Because the catastrophic fires proceed to burn in Los Angeles, an interesting documentary of the 1961 Bel Air hearth has resurfaced, and it is as if it have been speaking (and warning us) about at this time’s Palisades and Eaton Canyon fires.
Solely, not like at this time’s “specialists,” the narrator of Design for Catastrophe: The Story of the Bel Air Conflagration 1962 explains the risks of residing within the flammable hills of LA — particularly perilous when the Santa Ana winds hit — with old style information, moderately than modern-day misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Essentially the most eye-opening second within the 27-minute movie, which was produced by the Los Angeles Hearth Division greater than 60 years in the past, was the phase about dry hearth hydrants. “Even in makes an attempt to save lots of particular person properties, firemen are additional thwarted by the lack of water. How can a contemporary water system correctly designed to fulfill emergency hearth situations fail to perform?” the narrator asks. He then goes on to elucidate.
“When hundreds of shops are opened beneath the hill, water strain is misplaced within the overtaxed important, whatever the quantity of water above the homes,” he says. “When the water provide comes from a distant location and provide pipes useless ends on the hill, pointless use of too many shops beneath the hearth space merely drains the water out of the higher system. …”
The movie will get its title from a 1959 survey of Los Angeles topography that warned of us of the Bel Air hearth — which destroyed 484 properties, together with these of Dennis Hopper, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Burt Lancaster — two years earlier than it occurred.
“In 1959, specialists from the Nationwide Safety Affiliation surveyed parts of Los Angeles. They discovered a mountain vary throughout the metropolis, flamable roof homes carefully spaced in brush-covered canyons and ridges, serviced by slim roads. They known as it ‘The Design for Catastrophe,'” the Rod Serling-style narrator says. “They predicted the Bel Air hearth, plus others which can be certain to return. Until residents and metropolis officers work collectively on a particular plan of fireplace protection, the prediction was nothing new to firemen.”
Sadly, historical past repeats itself till classes might be realized. Let’s hope the politicians and others in cost lastly watch this documentary and pay attention, for as soon as, to what the firefighters know greatest. You possibly can watch Design for Catastrophe right here or beneath.
Beforehand: Republicans blame Los Angeles wildfires on their favourite points