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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MAKAVELI" data-source="post: 6045940" data-attributes="member: 43825"><h3>Could better brush clearance have helped slow the spread of the Palisades fire?</h3><img src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fc2afd6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3984x2655+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc0%2F3d%2Ff1ce17054820bbb7ac26ba8e0d97%2F1489712-me-palisades-fire09-bvb.jpg" alt="A home is consumed by flames." class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />A home is consumed by flames from the Palisades fire, which ignited Jan. 7 amid hurricane-force winds, with <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/live/pacific-palisades-fire-updates-los-angeles#p=one-of-the-most-destructive-firestorms-in-l-a-history-kills-5-burns-2-000-buildings" target="_blank">gusts of up to 100 mph</a> recorded in some areas. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)By <a href="https://www.latimes.com/people/alex-wigglesworth" target="_blank">Alex Wigglesworth</a>Staff Writer Jan. 13, 2025 3 AM PT<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Share</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">115</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Destruction from the Palisades fire could have been tempered had officials cleared brush in wildland areas, which could have slowed its spread, some critics say</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fire officials and others dispute those claims, saying bone-dry conditions and fierce winds made the fire unstoppable.</li> </ul>The allegations flew as fast as the flames. The Palisades fire raging through the coastal mountains of Los Angeles, rich and powerful critics said, wouldn’t have been quite so devastating had authorities done a better job of clearing hillside brush.“We knew the winds were coming. We knew that there was brush that needed to be cleared 20 years ago,” Rick Caruso, the developer and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, told The Times. “This fire could have been mitigated — maybe not prevented.”Elon Musk<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1877115951939989940" target="_blank"> wrote on X</a> that the “biggest factor, in my opinion, is that crazy environmental regulations prevent building firebreaks and clearing brush near houses.” And <a href="https://x.com/saramfoster/status/1877161637926641687" target="_blank">actress-producer Sara Foster</a> chimed in with an X post saying “our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared.”<a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/live/2025-01-17/fire-winds-los-angeles-california-eaton-altadena-palisades-updates" target="_blank"><img src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/53f37b0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5945x3963+0+18/resize/840x560!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2f%2Fa9%2F3fee2b1d413b8e02fad7eada60cc%2F1490945-me-0115-palisades-fire-aftermath-wjs17.jpg" alt="Pacific Palisades, California January 15, 2025- Rows of houses are turned to rubble after the Palisades Fire torched Pacific Palisades. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a>Did these and other second-guessers have a point? Scientists, wildfire specialists and firefighting officials had differing viewpoints. But several of these experts — including strong proponents of brush clearance — said that the winds fanning the flames were so fierce, and ground conditions so dry, that clearing more shrubs wouldn’t have had a significant effect.Advertisement“All of the brush clearance, fuel breaks — they’re very effective on what we would consider a normal day,” said Chief Brian Fennessy of the Orange County Fire Authority. “But what you’re talking about here is probably less than 1% of all the fires that we respond to in Southern California.”The Palisades fire ignited Jan. 7 amid hurricane-force winds, with <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/live/pacific-palisades-fire-updates-los-angeles#p=one-of-the-most-destructive-firestorms-in-l-a-history-kills-5-burns-2-000-buildings" target="_blank">gusts of up to 100 mph</a> recorded in some areas.“You could have put a 10-lane freeway in front of that fire and it would not have slowed it one bit,” Fennessy said.Vegetation management efforts are typically most effective when firefighters are able to take advantage of the reduced fire intensity they provide to snuff out flames.ADVERTISINGIn this case, Fennessy said, fire was blowing sideways from house to house, with the structures themselves serving as fuel. The winds grounded firefighting aircraft. And firefighters on the ground were focused on getting people out of the path of the fast-moving inferno as it burned deeply into communities.<a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-12/los-angeles-fire-eaton-palisades-altadena-victims" target="_blank"><img src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3efc164/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1350x900+25+0/resize/840x560!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F4c%2Faf%2F8df588e348ce859678a9b3ea404c%2Fme-fire-victims.jpg" alt="From left to right, top to bottom: Dalyce Curry, Anthony Mitchell Sr., Annette Rossilli, Erliene Louise Kelley and Victor Shaw." class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a><a href="https://www.latimes.com/california" target="_blank">California</a><h4><a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-12/los-angeles-fire-eaton-palisades-altadena-victims" target="_blank">The L.A. fire victims: Who they were</a></h4>Jan. 15, 2025Several experts noted that the intense gusts <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-09/burning-embers-flews-miles-brought-mass-destruction-across-l-a-county" target="_blank">lofted embers miles from the fire front</a>, essentially spreading flames through the air — not by brush. They also pointed out that landscape-level fuel reduction, in which brush is cut back over large swaths of land, is controversial in Southern California’s sensitive coastal ecosystems.In the forests of Northern California and the Sierra Nevada, large blazes are often <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/scientists-save-california-forest-wildfires/" target="_blank">stoked by a buildup of trees and brush</a> that accumulated due to decades of fire suppression. Removing some of that vegetation can help make those forests both more fire-resilient and healthier, since an abundance of plants competing for finite resources makes the ecosystem more sensitive to drought, said Patrick T. Brown, co-director of the climate and energy team at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank.Modeling by the nonprofit suggests that clearing brush — and thus eliminating fuel — can reduce the intensity of wildfires in the Los Angeles Basin even during extreme weather, Brown said, although it’s not likely to have prevented the kind of destruction Pacific Palisades is experiencing now.<a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2025-01-08/how-to-protect-yourself-from-la-wildfire-smoke" target="_blank"><img src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a2dcef3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/840x560!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fab%2F36%2Fe62c2061482ca27a142ddd034c96%2F1489832-me-palisades-fire-day2-5-brv.jpg" alt="Malibu, CA - January 08: SMole obscures the devastation of homes by the Palisades fire on PCH on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Malibu, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a><a href="https://www.latimes.com/science" target="_blank">Science & Medicine</a><h4><a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2025-01-08/how-to-protect-yourself-from-la-wildfire-smoke" target="_blank">How to protect yourself from the smoke caused by L.A. wildfires</a></h4>Jan. 8, 2025At the same time, he said, unlike in forested areas, fuel reduction in the region’s chaparral shrublands risks harming the ecosystem rather than making it healthier.That’s because the Santa Monica mountains, Malibu canyons and other wildland areas near coastal Los Angeles generally burn too frequently, said Alexandra Syphard, senior research ecologist at the nonprofit Conservation Biology Institute and adjunct professor at San Diego State University.AdvertisementThat’s caused native evergreen chaparral shrubs, which take several years to mature and make new seeds, to be replaced by invasive annual grasses that die in the early summer and catch fire more easily, said Helen Holmlund, biology professor at Pepperdine University.“That promotes more frequent fires which, in turn, leads to more loss of chaparral shrubs and more invasive species,” she said.Large-scale attempts to preemptively thin or burn these coastal areas could therefore actually make the landscape more flammable in the long run, said Max Moritz, a cooperative extension wildfire specialist at UC Santa Barbara.“Those are trade-offs that, as a society, you have to think about if they’re worthwhile,” Moritz said.</blockquote>

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