Power grid faults surged right before Los Angeles wildfires began

It's not the power grid surge alone, it seems to be coupled with another major issue. The other cause of these awful fires that have decimated California over and over is that the forests have become overgrown with underbrush, hindering the growth of larger trees-creating potential fire hazards. Clearing the underbrush in a responsible and sustainable manner can help maintain the health of the forest ecosystem. Why is this not happening? These electrical sparks will continue to be a danger and cleaning the forest floors and cutting spaces is imperative.

"In the case of the Eaton Fire near Altadena, there's 317 grid faults that occurred in the hours preceding the ignition," Marshall said. "And then in the Hurst Fire, there's about 230 faults that occurred that we measured on the sensor network."

Trump and Newsom had discussed the cleaning of the brush, Trump had spoken to others around the world whose issues and challenges were similar to California and shared it with Newsome. The Trump administration had done a lot of work putting together solutions and at every opportunity to work together and implement the fixes Govenor Newsom balked. This was six years ago, Govenor Newsom needs to go, he is incompitent and unable to find solutions to California's problems.

Sparks from faults can fall to the ground and ignite vegetation, essentially setting a match on the landscape. High winds then carry the flames at rapid speeds.

ignoring solutions

Oh! But think of the wildlife. The underbrush is a home and haven for wildlife. That's sarcasm by the way.
We have a similar thing in the UK but I don' want to upset your thread so I'll make my own post.

Yup, the Santa Ana Winds are known to be a problem with electric wire poles. You'd think the experts and officials would have done something over the decades and decades and decades of the same problems happening over and over and over again and again. 🥶️

originally posted by: xuenchen
Yup, the Santa Ana Winds are known to be a problem with electric wire polls. You'd think the experts and officials would have done something over the decades and decades and decades of the same problems happening over and over and over again and again. 🥶️

Exactly!
The Santa Ana Winds are known to be a problem with electric wire poles and are an "event" every year. In addition to that, there were unusually high wind forcasts so the trouble that was coming was known. The level of damage and destruction was certainly avoidable. Had the reservoirs been full, the forest brush cleared and managed and the water routed properly and pressurized this level of destruction would never had happened.

The Los Angeles Times reported that despite the reservoir’s critical role in the city’s water infrastructure, it had been offline for nearly a year.

The Santa Ynez Reservoir, with a capacity of 117 million gallons, could have played a critical role in providing water pressure to firefighters battling the devastating fire that destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Malibu

Janisse Quiñones makes $750,000 a year- Los Angeles's highest paid employee-and was a total shipreck at the press conference the other day. There is no state in the union as mismanaged as California. Govenor Gavin Newsom should never be allowed to govern again. How has he not resigned? His mismanagement has directly led to death and destruction at a level never seen before in California- all this after he has spent millions upon millions "Trump proofing" the state, what a disgrace.

DWP Chief Executive Janisse Quiñones acknowledged that the system struggled to maintain water pressure amid unprecedented demand. While officials cited the “intensity” of the fire as a complicating factor, they also admitted that the offline reservoir contributed to diminished pressure in key areas.

empty reservoir-empty a lot of things

a reply to: fringeofthefringe

CA resident here.

When high winds are predicted, the power companies in CA DO shut off the electricity going through those powerlines in areas prone to wildfires. This has been the policy for years, ever since a sparking PG&E powerline (due to necessary maintenance having been ignored by the company for years in favor of profitability) caused one of the largest and most deadly fires in California history.

The problem, especially in Southern California, is that periods of high winds, like the Santa Ana winds. can last for days which would mean thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people would be without power for days.


That power also runs the pumps that refill the reservoirs and storage tanks that municipalities like Pacific Palasade, Altadena, and Malibu use for their water, and firefighting, needs.

No power, no water.

CA resident here

a reply to: Mantiss2021

I hope you are doing well.
Looking for the cause, this seems very likely. The forest floors need to be cleaned and 50 yards of cutting throughout the forest needs to be done. These are the types of "forest management" being neglected. Why? California-Govenor Newsom-could not have gotten more wrong. Reservoirs off-line and empty? No water pressure? The forest floor is/was a ticking timebomb. While eliminating forest fires is not possible there are measures ignored that would have prevented this level of death and destruction. After"Camp Fire" the forest management should have adopted the things discussed in the -short- video links. Long time residents of California are disgusted with the lack of preparedness and managemebt of the forests. Mayor Bass, Govenor Newsom should resign. They have failed their citizens. California needs to do a much bettef job at this. Whatever they are doing is clearly not working.

Despite preemptive power shut-offs in some areas, Whisker Labs data indicates that portions of the grid near the fire’s origin remained energized

In the Palisades area, the largest of the fires currently raging, there were 63 faults in the two to three hours prior to the ignition of the fire, Marshall said. There were 18 faults registered in the hour it began on Tuesday.