08-14-2023, 08:55 PM
If we can round up to 100 now and they are just starting to go through the structures I can see that number doubling or tripling easily. I hope not.
A controversial observation: As with the Paradise CA fire it seems that the houses burn preferentially. In many cases you can see where houses burned downwind from burned-over fields but in many cases burned houses are downwind of unburned houses and trees/green areas are adjacent to burned areas. This observation was made for the CA fires too. I suppose this should not be surprising since we build houses to keep the rain out so they are nice and dry inside. This has a faint flavor of victim-shaming which is to be avoided. After all the place never burned like this before in 200 years. However if this is a real phenomenon it has something to tell us.
After the CA fires I read a few articles about propagation of fires and it is the snowstorm of tiny embers that has to be defended against. Every facet of the house construction must be addressed. Many of the houses I have lived in during my decades living in Hawaii would have been sitting ducks.
If there was an earthquake in asia or the west coast there would be a discrete triggering event and hours of warning. Even an earthquake on the Big Island would have the same definitive trigger and calculated arrival time even if only minutes. In this case with winds gusting 70mph and brushfires being fairly common, to go from "contained brushfire" to "sound the sirens" would take literally seconds.
A controversial observation: As with the Paradise CA fire it seems that the houses burn preferentially. In many cases you can see where houses burned downwind from burned-over fields but in many cases burned houses are downwind of unburned houses and trees/green areas are adjacent to burned areas. This observation was made for the CA fires too. I suppose this should not be surprising since we build houses to keep the rain out so they are nice and dry inside. This has a faint flavor of victim-shaming which is to be avoided. After all the place never burned like this before in 200 years. However if this is a real phenomenon it has something to tell us.
After the CA fires I read a few articles about propagation of fires and it is the snowstorm of tiny embers that has to be defended against. Every facet of the house construction must be addressed. Many of the houses I have lived in during my decades living in Hawaii would have been sitting ducks.
If there was an earthquake in asia or the west coast there would be a discrete triggering event and hours of warning. Even an earthquake on the Big Island would have the same definitive trigger and calculated arrival time even if only minutes. In this case with winds gusting 70mph and brushfires being fairly common, to go from "contained brushfire" to "sound the sirens" would take literally seconds.