LA Fires: Pompeii Moment
Not a surprise party
When Vesuvius, the volcano located in Naples, Italy, erupted in 79 CE killing thousands, it was but the latest of many eruptions, each one a reminder to residents that they lived on the edge of a knife.
But the views and the breezes were great and oh, the sunsets!
Perhaps luckily for Pompeii firefighters, they were all killed in the ensuing blast when the fiery plume soared 21 miles above the landscape, thus sparing them from the idiotic criticism which surely would have followed.
But no such luck in the Los Angeles basin where firefighters, faced with a cataclysm, endure withering criticism and absurd expectations from rascally politicians looking for an out.
The United States, and indeed the world, does firefighting on the cheap. Most fire protection, such as it is, is provided by volunteers and even in urban/suburban areas fire departments are organized, staffed and deployed to successfully control a fire if they reach the scene in less than eight minutes and can employ aggressive and offensive tactics.
Each complicating factor — delayed notification, weather conditions, closest units unavailable, more than one fire — has a predictable synergistic effect on the growth of the fire and the likelihood it will spread to other areas.
Once this occurs, firefighters are forced onto the defensive and the truly frail nature of fire protection becomes apparent.
The ensuing great conflagration, whether in Chicago, Boston, New York — or LA, will run riot until fuel is no longer available because of scarcity or the intervention of favorable conditions such as weather or geography.
LA firefighters are engaged in their version of the Battle of the Bulge where a normal screen of forces are overrun by an overwhelming enemy — an aggressive and offensive response is not possible and the wise action is to give way while amassing resources to wage a counterattack on favorable terrain.
Politicians never have — and never will — staff fire departments to respond to an LA sized conflagration.
Indeed, they allow the adoption of zoning laws and building codes which set the stage for catastrophic fires and then point the finger at the hapless heroes left to sort out the mess.
