View from Mt. Wilson just off Angeles Crest Highway

Last Friday, Caltrans announced that the portion of California State Route 2 known as the Angeles Crest Highway is now open over its full 66-mile length from La Canada Flintridge to Wrightwood (see June 3 press release on this page). This has been a long time coming for Los Angeles area sports car and sport bike enthusiasts, as well as hikers and others who have discovered this nearby escape route over the years. Unfortunately, the Highway has had more destructive disasters than the castle in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.
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I recently posted about CERT training in LA and here’s a gentle reminder that now’s the time to get started. There are a ton of classes starting up this week. Actually for some places Monday was the first class but my Google Alert got piled in a bunch of emails so hey, better late than never eh? If you missed the first class you can make it up later so no reason to not jump in. I’m going to be going to the Woodland Hills training so if anyone reading this can make it, say hello! The online calendar is a little out of date so I contacted them this morning and they sent me the up to date full class schedule.

Corner of Franklin and Vermont about 12:15AM, 4/29/11

Someone was Lighting a String of Trashcan Fires late Thursday Night / Early Friday Morning

I took the picture to the right myself. Firetrucks were already on the way, and in fact, already in the area, as this was at least the third trashcan fire lit.

I felt slightly guilty snapping the pic, like I should have done something more, but my Android doesn’t have a “Fire Extinguisher” App, and I really didn’t have that much water on me at the time.

“I.C.M.E.” indeed. Eyewitness account after the jump.

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With all the brouhaha going on across the world it’s time to remind all of us Angelino’s that we’re living on top of a ticking time bomb and we all should do our parts to be prepared. A few years ago a bunch of the Blogging.la crew went out and got CERT training. For the un-initiated, CERT stands for Community Emergency Response Team and the training is provided free of charge to everyone 18 and older living in the city of Los Angeles.

Local government prepares for everyday emergencies. However, during a disaster, the number and scope of incidents can overwhelm conventional emergency services. The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program is an all-risk, all-hazard training. This valuable course is designed to help you protect yourself, your family, your neighbors and your neighborhood in an emergency situation.

CERT is a positive and realistic approach to emergency and disaster situations where citizens may initially be on their own and their actions can make a difference. While people will respond to others in need without the training, one goal of the CERT program is to help them do so effectively and efficiently without placing themselves in unnecessary danger.

The course is one day a week for seven weeks with a total of 17.5 hours training time. In the classes you’ll learn to:

• Manage utilities and put out small fires,
• Treat the three medical killers by opening airways, controlling
• Bleeding, and treating for shock,
• Provide basic medical aid,
• Search for and rescue victims safely,
• Organize themselves and spontaneous volunteers to be effective,
  and collect disaster intelligence to support first responder efforts.

I missed the initial classes but now that I’m back in LA I’m getting my training at the first available class. If this sounds like something you’re into (and it should be dammit) check their calendar for a class near you! You can also peruse the class manual online.

From the official city web the first information on the fire I spotted as I was exiting the 210 FWY about 1:15.

A small brush fire is burning in Monrovia Canyon Park. No structures are threatened and no evacuations have been ordered. The fire was apparently set off by a downed power line. A major Fire Department response has put dozens of firefighters and equipment on the scene. Watch this notice and the City of Monrovia page on Facebook for further updates.

From the old timers in the neighborhood they advise that that area has not burned since the mid-1960′s and is a concern to them.

According to my daughter the best place to view the ‘copter activity is from the Pavillions Shopping Center at Myrtle and Foothill.  For gawds sake…don’t attempt to drive up the hill for a better view of the activity, stay out of harms way and don’ t do anything to impede the fire fighters.  As for me, I have my suitcase still packed from the weekend so all I’m tossing in is the trusty insurance policies in the car and will be set to boogie if the fire gets bigger and they order evacuations.  (Good excuse as any not to unload the car and do nothing for a bit).

UPDATE 2:48PM from the city facebook page:  Firefighters have contained a small brush fire burning in Monrovia Canyon Park. Full encirclement is expected later this afternoon. No structures are threatened and no evacuations have been ordered. A major Fire Department response put dozens of firefighters and 40 pieces of equipment on the scene. Keep checking with us and our website for more details. Thank you.

I spotted the same fire spotted by Will (see post directly below) on the East side of the Palos Verdes peninsula, in El Segundo, as seen from a different angle in Marina del Rey, less than 10 miles to the North.  My little Canon Elph can’t quite capture the flames moving and reaching 30 feet or more in height.  My first thought was that, at minimum, this is a large house fire, and maybe something bigger.

Fortunately, KCBS TV just reported that it’s a deliberate “refinery burn off.”  I sure hope that word spreads, otherwise there could be plenty of alarmed folks out there.

I just double-taked like a pro looking out my 10th-floor Westchester office window and seeing this towering smoke monster growing out in the direction of LAX (click to biggify):

I’m going to assume it’s some sort of enviornmentally toxic discharge (isn’t THAT a relief!?) from one of the oil refineries out there nearer the coastline. Or the marketing people for the final season of “Lost” have outdone themselves.

After the jump is the plume a half-hour-later

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A fire that broke out in Griffith Park that the LAFD first reported an hour ago as 0.5-1 acre in size acres has grown to five acres according to the the most recent Twitter update 45 minutes ago from @LAFD on Twitter.

The picture of the fire as seen from the 134 overpass above the 5 Freeway comes from my friend Patricia (taken by her friend Monica) who posted it on Twitter around the same time as the LAFD’s last update.

UPDATE (10.01): LAist is reporting that it took firefighters 59 minutes to contain the blaze. There were no reported injuries or structural damage, and the cause is under investigation.

As the Station Fire still lingers over these last weeks, only now finally almost fully contained, I’ve pointed many folks to the dramatic images of the pyrocumulus clouds that have come out of it, especially the time-lapse images of these clouds developing.  Like many folks new to having such large fires quite so close, I only learned about the pyrocumulus mechanism with this fire.  One thing that is dramatic in this phenomenon (apart from the sufficiently dramatic itching eyes, headaches, and sore throats that all my friends seem to share) is its striking resemblance to an H-Bomb blast.

I am not the first to note this resemblance, of course.  Not even the first Metblogs author to do so.  Nor the first to think and write about the identity of the thermodynamic mechanism of the formation of an H-Bomb’s mushroom cloud over the course of seconds, and the fire’s formation of one over the course of days or weeks.

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The largest fire in LA history is expected to keep burning through the weekend. It has burned more than 160,000 acres (250 square miles). Here’s Joan Didion on living in fire country:

Station Fire photo by Brittany Bagheri and American Red Cross

People who live with fires think a great deal about what will happen “when,” as the phrase goes in the instruction leaflets, “the fire comes.” These leaflets, which are stuck up on refrigerator doors all over Los Angeles County, never say “if.” When the fire comes there will be no water pressure. The roof one watered all the night before will go dry in seconds. Plastic trash cans must be filled with water and wet gunny-sacks kept at hand, for smothering the sparks that blow ahead of the fire. The garden hoses must be connected and left where they can be seen. The cars must be placed in the driveway headed out. Whatever one wants most to save must be placed in the cars. The lights must be left on, so that the house can be seen in the smoke.

That’s from Didion’s essay “Fire Season.” You can get it here

With an About the Author bio that says, “If you don’t like what you just read here you can just get out of my country. Now how about that smart-alack. Follow me on twitters,” Christwire is such dry parody it almost passes for the real thing– a right-wing,  Bible-quoting site seeking to save America from The Gays and other “weirdos.”

And they are loving the fires here in California:

The lands were soaked with the combustible sins of perversions and marinated in the flammable juices of homosexuality! God is angry and his great power cannot be contained! …Fire falls upon California and great pillars of smoke shoots from his nostrils!

The holy pillars of smoke from his nostrils are filling up the lands of California! They are the harbingers of doom for the homosexual gay fornicators of Satan!

If you doubt this is satire (which is easy to do because Christwire has real ads for things like Ann Coulter books and a dating service called Christian Mingle,) a recent post called If You’re a Fantastic Pro-Family Republican, Does One or Two Same-Sex Encounters Really Make You Gay? asks, “If you have a great record fighting against the gays, doesn’t it cross out a few moments humping a younger man against the wall of some hotel room?”

Lightning has been ruled out as a possible cause of the Station Fire, according to officials from the U.S. Forest Service. That leaves humanity as the cause.

Investigators have yet to determine if it was accidental or intentional.

You are now a suspect. Have a nice day.

What can local TV stations learn from Stationgate? Should they be held more accountable when it comes to informing the public about its city burning to the ground? Yes. Were viewers, bloggers, journalists, and tweeters overreacting for calling out the networks on their non-coverage of the impending doom? No.

TV and radio are old media. But, they’re still the first place that people turn when something happens. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. 9/11. There is a responsibility for stations to serve the citizens when they need it most. This includes weekends when your back porch is engulfed in a ring of fire. It is more important than any car chase, funeral procession, or award show after party interview about a $20,000 dress.

Local network executives, who today defended their “coverage” of the “brush fires” should be embarrassed. They should be ashamed. They should probably be fired. Next time, at the very least, throw up an on-screen ticker with evacuation information. That way you can still show your precious Hanna Montana.

As for defending your coverage in light of viewer outrage… How dare you. We are the reason you exist. We are the customer. And we are always, ALWAYS right.

The picture at left is a view of the Station Fire, taken from Marina del Rey yesterday.  According to news reports, the fire is still threatening the communications facilities and the observatory atop Mount Wilson.  It has already burned its way through and past the fabulously scenic Angeles Crest Highway.  Just three months after a major stretch of the Highway was opened after having been closed for over four years, the Highway is closed once again.

I am reminded, however, of the great day I spent on top of Mount Wilson and driving the Angeles Crest Highway last Thanksgiving weekend.  It was the last weekend before a portion of the Highway was to be closed for the winter.  We took a gorgeous drive up the Highway, and took the side trip to the Mount Wilson Observatory for a picnic lunch with dizzying views.
Tour the Highway and Mt. Wilson, after the jump

Certainly the timelapse video footage screencap’d on the left that I caught of the Station Fire late Sunday afternoon from the roof of my Silver Lake house is neither as compelling nor as dramatic as others made much closer to the devastation being wrought.

But it immediately reminded me of the timelapse video screencap’d on the right that I made a couple days shy of two years ago from the exact same location of the exact same landscape, only this time the billowing clouds were strictly meteorological in nature, not pyrological.

Both videos are available after the jump, and it’s interesting to see them play out together from a then-and-now perspective.

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