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Southern CA Fires- Extreme Santa Ana Winds


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1 hour ago, WBT said:

So they just said it's raining for the first time in 9 months and they're already worried about mudslides?  How hard is it raining?

That whole vegetation-prevents-water soaked-soil-from-becoming-mudslides thing becomes problematic when there’s, you know, no more vegetation

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15 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I looked into the amount of water required to put out a house fire.  It turns out the National Fire Academy has developed a simple rule of thumb:  gallons = square footage divided by 3.  So, a typical 1800 sf house would require 600 gallons to extinguish a fire.  Obviously, there is a lot of variability there.

Stick a 1K gallon tank on everyone's lot, with a pump and some long hose runs.  The government could potentially subsidize the cost for the homeowner, it would be akin to buying a backup generator to guard against long power outages (ahem).  Let the homeowner or even firefighters deal with fighting fires, but at least there would be some infrastructure in place.  Such a tank is ~ 5 ft dia and less than 7 feet tall.  It's not exactly offensive looking, especially behind a fence.

I like the idea, but there's one important thing missing here. The result you get from that formula is not the total number of gallons needed to control the fire. It's gallons per minute.  So an 1800 sf house, if fully involved, would require 1800/3 = 600 GPM to control the fire.  50% involved, you'd need 300 GPM, and so on.  That formula is an estimation, and it usually takes more water for a defensive posture (surround & drown) than an offensive attack. 

Edited by wood
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11 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Being a well-known idiot here, I will ask my idiot question: if a big threat is embers entering an attic via attic ventilation (and assuming that embers have a brief lifespan when small and are more of a threat when larger and will stay lit long enough to touch something else off), is there a screen - or maybe two consecutive screens - of sufficiently small diameter that would not let in embers large enough to successfully land in your attic and start a fire, while allowing hot air to escape.  

Or there be some sort of sliding or drop-down shutter that will completely cover the ventilated section of your attic when some sensor notices a change in temperature or brightness from nearby fires - or receive some code via your security system from government official saying you are now in an evacuation warning zone.

I guess with modern technology, I’m wondering why attic vents can’t be designed in a way to drastically limit the access of embers of sufficient size and duration entering a home to cause a fire in your attic?

I think you're probably onto something re: the size of the embers, and maybe a fine enough screen would help a whole lot. Another problem, though, is that the products of combustion of the fire outside are often hot enough on their own and contain enough unburnt fuel in them to spread the fire by themselves if they get into the attic. Even the CO in the smoke is highly flammable. When you see the fire 'licking' way up high into the flames, that's usually the smoke itself igniting. So covering the vents completely with a fire-rated material and removing fuels close to the house would probably help even more.

Basically, what @Bevo & @flatdawgs said.

Edited by wood
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it rained off and on for the last 24 hours and is supposed to stop tonight. mudslides are always a concern in overlapping fire areas (like malibu) but this shouldn’t be too bad.

what sucks is when it doesn’t rain for months then rains nonstop for 4 days. it happens pretty often, which is why “annual rainfall” can be misleading. if it dumps all at once, it doesn’t help. and it causes mudslides. 

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15 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Fires generally make the ground hydrophobic. That makes mudslides and flooding much more likely.

Yeah we were watching LA fire coverage on the Weather Channel the other night. They did a cool demo where they applied water to a pile of sand, a pile of dirt, and a pile of dirt with ash mixed in. The sand and the dirt soaked up a substantial amount of water while water ran off of the ash/dirt pile immediately. Really good demo.

Edited by wood
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11 hours ago, Chopper said:

You're right, not sure if any of those houses were lost due to (solely) flying embers. (edit - in the sense of what was normal before - embers can fly for miles and if they land in the wrong spot on your house, you're fucked.) OTOH after a couple of homes in my parents neighborhood were lost to fire in 2021 they put mesh over all the vents. They've also been battling with their HOA to be able to trim a couple of oak trees on HOA property that come close to their roof. 

This article doesn't appear to be behind a paywall

This next article is absolutely sickening...private equity groups and billionaires are such a scourge.

 

A nugget even more disgusting in that second article.

And if anyone wants guidance on what a lawsuit against AIP could look like, Lina Khan left us a roadmap just before she stepped down from the FTC last week — when she sued private-equity giant Welsh Carson for rolling up Texas anesthesiology practices to drive up the price of anesthesia services to Texas patients.

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8 hours ago, wood said:

I like the idea, but there's one important thing missing here. The result you get from that formula is not the total number of gallons needed to control the fire. It's gallons per minute.  So an 1800 sf house, if fully involved, would require 1800/3 = 600 GPM to control the fire.  50% involved, you'd need 300 GPM, and so on.  That formula is an estimation, and it usually takes more water for a defensive posture (surround & drown) than an offensive attack. 

Thanks, the website I pulled it from didn't say it was a flow rate, just total (cumulative) volume.

EDIT:  I did find another site that corroborates your claim, but what it also says is that calculation is for a fully engulfed structure.  That would not be the case in an initial flareup, so it's possible onsite water storage could work.  One issue (as others have hinted at) is adequate flow rate, and even then if the power goes out, only an engine-driven pump would work.  It's starting to get expensive.

Edited by jimmyjazz
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A nugget even more disgusting in that second article.
And if anyone wants guidance on what a lawsuit against AIP could look like, Lina Khan left us a roadmap just before she stepped down from the FTC last week — when she sued private-equity giant Welsh Carson for rolling up Texas anesthesiology practices to drive up the price of anesthesia services to Texas patients.

Gosh, is there nothing that private equity doesn’t make loads better?
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5 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Thanks, the website I pulled it from didn't say it was a flow rate, just total (cumulative) volume.

EDIT:  I did find another site that corroborates your claim, but what it also says is that calculation is for a fully engulfed structure.  That would not be the case in an initial flareup, so it's possible onsite water storage could work.  One issue (as others have hinted at) is adequate flow rate, and even then if the power goes out, only an engine-driven pump would work.  It's starting to get expensive.

Yeah absolutely that setup could work for incipient fires, and it would always be better than nothing, provided it's used right. I'd recommend some basic training on the most efficient way to attack the fire if any of y'all wanna do something like this. That way you get the most effect from the least amount of water and put yourself in less danger.

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21 hours ago, C-Man said:

c424a11d4f94c1a8014190923107d167.jpg

I kinda rorschach'd this automatically and the first thing I saw was a penis. I've been on this thread a few other times and it still looks like someone taking a leak. not sure I want you guys to tell me what that means. but I felt compelled to say it.

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1 hour ago, troph said:

I kinda rorschach'd this automatically and the first thing I saw was a penis. I've been on this thread a few other times and it still looks like someone taking a leak. not sure I want you guys to tell me what that means. but I felt compelled to say it.

I saw a commercial during the playoff games for medication to treat Peyronie's Disease. If you are aware of people who similarly think of this as a penis they might want to look into treatment.

Edited by 'stache
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Just now, 'stache said:

I saw a commercial during the playoff games for medication to treat Peyronie's Disease. If that image reminds you of a penis, you might look into treatment.

pretty sure I don't have a curved dick, I mean I could check again if you want me to be absolutely sure, but kinda like when the nurse says "how do you know you're not pregnant?" and I smile and say, "I'm sure."

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34 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Mark Walter, lead owner of the Dodgers, the Mark Walter Family Foundation, and the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, are contributing $100 million towards relief efforts. Say what you will about the Dodgers, but that is a serious contribution. Magic Johnson and Casey Wasserman also heavily involved.

Fuck the Dodgers, but well played. 

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17 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Fuck the Dodgers, but well played. 

Magic is going to focus his efforts on Altadena.  West Altadena is an area that is very diverse, as it was one of the few areas in early LA where redlining wasn't taking place.  So you have generations of black families where the bulk of the wealth is in their house.  They are going to need a lot of help, and protection from predators.

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LAT article about Your Own Private Idaho Fire Hydrant

https://archive.ph/Nz5j0
 

Quote

 

Companies that sell personal hydrants — less expensive than having a dedicated firefighting crew stationed outside and easy to install in advance — say sales have been booming all month. “Yesterday, just in California alone, there were about 30 orders,” said Barry McConaghey, a former firefighter who owns FireHoseDirect, an equipment company he founded in 2011 that sells the parts to make a private hydrant.


Customers purchase what they need a la carte — a combination of jacket hoses, nozzles, valves and adapters that, when assembled, vastly increases the water flow rate from a homeowner’s outdoor faucet. Prices vary depending on hose length and other factors; the 10-piece private hydrant configuration recommended by the Corral Canyon Fire Safety Alliance totals $1,571 on FireHoseDirect’s website.

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

Yeah, you would need your own supply.  Like a 2,000 gall underground tank.

We have something like that at the ranch.  It's a 1,500 gallon black plastic water reservoir that we got from Tractor Supply hooked up to a small pump at the cabin.  Costs about $65 to fill/refill.  Lasts quite a while if we're not using the hoses to clean animals during hunting season.  If I lived in CA, something like that hooked up to a roof-mounted sprinkler system as a last resort if the city water isn't flowing.  I'm sure the HOA would pitch a fit, but screw them

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1 hour ago, BabaYaga said:

We have something like that at the ranch.  It's a 1,500 gallon black plastic water reservoir that we got from Tractor Supply hooked up to a small pump at the cabin.  Costs about $65 to fill/refill.  Lasts quite a while if we're not using the hoses to clean animals during hunting season.  If I lived in CA, something like that hooked up to a roof-mounted sprinkler system as a last resort if the city water isn't flowing.  I'm sure the HOA would pitch a fit, but screw them

My house is 100 years old.  Ain't no HOA.

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@Sbbruin @Foosters It's looking increasingly likely that the powerlines were at fault for the Eaton portion of the disaster, which many already assumed given the video of the fire. I'm sure you guys would like to move on and not dwell on this shit, so I'd completely understand if you don't feel like reading this. Just felt y'all would want the option of knowing.

Oh, also, there's an Austin-based lawyer and UT grad who's doing work for some of the victims, whose name is bolded near the bottom. Who knows? This guy might be one of the oodles of attorneys on this site, and the Surly collective could take down Big Electricity in the process.

worlds-collide.gif

Article spoilered to avoid longcatting the thread.

Spoiler

New Data Shows Major Electrical Disruption Ahead of Eaton Fire

Moments before flames erupted below transmission towers near Altadena, Calif., high-voltage power lines faulted in the area, new sensor data shows, offering fresh clues about whether utility equipment may have failed as the deadly Eaton fire broke out on Jan. 7.
image.png.d5656f7b090f4f874cf6c71b8b0e4e05.png

About three seconds later, another major fault was registered near Altadena, according to Whisker Labs, which has a network of sensors installed in homes around the country that are collectively able to measure abnormal activity on the electrical grid. The two electrical disruptions along transmission lines were so powerful that they reverberated as far away as Oregon and Utah, across tens of thousands of sensors.

“We looked at this one — it was like, Holy cow,” said Bob Marshall, co-founder and chief executive of Whisker Labs. “This is a transmission-scale event. Any time something happens on the grid and we see a fault at exactly the same time on many, many sensors, then it is a fault on the utility grid.”

The faults at 6:10 p.m. and again at 6:11 p.m. coincided with two flashes in the vicinity of the transmission lines seen in a video captured by a camera at an Arco gas station in the moments before the Eaton fire began, followed by flames near the base of high-voltage transmission towers.

image.thumb.png.c402ab747873fe2e03c7e3fcb25cf4a2.png

Whisker Labs’ data, which does not provide conclusive evidence about how a wildfire began, could play a pivotal role in helping to determine the cause of the Eaton fire, which increasingly has focused on possible electrical failures on the transmission network in Eaton Canyon.

Combined with eyewitness accounts and cellphone video of fire raging beneath a set of three steel-lattice towers, the flashes in the gas station video have focused attention on a transmission line owned by Southern California Edison, the state’s second-largest investor-owned utility.

Edison has not conceded that its equipment caused the Eaton fire, but said it is conducting its own investigation. The utility has agreed to meet with Whisker Labs about the data as part of its review. The exact cause of the fire, which killed 17 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and businesses, remains under investigation, and a final determination could take many months.

Electrical equipment — transmission lines in particular — has been the source of some of the most devastating wildfires in California and across the country. Fires caused by utility equipment have increased the risk and economic vulnerability for power providers as extreme weather driven by climate change has challenged the nation’s aging electrical infrastructure.

In 2018, a live wire broke free from a 100-year-old transmission tower in high winds and sparked the Camp fire, which killed scores of people and destroyed the town of Paradise in Northern California. The Camp fire and a series of other blazes led California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, to file for bankruptcy in 2019 and to institute wildfire prevention measures as extreme weather conditions have become more persistent.

On the evening of Jan. 7, winds reached as high as 100 miles per hour across Southern California, downing trees and battering electrical poles, towers and lines.

The network at Whisker Labs, a technology company based in Germantown, Md., began measuring electrical problems at homes throughout the Los Angeles region using sensors, which help to predict and prevent residential fires.

But two stood out. A major fault on the electrical grid in the area of Altadena and Eaton Canyon caused a voltage drop one second before 6:11 p.m. and then another, in the area around Edison’s Gould and Goodrich substations, according to Whisker Labs.

Voltage drops registered prominently in the Altadena area and with a lesser magnitude in other places across Southern California. But the faults had been so substantial that their weakening pulses propagated in a matter of milliseconds across Whisker Labs’ western network — southeast to Phoenix; north to San Jose, Calif., and Portland, Ore.; east to Las Vegas; and northeast to Salt Lake City.

image.png.141fcfc0d4581aae0ee41eed83525acd.png

The magnitude of the two events suggested, according to Whisker Labs, that the faults were on the high-voltage transmission lines that carry electricity from facilities like power plants to substations. Low-voltage distribution lines, which deliver power from the electric grid to homes and businesses, experience faults more often during windy conditions, but they would not have the energy to send signals throughout the West.

When power lines touch one another, come into contact with poles or tree branches or become engulfed in smoke, they can produce flashes and sparks that can ignite nearby vegetation.

The two flashes in Eaton Canyon recorded on the gas station video at the same time as the two faults could depict the flash of energy that occurs during a fault as the disrupted electricity on the line seeks a place to go.

“All of that energy — that’s a lot of energy that went into that flash — it was enough energy that it actually lowered the voltage in nearly the entire western grid, which means it’s a lot,” Mr. Marshall said.

Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, a Portland, Ore.-based firm that conducted a review of Whisker Labs’ data and operation at the request of The Times, said the data lends further support to the possibility that utility equipment was involved in igniting the Eaton blaze.

“Everything that we’ve had,” Mr. McCullough said, “puts us at the same tower with the same relationships where we’re seeing unusual operations.”

In response to questions about disruptions on its system, Edison has said it registered a fault at 6:11 p.m. at its Gould substation, a facility about five miles away from what is believed to be the origin point of the fire. The utility later reported to state regulators that a preliminary analysis showed that as a result of the fault at the Gould substation, there was “a momentary and expected increase in current on SCE’s transmission system.”

But the company has given no indication that it registered a large, transmission-level disruption of the kind shown in the new data in relation to the Eaton fire.

The utility said it would meet with Whisker Labs representatives to review the findings.

“They approached us to discuss their data. We agreed to meet with them to review it because we will review all information available to us as part of our investigation,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison. “If anyone has any evidence that can help the authorities determine the cause, we implore them to immediately provide it to the investigators.”

Edison has said that it did measure a large fault on a transmission line related to a separate fire, the Hurst fire, north of Altadena. That power line, in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles County, fell to the ground, though it is unclear whether a power line caused the fire.

Whisker Labs’ sensors also detected that incident.

A finding that Edison’s electrical equipment caused the Eaton fire could have important implications for the victims of the Eaton fire, who are seeking compensation for their losses, and the future of one of the state’s major utility companies. More than a dozen lawyers have filed lawsuits against Edison, arguing that mounting evidence points to the utility’s equipment as the source of the fire that devastated the Altadena community.

“The fault data, the videos, the witness accounts all paint the same picture,” said Mikal C. Watts, a lawyer based in Austin, Texas, who is representing some of the wildfire victims.

Liability for the Eaton fire alone is expected to exceed $10 billion, which could strain Edison’s resources, insurance companies and even the state’s backup wildfire fund, which is designed to protect utilities against liability.

The threat that electrical equipment poses to life and property has led energy and safety experts to push for power lines to be buried underground and for wider use of technologies that can better detect problems on the grid.

“We can’t insure our way out of this problem,” said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University. “We have to reduce risk.”

 

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15 hours ago, bolverk said:

@Sbbruin @Foosters It's looking increasingly likely that the powerlines were at fault for the Eaton portion of the disaster, which many already assumed given the video of the fire. I'm sure you guys would like to move on and not dwell on this shit, so I'd completely understand if you don't feel like reading this. Just felt y'all would want the option of knowing.

Oh, also, there's an Austin-based lawyer and UT grad who's doing work for some of the victims, whose name is bolded near the bottom. Who knows? This guy might be one of the oodles of attorneys on this site, and the Surly collective could take down Big Electricity in the process.

worlds-collide.gif

Article spoilered to avoid longcatting the thread.

  Hide contents

New Data Shows Major Electrical Disruption Ahead of Eaton Fire

Moments before flames erupted below transmission towers near Altadena, Calif., high-voltage power lines faulted in the area, new sensor data shows, offering fresh clues about whether utility equipment may have failed as the deadly Eaton fire broke out on Jan. 7.
image.png.d5656f7b090f4f874cf6c71b8b0e4e05.png

About three seconds later, another major fault was registered near Altadena, according to Whisker Labs, which has a network of sensors installed in homes around the country that are collectively able to measure abnormal activity on the electrical grid. The two electrical disruptions along transmission lines were so powerful that they reverberated as far away as Oregon and Utah, across tens of thousands of sensors.

“We looked at this one — it was like, Holy cow,” said Bob Marshall, co-founder and chief executive of Whisker Labs. “This is a transmission-scale event. Any time something happens on the grid and we see a fault at exactly the same time on many, many sensors, then it is a fault on the utility grid.”

The faults at 6:10 p.m. and again at 6:11 p.m. coincided with two flashes in the vicinity of the transmission lines seen in a video captured by a camera at an Arco gas station in the moments before the Eaton fire began, followed by flames near the base of high-voltage transmission towers.

image.thumb.png.c402ab747873fe2e03c7e3fcb25cf4a2.png

Whisker Labs’ data, which does not provide conclusive evidence about how a wildfire began, could play a pivotal role in helping to determine the cause of the Eaton fire, which increasingly has focused on possible electrical failures on the transmission network in Eaton Canyon.

Combined with eyewitness accounts and cellphone video of fire raging beneath a set of three steel-lattice towers, the flashes in the gas station video have focused attention on a transmission line owned by Southern California Edison, the state’s second-largest investor-owned utility.

Edison has not conceded that its equipment caused the Eaton fire, but said it is conducting its own investigation. The utility has agreed to meet with Whisker Labs about the data as part of its review. The exact cause of the fire, which killed 17 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and businesses, remains under investigation, and a final determination could take many months.

Electrical equipment — transmission lines in particular — has been the source of some of the most devastating wildfires in California and across the country. Fires caused by utility equipment have increased the risk and economic vulnerability for power providers as extreme weather driven by climate change has challenged the nation’s aging electrical infrastructure.

In 2018, a live wire broke free from a 100-year-old transmission tower in high winds and sparked the Camp fire, which killed scores of people and destroyed the town of Paradise in Northern California. The Camp fire and a series of other blazes led California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, to file for bankruptcy in 2019 and to institute wildfire prevention measures as extreme weather conditions have become more persistent.

On the evening of Jan. 7, winds reached as high as 100 miles per hour across Southern California, downing trees and battering electrical poles, towers and lines.

The network at Whisker Labs, a technology company based in Germantown, Md., began measuring electrical problems at homes throughout the Los Angeles region using sensors, which help to predict and prevent residential fires.

But two stood out. A major fault on the electrical grid in the area of Altadena and Eaton Canyon caused a voltage drop one second before 6:11 p.m. and then another, in the area around Edison’s Gould and Goodrich substations, according to Whisker Labs.

Voltage drops registered prominently in the Altadena area and with a lesser magnitude in other places across Southern California. But the faults had been so substantial that their weakening pulses propagated in a matter of milliseconds across Whisker Labs’ western network — southeast to Phoenix; north to San Jose, Calif., and Portland, Ore.; east to Las Vegas; and northeast to Salt Lake City.

image.png.141fcfc0d4581aae0ee41eed83525acd.png

The magnitude of the two events suggested, according to Whisker Labs, that the faults were on the high-voltage transmission lines that carry electricity from facilities like power plants to substations. Low-voltage distribution lines, which deliver power from the electric grid to homes and businesses, experience faults more often during windy conditions, but they would not have the energy to send signals throughout the West.

When power lines touch one another, come into contact with poles or tree branches or become engulfed in smoke, they can produce flashes and sparks that can ignite nearby vegetation.

The two flashes in Eaton Canyon recorded on the gas station video at the same time as the two faults could depict the flash of energy that occurs during a fault as the disrupted electricity on the line seeks a place to go.

“All of that energy — that’s a lot of energy that went into that flash — it was enough energy that it actually lowered the voltage in nearly the entire western grid, which means it’s a lot,” Mr. Marshall said.

Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, a Portland, Ore.-based firm that conducted a review of Whisker Labs’ data and operation at the request of The Times, said the data lends further support to the possibility that utility equipment was involved in igniting the Eaton blaze.

“Everything that we’ve had,” Mr. McCullough said, “puts us at the same tower with the same relationships where we’re seeing unusual operations.”

In response to questions about disruptions on its system, Edison has said it registered a fault at 6:11 p.m. at its Gould substation, a facility about five miles away from what is believed to be the origin point of the fire. The utility later reported to state regulators that a preliminary analysis showed that as a result of the fault at the Gould substation, there was “a momentary and expected increase in current on SCE’s transmission system.”

But the company has given no indication that it registered a large, transmission-level disruption of the kind shown in the new data in relation to the Eaton fire.

The utility said it would meet with Whisker Labs representatives to review the findings.

“They approached us to discuss their data. We agreed to meet with them to review it because we will review all information available to us as part of our investigation,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison. “If anyone has any evidence that can help the authorities determine the cause, we implore them to immediately provide it to the investigators.”

Edison has said that it did measure a large fault on a transmission line related to a separate fire, the Hurst fire, north of Altadena. That power line, in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles County, fell to the ground, though it is unclear whether a power line caused the fire.

Whisker Labs’ sensors also detected that incident.

A finding that Edison’s electrical equipment caused the Eaton fire could have important implications for the victims of the Eaton fire, who are seeking compensation for their losses, and the future of one of the state’s major utility companies. More than a dozen lawyers have filed lawsuits against Edison, arguing that mounting evidence points to the utility’s equipment as the source of the fire that devastated the Altadena community.

“The fault data, the videos, the witness accounts all paint the same picture,” said Mikal C. Watts, a lawyer based in Austin, Texas, who is representing some of the wildfire victims.

Liability for the Eaton fire alone is expected to exceed $10 billion, which could strain Edison’s resources, insurance companies and even the state’s backup wildfire fund, which is designed to protect utilities against liability.

The threat that electrical equipment poses to life and property has led energy and safety experts to push for power lines to be buried underground and for wider use of technologies that can better detect problems on the grid.

“We can’t insure our way out of this problem,” said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University. “We have to reduce risk.”

 

I wonder if they'll end up doing stuff like they've done in Colorado during high wind events. They just cut power in high fire danger areas until the conditions clear.

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17 hours ago, bolverk said:

@Sbbruin @Foosters It's looking increasingly likely that the powerlines were at fault for the Eaton portion of the disaster, which many already assumed given the video of the fire. I'm sure you guys would like to move on and not dwell on this shit, so I'd completely understand if you don't feel like reading this. Just felt y'all would want the option of knowing.

Oh, also, there's an Austin-based lawyer and UT grad who's doing work for some of the victims, whose name is bolded near the bottom. Who knows? This guy might be one of the oodles of attorneys on this site, and the Surly collective could take down Big Electricity in the process.

worlds-collide.gif

Article spoilered to avoid longcatting the thread.

  Hide contents

New Data Shows Major Electrical Disruption Ahead of Eaton Fire

Moments before flames erupted below transmission towers near Altadena, Calif., high-voltage power lines faulted in the area, new sensor data shows, offering fresh clues about whether utility equipment may have failed as the deadly Eaton fire broke out on Jan. 7.
image.png.d5656f7b090f4f874cf6c71b8b0e4e05.png

About three seconds later, another major fault was registered near Altadena, according to Whisker Labs, which has a network of sensors installed in homes around the country that are collectively able to measure abnormal activity on the electrical grid. The two electrical disruptions along transmission lines were so powerful that they reverberated as far away as Oregon and Utah, across tens of thousands of sensors.

“We looked at this one — it was like, Holy cow,” said Bob Marshall, co-founder and chief executive of Whisker Labs. “This is a transmission-scale event. Any time something happens on the grid and we see a fault at exactly the same time on many, many sensors, then it is a fault on the utility grid.”

The faults at 6:10 p.m. and again at 6:11 p.m. coincided with two flashes in the vicinity of the transmission lines seen in a video captured by a camera at an Arco gas station in the moments before the Eaton fire began, followed by flames near the base of high-voltage transmission towers.

image.thumb.png.c402ab747873fe2e03c7e3fcb25cf4a2.png

Whisker Labs’ data, which does not provide conclusive evidence about how a wildfire began, could play a pivotal role in helping to determine the cause of the Eaton fire, which increasingly has focused on possible electrical failures on the transmission network in Eaton Canyon.

Combined with eyewitness accounts and cellphone video of fire raging beneath a set of three steel-lattice towers, the flashes in the gas station video have focused attention on a transmission line owned by Southern California Edison, the state’s second-largest investor-owned utility.

Edison has not conceded that its equipment caused the Eaton fire, but said it is conducting its own investigation. The utility has agreed to meet with Whisker Labs about the data as part of its review. The exact cause of the fire, which killed 17 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and businesses, remains under investigation, and a final determination could take many months.

Electrical equipment — transmission lines in particular — has been the source of some of the most devastating wildfires in California and across the country. Fires caused by utility equipment have increased the risk and economic vulnerability for power providers as extreme weather driven by climate change has challenged the nation’s aging electrical infrastructure.

In 2018, a live wire broke free from a 100-year-old transmission tower in high winds and sparked the Camp fire, which killed scores of people and destroyed the town of Paradise in Northern California. The Camp fire and a series of other blazes led California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, to file for bankruptcy in 2019 and to institute wildfire prevention measures as extreme weather conditions have become more persistent.

On the evening of Jan. 7, winds reached as high as 100 miles per hour across Southern California, downing trees and battering electrical poles, towers and lines.

The network at Whisker Labs, a technology company based in Germantown, Md., began measuring electrical problems at homes throughout the Los Angeles region using sensors, which help to predict and prevent residential fires.

But two stood out. A major fault on the electrical grid in the area of Altadena and Eaton Canyon caused a voltage drop one second before 6:11 p.m. and then another, in the area around Edison’s Gould and Goodrich substations, according to Whisker Labs.

Voltage drops registered prominently in the Altadena area and with a lesser magnitude in other places across Southern California. But the faults had been so substantial that their weakening pulses propagated in a matter of milliseconds across Whisker Labs’ western network — southeast to Phoenix; north to San Jose, Calif., and Portland, Ore.; east to Las Vegas; and northeast to Salt Lake City.

image.png.141fcfc0d4581aae0ee41eed83525acd.png

The magnitude of the two events suggested, according to Whisker Labs, that the faults were on the high-voltage transmission lines that carry electricity from facilities like power plants to substations. Low-voltage distribution lines, which deliver power from the electric grid to homes and businesses, experience faults more often during windy conditions, but they would not have the energy to send signals throughout the West.

When power lines touch one another, come into contact with poles or tree branches or become engulfed in smoke, they can produce flashes and sparks that can ignite nearby vegetation.

The two flashes in Eaton Canyon recorded on the gas station video at the same time as the two faults could depict the flash of energy that occurs during a fault as the disrupted electricity on the line seeks a place to go.

“All of that energy — that’s a lot of energy that went into that flash — it was enough energy that it actually lowered the voltage in nearly the entire western grid, which means it’s a lot,” Mr. Marshall said.

Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, a Portland, Ore.-based firm that conducted a review of Whisker Labs’ data and operation at the request of The Times, said the data lends further support to the possibility that utility equipment was involved in igniting the Eaton blaze.

“Everything that we’ve had,” Mr. McCullough said, “puts us at the same tower with the same relationships where we’re seeing unusual operations.”

In response to questions about disruptions on its system, Edison has said it registered a fault at 6:11 p.m. at its Gould substation, a facility about five miles away from what is believed to be the origin point of the fire. The utility later reported to state regulators that a preliminary analysis showed that as a result of the fault at the Gould substation, there was “a momentary and expected increase in current on SCE’s transmission system.”

But the company has given no indication that it registered a large, transmission-level disruption of the kind shown in the new data in relation to the Eaton fire.

The utility said it would meet with Whisker Labs representatives to review the findings.

“They approached us to discuss their data. We agreed to meet with them to review it because we will review all information available to us as part of our investigation,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison. “If anyone has any evidence that can help the authorities determine the cause, we implore them to immediately provide it to the investigators.”

Edison has said that it did measure a large fault on a transmission line related to a separate fire, the Hurst fire, north of Altadena. That power line, in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles County, fell to the ground, though it is unclear whether a power line caused the fire.

Whisker Labs’ sensors also detected that incident.

A finding that Edison’s electrical equipment caused the Eaton fire could have important implications for the victims of the Eaton fire, who are seeking compensation for their losses, and the future of one of the state’s major utility companies. More than a dozen lawyers have filed lawsuits against Edison, arguing that mounting evidence points to the utility’s equipment as the source of the fire that devastated the Altadena community.

“The fault data, the videos, the witness accounts all paint the same picture,” said Mikal C. Watts, a lawyer based in Austin, Texas, who is representing some of the wildfire victims.

Liability for the Eaton fire alone is expected to exceed $10 billion, which could strain Edison’s resources, insurance companies and even the state’s backup wildfire fund, which is designed to protect utilities against liability.

The threat that electrical equipment poses to life and property has led energy and safety experts to push for power lines to be buried underground and for wider use of technologies that can better detect problems on the grid.

“We can’t insure our way out of this problem,” said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University. “We have to reduce risk.”

 

It'd be interesting to see what USGS readings looked like at those same moments.  Would be fascinating if a shallow tremor hit right then and made the transmission 'burp'.  

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15 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

They started doing it the last year or so in the Denver area. People in the affected areas were pissed.

PG&E started ramping up with the major outages in Northern California after those bad 2018 fires. People were pissed, too, but to be fair, when the utilities are the causes of those major fires, it’s kind of a “fuck you” to the public to just shut their power off and pass on settlement fees through rate hikes instead of bothering to improve their infrastructure.

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5 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

I wonder if they'll end up doing stuff like they've done in Colorado during high wind events. They just cut power in high fire danger areas until the conditions clear.

IIRC - the Lahaina pwer company failed to do that in the tragic Hawaii fire. 
          Please correct me if I’m wrong.

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5 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

I wonder if they'll end up doing stuff like they've done in Colorado during high wind events. They just cut power in high fire danger areas until the conditions clear.

They were doing that in Altadena and Pasadena before the Eaton fire. My buddy brought a bunch of steaks over to put in my fridge as they cut power to his neighborhood hours before the wind really started to pick up. It's actually looking like the power was inadvertently left on in some regions. I read a story about a couple in North Altadena who were told to expect that their power would be cut. They were surprised to see it still on when the winds hit. Like an hour later there was some sort of explosion of sparks right at the base of a tower in the mountains near their home.

Edit: pretty sure @Sbbruin had his cut prior to the fires 

Edited by Foosters
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3 hours ago, Foosters said:

They were doing that in Altadena and Pasadena before the Eaton fire. My buddy brought a bunch of steaks over to put in my fridge as they cut power to his neighborhood hours before the wind really started to pick up. It's actually looking like the power was inadvertently left on in some regions. I read a story about a couple in North Altadena who were told to expect that their power would be cut. They were surprised to see it still on when the winds hit. Like an hour later there was some sort of explosion of sparks right at the base of a tower in the mountains near their home.

Edit: pretty sure @Sbbruin had his cut prior to the fires 

I got a notice from Edison a couple of hours before the fire that they were cutting power to the area.  I booked a hotel for my wife and daughter and I was just planning on staying in the dark with candles and flashlights.  Thank god I booked the room because when we bolted, we had a place to go to.

8 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

You becoming Armybrat?

season 13 GIF

Aren’t we all headed there?

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Ordering all the dams be opened without any plan or warning is really gonna fuck things up for this season. Get ready for more expensive nuts and produce 

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-31/trump-california-dams-opened-up

From the article:

“I don’t know where this water is going, but this is the wrong time of year to be releasing water from these reservoirs. It’s vitally important that we fill our reservoirs in the rainy season so water is available for farms and cities later in the summer,” Gleick said. “I think it’s very strange and it’s disturbing that, after decades of careful local, state and federal coordination, some federal agencies are starting to unilaterally manipulate California’s water supply.”

Vink agreed, saying that given how dry it has been in the region this winter, there was no need to make such a release. In fact, he said, farmers were counting on that water to be available for summer irrigation.

“This is going to hurt farmers,” Vink said. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.”

Edited by Captainant
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