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A comment on LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed. Parent comment

Re:LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed by rurp on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @06:23PM (#42639652)
It's not a binary choice between expanding aircraft and doing nothing. I have seen some convincing arguments that firefighting aircraft are mostly for show against large fires. Essentially the amount of water/chemicals they can move is trivial compared to land approaches, and the cost is significant. That doesn't mean that nothing should be done, just that the money should be spent on more effective measures.

Lord knows I'm not going to defend the competence of the CA state govt and I'm sure they could be protecting against wildfires better, but I don't know that railing about the number of aircraft involved will help anything.

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Re:LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed by WillPostForFood on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @06:46PM (#42639877)
Essentially the amount of water/chemicals they can move is trivial compared to land approaches

I'm sure that's correct for many geographies, but most of this fire is burning on steep mountainsides and in canyons without road access, or an occasional dirt road and no water connection. With the amount of wind, probably nothing could be done, land or air, once this started.

edit: Here is a glimpse of the terrain: https://x.com/firevalleyphoto/status/1876731317464760629

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Re:LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed by amluto on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @11:04PM (#42641509)
Even the populated areas in the Palisades fire have roads that are remarkably poor. A lot of them are windy, with negligible visibility around corners, and are barely a single lane. I doubt that a fire truck can get through many of them easily even under ideal conditions.
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