Entire neighborhoods destroyed... but less on the margins. I'm curious if the homes up against the hills had better WUI preparation vs. homes 3 blocks in (where you'd imagine you have "no risk" if you didn't know this happened). i.e. if you can see the threat on the hill, you're going to put mesh on all your vents, clear flammables away from your eaves, etc. While if you're 3 blocks away you'd think "oh, it's not going to reach here, we're 3 blocks from the hill. 🤔
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MsMerope
In response to this post@ai6yr was this a wind blown area? like, did the hill act as a wind break at all? and the wind blew the embers over those houses and and further down hill?
@MsMerope Possible
by AI6YR Ben ;
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AI6YR Ben
In response to this postYou can see the nitty gritty detail of exactly how much of these neighborhoods were destroyed, thank to the NOAA's Geodetic Survey -- looks like Maxar did some flyovers here https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/2025_eri/index.html#17.38/34.053132/-118.520266 #EatonFire #PalisadesFire
**enough detail to tell that building is destroyed, but not enough that it violates the advice from a friend here to "not go digging through resolution imagery too closely" (although i think in this case, incinerated people are much harder to find than hurricane victims... which I have found a few on that site.)
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Douglas
In response to this post@ai6yr I was wondering if the fire changed from a regular wildfire into a fire storm after passing over the first row of houses.
Your theory about less preparation tracks with what I saw in the upper Altadena area just before the pandemic the last time I was there. Lush, thick landscaping and mature trees all over. Not much or any setback. Didn't think to look for vent screens and such though at the time.
@douglasvb Yeah, as soon as the first few houses catch I imagine it turns from a brush fire to a house-forest fire.
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Heliograph
In response to this post@ai6yr these images are shattering 😱😞
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Darwin Woodka
In response to this post@ai6yr we back onto a hill and have our vents screened (redid the whole attic and screened vents when we did that) Have fire resistant roofing and solar panels. I have no illusions of the house surviving a wildfire and would GTFO if need to. It's just not built to withstand one.
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CJ Moose ⚒️🌋🦉🍻⛺
In response to this post@ai6yr Could be that those houses benefitted from the earliest firefighting efforts in that area, being closest to the hill. Could be that retardant drops doused flames near those homes while ember cast from higher up the mountain blew right on over them and deeper into the neighborhood.
@cjmoose No retardant drops there, those are the first neighborhoods that caught fire. But the ember cast theory makes sense, perhaps the embers went OVER them and then it was game over in the neighborhoods below.
by AI6YR Ben ;
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Cavedale Rhônes
In response to this post@ai6yr I’m going to go with radiant heat. Before we learned about the 0-5 foot area around houses that collect embers, the gold standard was 30 feet (10 meters) of clearance from the house to large groups of shrubs. You can find videos of the tests online that show that a wood sided building can resist significant radiant heat from 30 feet.
The houses in the center look like they are closer than 30 feet, plus they probably have shrubs and wooden fences separating them for privacy. So if one goes up due to embers, the surrounding ones would be well within the 30 foot zone and could ignite from the radiant heat.
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