Eaton Fire in Pasadena, California

[Mark Sedenquist]

Actually, what burns in a wildfire is much more about luck than anything. When I left my yard in 1993 during the Altadena Fire, the roof on the house across the street was on fire --with ten-foot flames shooting out under the tile -- 95% of the house didn't burn -- while every other house on the street--including mine--was burned to the ground.

At my sister's house, houses on all sides of her house were destroyed -- her house has some heat damage -- but it survived.

Sometimes, houses were saved because of goal-line stands by fire fighters and/or residents, but fire is much more fickle than you might think.

Mark

[AZBuck]

There has just been an evacuation warning issued for the area around the Palisades fire. Rain is turning the burned out forest land to mud and holds the potential for major landslides.

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

And a similar story in the Altadena area.

The other side of the storms are the mudflows in the fire areas. Look at this video from the outflow side of the Sierra Madre Dam in southern California!

When you look at the link above, set the playback at 12 hours -- in the lower right. Most of the night, it is just rain, but it gets light at about 5:30 am and it is just water streaming, but by about 11:30 am, the water turns to a muddy water flow.

Bummer, the camera lost power at 1:54 PM.

Mark

[Southwest Dave]

Here you can see the debris piling up overnight into this morning, and where it has spilled over the top causing some damage to the railing.



Watching some of the latest news stories about the havoc the floods and mud slides are causing. Not good!

Dave

[Mark Sedenquist]

What you can't see from the photo above is that the debris from the last 24 hours filled up an area more than 160 feet deep by about 150 feet wide.


This was taken on January 29th and before the rains came it was about 50 feet deeper!
Photo courtesy of PasadenaNow.com and Jules Hotz for CalMatters

The huge hole filled up with debris and mud at about Noon yesterday.

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This is the same place, but on February 27th at Noon. Look at how much dirt they need to remove!


Sierra Madre Dam, upstream

Now, they are making some progress!

About 1:13 pm on the 27th. Heavy Ops going on.

Starting to pull that heavy dirt/mud away from the face of the dam!

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Lots of progress so far today

February 28th at 9:55 am PST

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Getting ready for another rain, I guess.

March 1st at Noon.

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Another rain storm is due this week.

Most of the heavy equipment is pulled back out of the reach of any storm water.

But that one digger has been clearing a smooth channel for storm water.


March 5th at 11:30 am PST

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Break in the rain and the men are working hard to remove more mud and dirt

March 6th at 8:30 am

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Starting to load trucks again and moving more dirt

March 6th at 12:20 pm
***Actually, it is supposed to start raining again here in a hour or two. I don't think I would leave that equipment sitting there, but I guess they are tempting the "flash-flood-gods" to see if anything untoward happens.

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The excavator has been moved to high ground. Good idea.
Here is a view of the bottom of the dam -- muddy water, but not much else.

March 6th at 1:53 pm

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Getting serious about getting truckloads out of the dam

March 7th at 08:14 am pst

Mark

[Southwest Dave]

They have made good progress in a short amount of time. I wish we had teams like this in the UK to get on with road projects and repairs! We would likely have one small digger and a team of 6 people hovering around telling the operator how to do it safely. Lol

Dave

[Mark Sedenquist]

Work continues as the rain has gone for a couple of days.


March 8th at 2:25 pm PST

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Men-at-work continues

March 10h at 8:40 am PDT

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Maybe this is the new level for the time being?

March 10th at 3:54 pm PDT

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They moved the camera over a tad so can see more of the dam.

March 11th at 9:53 am PDT

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Opening the channels so water--and less mud--- is able to flow by

March 13th at 10 am PDT