Calling any fire experts for some education on the CA fires

I'm putting this in a science for a reason...



I'm no fire expert, so when I saw this video I wondered if someone with some expertise could help explain some of the issues raised in it.

Thx.

a reply to: loam

Her comparing a normal house fire to what is happening in California is crazy.

Might as well compare a house fire to a camp fire.
Totally different temperature extremes.

Did you notice the car burned in the driveway early in the video?
The grass in the yard between the house and the car was a beautiful green.

I can't figure out why it looks like none of the homes had a slab.....as if they're all pier and beam

and the lack of left overs.....I smell a rat

a reply to: Bluntone22

Yes, I got that far, but I have to admit some of the other points are not so clear.

a reply to: loam

You cant compare the results of a single home fire (that was extinguished before it burnt to the ground), versus entire woodland regions (that happened to have clusters of houses within them) that raged down to soot without being extinguished.

Anyone ever seen a car fire?

I once saw a minivan burning next to a highway. We were teens, at friends house, could see the smoke so went over doobed and watched. The back door was already literally melting off it, the way beer cans vaporize when you throw them in a bonfire, by the time the fire dept got there.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

naw we have us an enigma, I'm not seeing any steel left.....


i want to see one bathtub....but thee are none.....a porcelan throne....yezz....a.....fridge or a colapsed roof section that still has structural members intact under it, or the heat came from a directed energy source

a reply to: GBP/JPY

Photos posted yesterday cleared this up.

I just clicked past the half way point in this one, first stop, shes showing youtube clips of someone driving by a truck burning and shes all like OMG WTF hows that truck burning, and wheres all the stuff. And guess what trucks burn, and right in her own example you could see mounds of BS strewn everywhere across the 'ground'.

This is what it looks like when nobody puts out the fires.

Even on 911 cars 'melted', there were daily threads the word MELTED in all CAPS. Damn No Planers. Here you can see whats left of the thread where I finally called them out and debunked the whole thing (not that that ever deterred them after):

No more messing around. Why weren't these cars "melted" too?
Sadly the photos are gone, but the point is when fires dont get put out the results arent what we're used to because we're so used to seeing them all get extinguished.

You see there the assertion was that the melted cars proved that "micronukes" blew up the WTC, but the thing was not all the cars caught fire and even the ones that did not all 'melted'. Some whole lines of them blown up looking (without obvious debris that is), but then there's be one right in line that wasnt. Stuff like that. (PS: The best answer to the mystery I recall was the cars were left running and the dust caused the air intakes to trigger initial fires then the car would blow up possibly igniting adjacent parked cars.) SO part of the big outrage about it people just werent used to seeing cars left to burn er melt.


And you know what, loam, this could be a really sweet thread if it were loaded with all kinds of crazy examples of the times humans dont/cant/wont try to put a big fire out...

a reply to: Bluntone22

That was exactly my thoughts.

Trying to compare the two is ridiculous. Comparing a house fire to acres and acres of flames and wind, nonsense.

naw, there's no steel in the homes like a recliner frame or bed frames or shower plumbing or a friggin window frame

someone show me a hurricane strap anchor on a slab....ya see I'm your structures guy....commercial, seasoned structures rxpert

a reply to: GBP/JPY


Plastic pipes nowadays.
Fiberglass tubs.
Tin foil appliances.

Drop two stories of drywall on top of everything and it's squished.

a reply to: GBP/JPY

Show us some clear pictures of what you mean, please. The burden of proof is on you, and huge panoramic aerial shots dont actually reveal what it really looks like from the ground.

I played the first minute of her video, clicked around a little, and she stressing that this is some new thing. I argue that drones ARE a new thing so seeing drone aerial footage for big fires left to burn out yeah she's right, but that doesnt mean its like Poltergeist (1982) here.

A house fire is not, as has been noted, the same as as house caught in a wildfire.

The temperature extremes can be orders of magnitude greater in a wildfire where forest and woody brush are whipped to higher temperatures by stiff, dry, constant winds;

As was/is the case with these fires.

Check the wind conditions at the start and through the height of these fires. Look up the “El Diablo” winds that blow through the region.

And if you still think that a “mere” wildfire could never be hot enough to melt metal and glass, consider this;

Blacksmiths have used wood-fired (charcoal) forged to soften, and melt metals for hundreds of years. The key to a really hot wood fire is the amount of air available to fuel combustion. Blacksmiths use a bellows.

A wild or forest fire will be stoked by the wind. In fact, a wild or forest fire, if large or hot enough, will generate its own wind as the fire literally sucks the air from the surrounding areas into itself to feed.

naw, the shower controller up to the spray head, and a disposal under the steel sink....yep, the pex pipe would go but not at the manifold by the slab or the fittings....where's the 50 gallon water heaters......tell me again

a reply to: loam

it's a firestorm.

from the wiki, cause it's fast.

A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires and wildfires. Although the word has been used to describe certain large fires,[1] the phenomenon's determining characteristic is a fire with its own storm-force winds from every point of the compass.[2][3] The Black Saturday bushfires and the Great Peshtigo Fire are possible examples of forest fires with some portion of combustion due to a firestorm, as is the Great Hinckley Fire. Firestorms have also occurred in cities, usually as a deliberate effect of targeted explosives such as occurred as a result of the aerial firebombings of Hamburg, Dresden, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Firestrom

ETA:

This wind shear is capable of producing small tornadoes or dust devils which can also dart around erratically, damage or destroy houses and buildings, and quickly spread the fire to areas outside the central area of the fire.

Ok, I am a 20 year Fireman in a large city. I tried watching and could only do about 5 minutes, then started fast forwarding looking for anything strange. Nothing is Strange.
There are all kinds of scientific data on fires, but unless you've been in a few fires, you know nothing. Not trying to come off cocky at all, it's just too many variables to even start in with these data people. I actually laughed a few times.
The car fire looks like a normal car fire. The undercarriage burns because the wires, oil, rubber, the interior has already burned up which busted the windows. The "twigs" that remain are the stems or trunks which rarely burn completely due to moisture.
The house in a pile looks like a house fire that has been pulled down for haul off, or was put out and just fell. The line of homes burnt to the slabs is sad. That is true destruction by a forest fire. It burnt almost everything. The trash cans not burned??? Well, if you look around there are people there walking around probably picking up.
I can explain, or try to, if there is anything I missed.

originally posted by: loam
I'm no fire expert, so when I saw this video I wondered if someone with some expertise could help explain some of the issues raised in it.

Thx.

I'm not a fire expert neither but I do know how houses on the west coast are built. They usually do not have concrete slabs, except for the garage, but rather a foundation with (laminated) wood beams on posts with a crawl space.

Plumbing might be Pex pipe (plastic). It's a great alternative to copper since it's cheaper, easier to install and has zero risk of being stolen during construction for scrap, which is actually a very big problem in many locations.

If houses in California have a fireplace it would most likely be a LPG insert with a double wall Metalbestos pipe (4-6" dia.). Sometimes these inserts vent right out the side of the house and not up the wall and out the roof. No use for brick chimneys in this area.
At 4:40 in the video we can see what looks like the neighborhood before the fire. I don't see any brick chimneys yet I did see a few metal vent pipes. It's hard to tell with the low quality image but I suspect no big brick fireplaces/chimneys.

Tubs anymore are acrylic rather than cast iron, think Jacuzzi tubs, and no aluminum siding as LP or other wood siding is cheaper. Sometimes Faux brick/rock is used on the front for partial siding or even pillar wraps but these are still framed in with wood, very little actual rock/concrete material.

What should be left after a fire? Stoves, refrigerators, water heaters, toilets (if they haven't exploded), aluminum gutters (if the fire didn't get hot enough to burn them) and all the metal fasteners/brackets and of course the concrete foundations.

Areal views don't show much but from the ground I see what looks like all of that stuff left behind. The narrator claims, almost hysterically, that nothing is left yet I see all kinds of stuff.

The framing, siding, roof (asphalt shingles) and all the plastic, vinyl, acrylics will burn. Even sheetrock will burn, sort of, and then crumble.

What is left behind, and can clearly be seen in the video, is a big pile of ash and nonflammable materials. I also see what looks like appliances but are damaged beyond recognition in the video. I'm sure that if anyone were to sift through all that they would find the appliances and metal fasteners and all the other things that don't burn in house fires.

originally posted by: TexasTruth
I can explain, or try to, if there is anything I missed.

I'm definitely curious about all the vegetation still standing.

Particularly that large pine tree shown near the end of the video. Its perfectly undamaged in the midst of incinerated houses.

Given the dry climate and extremely close proximity I doubt that moisture could've warded off the flames..

weird..

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
naw, the shower controller up to the spray head, and a disposal under the steel sink....yep, the pex pipe would go but not at the manifold by the slab or the fittings....where's the 50 gallon water heaters......tell me again

Not too many concrete slabs in California but rather foundations and crawl spaces. All of that other stuff is there if you look. If you watch the video again turn the sound off so that hysterical voice doesn't distract you.

naw, there's no steel in the homes like a recliner frame or bed frames or shower plumbing or a friggin window frame

someone show me a hurricane strap anchor on a slab....ya see I'm your structures guy....commercial, seasoned structures rxpert

Vinyl windows, no slab and no hurricanes in CA, as far as I know, so no hurricane brackets. They do have earthquake brackets yet I bet all of that, and all other nonflammable material, is there if you were to actually look.

I watched the video again, parts of it anyway, and found a chimney, who would have thought? It's at the 16:50-17:00 mark in the upper right corner. My guess is all of that stuff is there it's just mostly unrecognizable due to the intense heat and covered by ash and debris.

a reply to: loam
There is a similar thread posted here;
Fires on the West Coast - Pictures seem VERY ODD - almost fake - EVERYTHING's GONE