Submitted 9 hours ago by LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone to [deleted]
The sad wildfires in spain made me wonder this, especially as climate change means there’ll be more fires. I know groups like disabled people and their families are slower to get out, causing risk. But is it more that the fire is too fast, or that some people just don’t leave fast enough?
Just wondering what could be done to reduce deaths.
I don’t know about the Spanish wildfires, but I know in America there’s a whole slew of challenges associated.
The first is the unpredictability of wildfires. You don’t want to over-evacuate, that causes unnecessary disruption. But conditions can change rapidly, and a plan that looked good 6 hours ago can quickly become bunk.
Another is speed. Wildfires can travel much, much faster than people’s intuition leads them to think. So, it can go from “over there” to “oh shit” quick enough to be life threatening. Wildfires counter-intuitively go uphill faster than downhill, winds can pick up, blowing embers can cause it to jump, etc.
A third is that some people try to protect their property. This is actually possible if you’ve taken proper precautions of removing burnables from your property and have a garden hose that you are 100% certain will keep running. This is not recommended, but some people will try and that is their right. It’s a calculated risk they have to decide for themselves to take or not.
Fourth might be various other failures to evacuate. Evacuation order didn’t arrive in time, elderly resident didn’t hear in time/can’t move fast enough, someone got stuck in evacuation traffic, mental illness, stubborn conspiracy nut thinks tin foil hats protect against wildfire, who knows, it’ll vary case-to-case.
Fifth could be firefighter deaths. It’s a highly dangerous job with a significant fatality rate, and our wildlands firefighters (colloquially called “hotshots”) are basically like the special forces of firefighting. They airdrop into wilderness areas with whatever gear they can carry, with instructions to change the course of an oncoming force of nature. They have the tools (chainsaws and shovels mostly) and training to do this, but it’s still exactly as dangerous as it sounds.
Wildlands firefighting is really fascinating stuff. I got an audiobook ages ago written by a retired one that talked a lot about the process. Was like 100 pages or something and super interesting, highly recommend.
That’s really informative thanks. Firefighters really are heroes
I used to live in a very fire prone party of the Rockies, got any info on that book? It sounds fascinating.
Smokejumper by Jason A. Ramos and Julian Smith
I know the recent-ish Palisades fire near me was an issue of both fast fires and limited exits, but even then most of it was property damage. What worked was early warnings of evacuation that people took seriously.
The part that struck me was they started calling it a conflagration because the structure fires were so much hotter than the bush fires that things were straight up melting, causing cars to stop working and so on. If you were still there when the houses were full burning, you were likely toast.
The best way to avoid deaths, therefore, is early evacuation and careful neighborhood design. There were some houses that survived the blaze because of factors like walls and gaps that helped reduce the spread, although I’m not sure if they cracked the code on that yet.
Ahhhhh of course. Layout can save you or fuck you up
You can build essentially fireproof houses using non-combustible materials. (Concrete, rockwool, steel framing, aluminum window frames, metal roofing etc…) and you can further protect by keeping the area around the home free of fuel.
If the fire gets close enough, the windows may break from heat, you still have smoke to deal with, and even a fireproof home can still slowly become an oven. Indoor temperatures can easily become unsurvivable.
Evacuation is always proscribed, followed by non-combustible construction coupled with strict control of fuel.
Evacuation is always proscribed
Proscribed means it’s banned
Fires spread more quickly than you might think. This says 14mph
In places like Oregon and Washington it’s more that there’s only few roads or off road trails to get out. Traffic gets backed up near larger towns. Also you can’t really get a grasp of how close it is when you can see over the hills or trees
Fucking PG&E. After they started 17 fires in Northern California in 2017 and had to pay few bucks and fix a few things, they got super salty and started shutting off all power during red flag days. The longest one was 15 days.
Usually it’s the smoke that gets them…
Depends on the situation. Wildfires can sweep through a place so fast, and that combined wirh smoke, heat, disorientation etc, makes for a deadly combo already. Firefighters must be some of the bravest people willingly wanting to fight that
It can be both. Usually authorities try to evacuate people before the fire approaches too much, but sometimes wind comes up and spreads the fire faster. Some places are very difficult to access, with narrow curvy roads through flammable forest. Sometimes these roads don’t get closed down quickly enough and people get trapped. Mountainous terrain on fire gets chaotic easily.
May this be a fresh and moist summer, may the water stay around and keep us safe!
Yep the fire service in the UK do a lot to prevent fires eg reducing litter in alleyways. Preventing is always better
People often will refuse to acknowledge actual danger until it is too late. Possibly being unfortunate or contrary in exit route selection or having particular requirements like elderly relatives. The route you selected is blocked and alternate exits become closed off in an order that is against you and you are left with having to wait for it to engulf you. Horrifying, if you are with your family it is impossible to imagine how horrifying.
Yep there’s always going to be some people that refuse to leave or accept the danger. And firefighters etc have to risk their lives saving them
Laypeople are very bad at predicting fire speed and direction.
If you’re told to evacuate, do it immediately, don’t “do your own research” (you fucking idiot).
Jesus Christ that’s scary. Glad he was ok
Disorientation, panic and difficult terrain can all be factors. Getting injured in the process of trying to escape too.
Picture a dense forest. You know there is a fire, you vaguely know what direction it is probably in but that is where the path goes. So you go off the path away from it. Probably. Now you hit a river and try to follow the river away from the fire instead. Now hit some impassable terrain and the only option is to go back, but now that route is on fire.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
A lot of people underestimate the dangers of smoke to a deadly degree