Today's discussion about the news
Comments
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From the NY Times, if anyone's willing to have their minds changed.
Rick Caruso, the real estate developer and former candidate for Los Angeles mayor who served two stints as president of the Department of Water and Power, said he had a team of private firefighters deployed in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday night, helping to protect a major outdoor retail space he owns, Palisades Village, as well as some nearby homes.
All night, he said, the team was reporting that water was in short supply. He said it would take time to account for the supply problems, but suggested there appeared to be a shortfall in preparation.
“The lack of water in the hydrants — I don’t think there’s an excuse,” he said.
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Hard to find absolute numbers but the population is 39.5m and the total firefighters currently involved are 7500 so 0.019%, or a factor of 50 less than the 1%. The 800 prisoners to be added would be 10.7% of firefighters in action.
Happy to be proven wrong with the stats as my initial reaction was the numbers were wrong.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
According to this firefighters account for 0.15% of jobs in California though so that's a huge over-representation https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes332011.htm
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There is a prison training scheme for firefighters
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Did wonder if it might be something like that or whether they had some kind of training in case the prison caught fire.
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That makes much more sense than as reported.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Yes these are available for large commercial and industrial premises, such as a large retail park mentioned. Airports and race tracks would be the other obvious example of private firefighters.
They're in addition to the state emergency services not a replacement. If there's a fire in a retail park the state service are still going to attend.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Interesting that there's so much criticism of the effects of budget cuts on these fires and yet Musk is going to find a trillion in government budget savings. Whilst I appreciate how complex government services are in the US it should be a warning of the impacts of cutting public sector spending but it won't be of course.
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"as well as some nearby homes"
There are private firefighters, they did protect some homes, and they took water from the general supply. If there's plenty of water for everyone, that's fine surely.
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Apparently their budget wasn't cut, it was just some accounting thing - the budget actually increased by $53m
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The cuts are more about red tape, regulations and the departments created to do this. I very much doubt it's about people doing the hands on physical work, firefighters, police...
It's a fair point though, there's bound to be things missed when they're trying to save so much money. Clearly we saw that here with the Tories/Liberals austerity measures. I'm sure Rick would have mentioned this if he was still in the virtual realm.
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The aim is always 'red tape' but the reality is it always ends up affecting front line services. I always felt our austerity measures were necessary at the time but we are still feeling the impact of them 15 years later.
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It's California. There isn't plenty of water.
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I don't think they're sending the neighbours an invoice afterwards.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
No, I expect they paid up front to be part of the coverage.
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Let's face it, fires are thankfully so rare that if there was a private option the companies would have maybe one or two crews to cover hundreds or thousands of customers so when you then get an event like this where they all need to call on the service at the same time there's going to be no chance of them being of use. It makes me wonder how people become millionaires when their brains are unable to process such obvious things as this.
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Well yep, the method was a bit absurd but each to their own.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Thinking you can work in isolation in saving your house whilst everything around you burns is even more absurd.
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He was asking for a private person or company with a truck and some water to come and help him. Here's the tweet that you posted as a quick reminder.
That may or may not exist, but where does it say 'dear state fire service, please come and help me now'?
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
That's not the point I'm making. See above.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I don't see how the reposting of the Tweet impacts on my reply or those of anyone else. It has been pretty clear that people are talking about him asking for a private fire fighting service to save him. I can certainly understand why he would want to do it but it's pretty obvious it isn't going to happen. Even if one existed and wasn't already being paid to put out fires elsewhere in that situation they would have had to have driven through the surrounding fire to turn their hoses on his house. In the unlikely event they could do that how long would they stay there pouring water on his house whilst everything else around it is blazing away? He's also end up with the house being completely water damaged anyway. It's one of those situations where being rich doesn't give you your own way but at least he should have the money to rebuild - natural disasters don't discriminate on wealth grounds but the long term impact of them does.
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I think that's unlikely.
House by house protection is rendered pretty pointless when the fire passes over the boundary. Which is why that model was abandoned in the 19th century.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I think they may have already been on it.
That's the point of a state fire service. They attend anyway. Obviously in a situation with multiple wildfires any service - public or private - is going to prioritise, firstly life safety and property very much second.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Maybe.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Fires in that area are not rare, they have a fire season. It's not a case of "if" it is a matter of "when and who".
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Outside of wildfires they're not regular enough to create a demand for a private service but, by the nature of wildfires, when they do happen any private service would be in demand from a lot of customers at once and therefore it would be unable to meet demand unless it had loads of extra staff that sit around doing nothing for 90% of the year.
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I'm not arguing against your general point but as wildfires are an annual (at least) event then I wouldn't call them rare.
But then I wouldn't call annual icy roads rare either but it seems to make headline news every year.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
You must be interpreting the quoted text in a different way from me.
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Clearly. I think that's ok.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Insurance payouts are going to be huge! I read that some neighbourhoods will become non-insurable against fire now and a special state fund will be set up to assist but not fully cover claims. Sucks really.
Sometimes. Maybe. Possibly.
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