| JRPGfan said: Is the fire in LA crazy situation or something? |
Been going over the standard of equipment you guys have, which is frankly rather comical.
Many of your fireground practices are outdated and put firefighters at risk, let alone the equipment to keep them safe.
What we implemented here was an "Emergency Services Levy" so all landowners pay a tax every year, with those funds going straight to the fire and rescue services and infrastructure.
Yes it's another tax... But we have the best equipment in the world because of it.
| JRPGfan said: Decides the fire department is "too white" (not diverse enough). So they fire some fire fighters, and start trying for more diverse fire fighters (women, and men of color). |
This is irrelevant. You still need to pass the physical and mental aptitude tests anyway.
Some of the best firefighters I have worked with have been women.
People need to stop whinging about "equal opportunity" schemes, it's not "woke", they still need to pass the damn tests.
| JRPGfan said: However these people are still in the training phase. |
I am not entirely sure how the training is structured over there, but for wildland fire response we require what is known as "Basic Firefighting". - That grants you permission with the necessary competency to jump on a truck and head to an incident, you obviously have zero autonomy or understanding of things like fire behavior.
It's a weekend course.
The rest of the training is staggered over time to increase their scope of responding. I.E. Compartment fire behaviour, breathing apparatus, marine rescue, swift water, sector command and control etc'.
Considering we have the worlds worst fire conditions and don't suffer casualties, we must be doing something right.
| JRPGfan said: Then there is a lack of equipment because they sent some to Ukraine (ontop of the budget cuts, might be a while before their stock is back to normal). |
Every year our fire service collates older equipment (Fire trucks, uniforms, hoses etc') and donates it to island and 3rd world nations, so we can cycle towards newer gear.
Ukraine isn't at fault here, policy makers are at fault for not having a replacement plan.
| JRPGfan said: There is the situation with fire hydrants not having water pressure enough to be used to fight the fires with. |
You must always fight a fire with the understanding you cannot use urban infrastructure, it's convenient if it's there, just don't expect it to always be available... Because often cars are parked on hydrants, or you cannot access an underground standpipe access point because councils have covered it with road tar.
You need extra equipment and training to be self sufficient, floating collar dams, bulk water carriers, drafting equipment and more.
| JRPGfan said: Why? because they diverted water away, from a river to protect a small fish that is at risk of dying out. |
Clearing out the vegetation is certainly going to help.
The issue with L.A. is that it's prolific with Blue-Gums, this is Australian vegetation, the tree's have leaves which are full of combustible oils, the tree's evolved so that they can propagate fire as that's how it germinates it's seeds to spread and grow.
But that's only going to get you so far, once fire crowns on these tree's, it's going to spread, no amount of back burning of fuel reduction is going to help you.
Welcome to Australian fire behavior, this is a continental wide issue, L.A. needs to adopt our fireground practices if it's going to successfully engage with our vegetation, we implement it for a reason.
As for protecting your water ways, that should always be a priority, but there needs to be a plan in place so that firefighting efforts are never impacted, clearly that wasn't the case here.
| JRPGfan said:
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Mayor should be fired if they aren't available during a massive emergency.
| JRPGfan said: You find out the entire US has like 20 water bombers and they're all private contracts and shit's apparently not easy to co-ordinate. So they weren't really used at all. |
Many of the water bombers the USA have are contracted and seasonal, during the winter season in the USA, many head to Australia to assist with our summer so the pilots have work all year round.
I've had to coordinate water bombers at many jobs, so I have had some very interesting discussions with the pilots.
And the biggest issue is that there is a BIG disconnect between the water bombers and the crew on the ground in the USA, there is often zero communication or support from ground crews.
When we have sent Incident Management Teams from Australia to the USA, our main goal has always been to build that hierarchy and collaboration between different services (Paid, Volunteer, Water Bombers, Plant Operators, Urban and Wildland firefighters etc.)
Here the strike team commander can and will dictate where bombers drop payloads for maximum effect and to keep firefighters out of harms way, boots on the ground is often your best source of information in large incidents.
There is also a changing of climate, so unseasonably warm, dry and high-winds will become more common during winter seasons which is going to drive these kinds of events, which likely also means there needs to be a change in how fire response is handled, here it doesn't matter what day of the year it is... Once the fire danger index reaches a certain threshold (Dictated by the level of curing of Vegetation, wind speed, relative humidity etc') then the state enters a total fire ban with resources on standby. - Normally our fire danger window is the 1st of November until the 15th of April, but there has been times where that was brought forward or extended by several months.
| JRPGfan said:
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Ignoring the fact that Joe Rogan is not a firefighter and has zero experience in this field... And is mostly just a political mouth piece...
Yes this can happen. Yes L.A. was not prepared.
Rural Urban interface fires are extremely complex and the response plans to coordinate resources was non-existent, but the lack of equipment and infrastructure was also non-existent.
If the USA isn't going to do anything about Climate Change, then you need to give first responders the necessary equipment to deal with the end result.
Hopefully the end result of this "event" is that it ends up being a wake-up call for the USA, just like the 2019 fires was for Australia.
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