Griffith Park, Interrupted

Or, How Councilman Tom LaBonge Makes Every Fire a Photo Op. I mean, really, he looked like he’d been lugging the hoses himself the other night, didn’t he? Our councilman, also our fireman. Well, almost!

I got this VERY last minute notice of a meeting tonight, in my comments:

From: “LaBonge News”
Date: August 18, 2008 4:39:35 PM PDT
Subject: Griffith Park Fires Special Meeting

Good Afternoon:

Please join Councilmember LaBonge, Los Angeles fire officials and Griffith Park Rangers tomorrow evening to hear about the suspicious fires in Griffith Park over the weekend. They will present a brief update on the investigation and answer any questions you may have.

Please join us at:

DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 2008
TIME: 6:00 - 7:00 PM
LOCATION: Griffith Park Visitors Center, 4730 Crystal Springs Drive

If you cannot attend, please remember to call 9-1-1 if you see any suspicious activity that you believe may be related to the recent fires. Do not attempt to intervene.

Thank you in advance for your support and cooperation.

I also appreciate the important info Kristin Sabo included in her comment:

I had a good view again of this Saturday’s fire and I hold to my views on cause as well as the excellent LAFD, LA Co FD, and Park Ranger response.

So rather than freaking out about the cause, let’s all be extra vigilant — if you see anyone doing ANYTHING suspicious, call the Park Rangers dispatch immediately since they’re in the park already: 323-644-6661

See you tonight, fellow detectives!

This is the 3rd fire in Griffith Park near the zoo, in a month. And now arson is suspected, writes Channel2. There is nothing in the LAFD blog yet about it.

Firefighters say they have detected as many as five separate ignition points as they battle a series of brush fires in Griffith Park Saturday, the third likely arson incident near the Los Angeles Zoo in three weeks.

Note that the alert Kristin Sabo, who is caretaker of Amir’s Garden in the park, suspected arson on July 29, in my comments. This was the day of the first fire, and she said as much to Officer Humphreys of the LAFD:

I assume the arson unit is working on this fire. From my excellent vantage point at the Garden, the ignition point was in a location that pretty much screams “arson”. That makes me very nervous…

The Channel 2 news reports what I asked Officer Humphreys about 2 weeks ago, although I haven’t heard back from him yet:

No cause was ever announced for that fire, or for another small fire that burned 3-5 acres on Aug. 5.

I have pictures of the water helicopter here.

The LAFD is at it again, and Silver Lake is there to help. No, I don’t have the LAFD blog bookmarked, but I live on the crest of the hill, so the water helicopters fly right over on their way to the lake, uncomfortably close, and so that’s a heads up to me. (Fortunately they’re good fliers, and don’t clip our building.)

Helicopter lowers stinger into Silver Lake to pick up water.

This is the third day this month that the LAFD has used Silver Lake as a source of water for several wildfires, all near the zoo. I’ve lost count at the number of helicopter water pick ups today, but it’s at least 15 as I write this.

It only takes about one or 2 minutes for the heli to load up with water!

The first fire in Griffith Park this summer, near the zoo, was on July 27, and I asked Officer Humphreys at the time if they had used Silver Lake for water, as they were flying overhead constantly. He said no at first, but conscientiously followed up a couple of days later and said, yes, they did indeed use it. They also used it for the 2nd Griffith Park fire on Aug 5, and then today for the fires, suspected to be arson.

It’s pretty smoggy today - almost like Beijing! - so the pictures are smoggy as well - but I think you can see the helicopter as it dips the stinger in the water and slurps it up to go fight another fire. As I wrote last month:

…once a helicopter picks up all that heavy water it has to drop down after it flies up, and so for that reason, they can’t hold as much water picked up from a heliport, [as it can from Silver Lake] since it can’t exactly drop down over the school and houses…

This is why it’s so so important for Silver Lake to remain an open body of water, as I wrote in May, when I interviewed several LAFD Captains about this issue. (DWP replaced the water in Silver Lake within a week of me writing that.)

Unfortunately, Ivanhoe is now a sloshing pit of black leaching plastic balls, which are highly flammable, so that is closed as a source of emergency water. And we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed that the wall that separates Ivanhoe and Silver Lake doesn’t break, like in an EARTHQUAKE, God forbid, because then we’d have NO usable emergency water, as the balls flood over to the Silver Lake side. (H. David Nahai lives in Benedict Canyon, so thank goodness he’ll be spared any such emergency, and can continue status quo as the leading LADWP leader.)

Helicopter loaded down with precious water over a very smoggy Glendale. It’s at the top near the branch of the tree.

This black mass in Silver Lake is millions of bird balls, made with big oil, from Exxon or Mobil. Hundreds of thousands of LA residents will drink this water.

Black bird balls fill Ivanhoe Reservoir; only one corner of clear open water remains, until they get more bags. These are untested HDPE plastic balls, cooking in the sun. They are unrecycled plastic, and 95% of this plastic is never recycled after use, either.

LA DWP filled Ivanhoe Reservoir in Silver Lake with plastic balls which have NOT been tested properly. The LADWP has lied about this. These bird balls will leach in the water for at least 4 years.

These plastic balls cost the city of LA one million dollars.

In the very top of this photo you can see a swimming grebe and 3 seagulls. They only have a few inches of water, but on this hot hot day, they are willing to share. They will soon have not even one inch of water.

LA Observed found a fascinating article in the Ventura County Star today.

Firefighters are monitoring a patch of land north of Fillmore where the ground climbed to 812 degrees on Friday for unknown reasons.

Possible theories include that natural hydrocarbons such as oil or gas are burning deep in the earth. But nobody knows for sure what might have ignited the materials.

Let’s see, it’s 812 degrees underground, and could be as deep as 100 feet. There are wisps of smoke coming from cracks in the ground. Hmm, what could this possibly be? It doesn’t take a cartoonist to figure out it’s obviously a portal to hell. /raises hand excitedly, proud watcher of Reaper, best show on TV.

Man with bad back complains in hell

.

I mean really, they have NO explanation at all for this. So funny how they write about it, all deadpan-like, even though the science is vague.

But I’ll tell you who wouldn’t be ashamed to talk about hell: Canadians. (Where Reaper is filmed, btw.) I’ve been following the story of Vince Weiguang Li, who stabbed Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus in Canada. From CNN:

Witnesses on the bus said McLean had been sleeping with his head leaning against the window when the attack happened.

Colwell said there was no immediate indication of what prompted the attack. He said he didn’t know how many times the victim was stabbed. Witnesses described the weapon as a large butcher-type knife.Colwell praised the “extraordinary” calmness and bravery of the bus driver and passengers.

Bravery? I don’t think so, Colwell. So 37 passengers are helpless against this man, hearing and seeing him kill someone? Calm because they were in shock, perhaps. However, that didn’t last long, because then they trampled others running up the bus aisle, including at least one woman on the floor.

Here’s a full report with all the details. (Warning: GRAPHIC DETAILS.) Keep Reading »

Ever wonder why water in bottles has an expiration date? It’s the plastic. It does bad things as it dissolves. Heard John and Ken talking about it this afternoon, while discussing emergency earthquake supplies. Not only do you have to keep checking the batteries and canned goods - should you go the nervous ant-like way of even having earthquake supplies - and I’m not saying which way I roll, cause maybe I’m a selfish ant - you gotta keep changing the water, too.

Of course, this doesn’t concern the DWP, or the City of LA, or H. David Nahai, or Mayor V., as proven by the tons of HDPE plastic bird balls they keep dumping in our Ivanhoe Reservoir drinking water. DWP has promised they will only stay in the water for 4 years. Okay, for 5 years, in some reports. Plastic for all!

From treehugger.com. Sad.

I just checked the water I’m drinking now. All my water is bottled, and although I enjoy trying different brands of water, I can taste very very well, and prefer distilled water most of the time. (I can even taste differences in that!) I enjoy Whole Foods 365 Brand in a lot of foods, including their water. My bottle of distilled water - with no minerals, as pure as you can get- has an expiration date of June 9, 2010. (my birthday!) So the bird balls baking in the sun in a reservoir for several hundred thousand people, today and every other day, - which is apparently, SUNNY. Again.- are supposed to last at least 2 years longer than my distilled water bottle?

As I reported here several times, these plastic bird balls have NOT been tested by the only water-approved lab in the country, NSF, for anything besides 17 days in water at a temperature of 73.4 degrees. What does the LA County Health Department have to say about this? We shall find out.

Speaking of plastic, a subject I never get tired of, very happy to see LA has banned plastic bags. Treehugger says:

This new vote by the LA City Council is likely to engender vigorous opposition from the plastic bag industry, represented by the creatively named Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, which has already filed a lawsuit challenging a LA County measure to lower plastic bag use 30% by 2010.

David Lazarus, in the LA Times, wrote such a pathetically ridiculous take on this important environmental issue that I think I may have cackled. Lazarus quotes Eric Gutierrez and Elicia Ortiz, whose environmental expertise and objectivity are not at all influenced by the fact that THEY WORK FOR A PLASTIC BAG FACTORY. Lazarus writes:

[Ortiz says] “I’m a single mom,” she said. “Everyone who is against plastic bags should consider all the people who depend on this for a living.”

That’s certainly one aspect of the issue that merits more attention.

Lazarus probably gives money to the homeless, too. But before I got a chance to write this, LA Observed points out Spouting Off, by the President of Heal the Bay, who beat me to the punch:

The whole piece took the side of the plastic industry, which argues that bags are harmless and that banning them will cost the public money and cause people to lose jobs. There was little mention of impacts to the marine environment, let alone the economic impacts of disposal, recycling and clean-up.

Clearly, the article’s premise is preposterous. Personally, I’m more than a little peeved because I spent a half hour talking to the guy and I shot down every myth he trotted out. No mention of HtB, nor a direct quote from me.

David Lazarus, meet H. David Nahai. I think you guys would hit it off.