It took months to resanitize the supply system. An important paper/Manuel was written an published as before there was little information available for doing this.

if you look at the videos of a house fire being fought while under these kinds of high winds one fire truck does not stand a chance of even containing the fire to just that house.

With this being in the location that it was in Colorado there is a large number of researchers in the area that had the equipment and the interest to swing into action and start measuring data. There is lots of papers that have been written about many aspects of the fire. Just search with Marshall fire Colorado in your search terms. You will find an amazing amount of information that has been compiled about this event.

here is an example of a search for some air contamination research. https://www.colorado.edu/today/2024/12/23/months-after-marshall-fire-returning-residents-reported-symptoms-poor-indoor-air-quality

...memory hole.

I'm in Boulder, and I just talked to a friend who lost her home (her mother did as well) in the Marshall fires just over 3 years ago. She has JUST gotten her new home completed as of this last summer and as of the fall, has her new home furnished. She has planted the rosebush I gave her there in her yard. It has been a lot for her and her family with insurance issues, etc.
3 years.
Here, many are experiencing triggering PTSD right now.

...they are in our direct experience.

When you install a fire system in a building the riser, the entrance pipe, is the biggest pipe. From there all others get smaller as they go away from the source. The system can be overwelmed by fire. Sprinkler heads go off when they are triggered individually. This isn't like in the movies where some one can get one to go off and the rest do also. For the most part each head is rated at 15 gallons per minute. If they all go off pressure drops and the building burns down.
Now you build a 100 house subdivision and you hook up to the city fire system for the fire hydrants. The city has pipes sized for the expected use. I don't know how many house fires at one time they size for. Five in that 100? You have enough water. ten? Maybe. All of them? No chance.

Some information on hydrants from NFPA

https://www.nfpa.org/news-blogs-and-articles/blogs/2024/01/12/fire-hydrant-flow

It gets complicated in a hurry. Things can be done to really limit damage and to increase water flow availability. Do we have the money? o we have the will to spend it? Should LA have studied the Colorado fire and the Santa Rosa fire to see if tehy needed to do more. They know there is a hazard because they have fires every year when the Santa Anna winds blow. I don't know if they are researching the situation or not and modifying best practices.

After 9/11, they said you didn't need to wear a mask.

At least five news reports about it in the past 24 hours.


I know, because I have a lot of family in California, that folks in that state are well aware of the health hazards of smoke. After all the fires they've endured in the past four - five years, I know my family member keep N95 masks around all the time because you never know when a wildfire is going to impact your area.

will be better.

They found a piece of sheet music, burned around the edges, on their car. Great photo in its own way.

My heart is with all of you there.

and even longer to heal. My hope is that we’ll at least gain knowledge from this disaster, and maybe build back better.

There is no "away" to which things can be "thrown." The entire planet is becoming a toxic waste dump.

But the immediate implications of having toxic condensate falling on residential areas, or dissolved in the ocean are quite different.

What you say is true.

about the air pollution, which as you pointed out is not being discussed.

Decades ago my mom worked for a govt contractor. One night the building caught fire. The next day, after FD declared the fire out, the PTB had its people inside the building gathering and salvaging. No protection, not even masks! My mom ended up in the hospital because of it. And, having never had asthma prior, I know this is what set her off with it for the rest of her life. In fact, I daresay it had something to do with her recent death of pulmonary edema.

We're going to have to get better and smarter about building, yes. But we always have to watch out that power will do to us what they want, our rights and our lives be damned.

1000 homes were destroyed in hours. It was one of the first major "urban" wildfires that Coloradoans surely remember, as it emphasized that nowhere was really safe—no matter how far from traditional forested or backcountry terrain and no matter the supposed geographic barriers (mountainous foothills, reservoirs, etc.) While what is happening in LA and the surrounding areas dwarfs this CO fire, it, too, was driven by hurricane-strength winds sparked and carried from a single source in drought conditions.

But yes, the toxins in burning houses and the materials that construct them are loaded with harmful components--about which we know little long term.

A couple of years ago the Canadian forest fire smoke reached the north and midwest US states.
It was quite smokey and it was hard to breathe at times.

And we were quite a distance from the fires.

Also, I had friends who got out of Paradise minutes before the last minute. When they went back to their house my friend described his shock at how much plastic was melted into the ground. All the hidden plastics in our lives, releasing toxic particulates, and also leaching into the soil, speaking of apocalyptic. And now the water is not considered safe so everyone actually must drink bottled water right now. More plastic. The Graduate comes to mind.