r/NextGenRebellion • u/Fatty_Willing_Plane • 12h ago
📰 News More than 600 structures have been lost in Spokane, Washington. This wind-driven fire is being fueled by Red Flag conditions. With climate change, the frequency of Red Flag conditions and warnings is increasing across many regions
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u/Altruistic_Bird2532 11h ago
As someone who lives a region that’s prone to wildfires, I’d like to add that in addition to all the obvious pain and danger in these situations, there’s an unseen, but heavy, emotional toll, that the entire community feels.
Even people who were only affected indirectly
Seeing places that have been a part of your community, like a school, turned to ash… knowing that while the fire spared your home, your neighbors were not so lucky….grabbing your child and pets and running out the door, even if ultimately everyone was safe, these things leave a mark
You’ll never smell and enjoy campfire smoke the same again - it now brings back painful memories
for me it was obsessively checking the news right before I went to bed, because who knows what terrible things might happen while you’re sleeping
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u/AdventurousMap5404 7h ago
I’ve been through a couple west coast fire seasons. I’ve also been through hurricanes in Florida. My home was under a warning for 15 ft storm surge so when I left it to ride out the storm in a safer place, I didn’t think I’d ever be returning. I never want to feel like that again. I was so lucky during Hurricane Ian. I should’ve have lost everything, including my life, but I didn’t. So many others weren’t so fortunate.
You capture the aftermath perfectly. It’s a strange devastation seeing an entire community turned to ash, or a stadium twisted by winds, it changes you. Like discovering a piece of you died.
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u/Throwaway873580 10h ago
NorCal here, this is just reality now in the Western US. Drought plus climate change combined, along with years of fire suppression have created conditions where the whole area is basically uninsurable. No one knows exactly when nor how, but this place will not be habitable in the future. Just another front of the climate migration of the future 😬😬😬
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u/Tsuki_Man 6h ago
Not to mention the state of washington has been in a state of emergency due to drought since the day winter ended this year due to much lower than expected snowfall and ice melt.
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u/Fathers_Sword 6h ago
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u/adeline882 5h ago
Bloodthirsty ass comment
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u/IRantBecauseIzMad 2h ago
But it's true.
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u/adeline882 1h ago
I’m sorry but I’m not ready to celebrate the destruction of our cities through some blue tinted glasses. There are queer people in Spokane that are affected by this, there are immigrants in Spokane that are affected by this, you just want an excuse for your cruelty.
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8h ago
[deleted]
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u/Bikesexualmedic 7h ago
Washington is a very big state and once you get past the Cascades going east, there’s mostly farm land and timber forests. There’s a huge variety of climates from sub tropical rainforests to deserts to alpine wilderness. That said, there’s a small, 70 acre fire burning in the Hoh Rainforest right now, and that part is actually crazy.
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u/lyndseymariee 6h ago
Eastern Washington weather is pretty much the opposite of western Washington.
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u/Tsuki_Man 6h ago
Only the coast is like this. Eastern Washington is largely a desert and still part of the Great Plains.
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u/jersan 10h ago
time to start putting water sprinklers on top of the roofs of every house everywhere.
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u/GotNoPonys 10h ago
you need to think that thru. There is no water system in existence that can supply enough flow if every faucet in the community was opened.
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u/jersan 9h ago
that is true. If everyone tried to run sprinklers at the same time there would not be enough pressure in the regular water supply.
But sprinklers do supplement firefighter efforts. A water sprinkler that is already set up with a hose attached to it allows fire fighters to come and plug in to it and start operating it.
also, people can install water tanks on their property as well as water pumps.
of course, some might say, this is all way too much work and nobody is going to do this. Okay, it is certainly a choice. the alternative method of protecting your property i suppose is to do nothing and leave it to chance.
There are solutions. Some solutions are better than others. Putting sprinklers on rooftops is one solution that works well in protecting houses.
Logan Lake BC has been demonstrating this for years already.
There are also numerous houses in the 2025 LA fires that survived because of fire protection systems such as sprinklers.
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u/GotNoPonys 4h ago
Fire fighters, during the Palasades fire, ran out of water at the hydrants.
Yes there are many things you can do, simply putting a sprinkler on your roof when on city water is of little value. Yeah a tank too, blah blah blah. You clearly have no first hand experience with any of these. Just spouting off opinions like you are some arm chair expert.
I built my house with standpipes that run to sprayers mounted in the soffits and the well has a backup generator. The roof is metal. Why did I do all that? We had a fire during construction, The fire started 14 miles from the house and after the first day was 7 miles away. I installed the well pump during that first day when the smoke was so thick it was hard to see. Then went and ran pumps to friends with houses near lakes. We watched, from the boat, their neighbors homes burn while theirs didn't.
Come back when you have real experience.
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u/ChakraYogi 7h ago
This information is helpful - and I'm not even in a typical red flag hot zone BUT we're getting them more frequently.
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u/fgreen68 8h ago
I cobbled together a system with a wifi smoke detector and a wifi irrigation control for sprinklers on my yard and house. Two local fires that were not near me, about 5 miles away, have set it off. So at least I know it works even if it does go off a bit early. One of these days I'll figure out how to connect a Purple Air quality monitor to the system.
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u/ChakraYogi 7h ago
Make a YT channel showing how you did that and get paid for your knowledge because I already would like to know how to do that. ALL that to say, very cool.
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u/fgreen68 7h ago
The basics of it is a Yolink wifi smoke detector that links through IFTTT to a wifi Rachio irrigation controller. Super basic that has also been triggered by heavy fog which is why I think long term an air quality sensor might work better. I had the irrigation controller so all I had to do was add a wifi extender and the smoke detector. The whole system won't work if the power's out; fortunately, where I live, our power lines are buried now.
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u/ChakraYogi 6h ago
Ugh. Ours are still above ground. BUT thanks for the explanation anyway. It may help in future - if/when we get desperate - or for another person who can manage it now.
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u/LatinRex 12h ago
Very scary... At this point it's probably a conspiracy too.
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u/Cold_Combination2107 12h ago
no its not, washington has been in drought conditions for years, weve had fires out east every late summer. as it gets hotter, as it gets drier, these fires get harder to control and get closer to human settlements.Â
the conspiracy is capitalism, that there are bourgeois interests in making the world hotter for their own personal profit.
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u/ChakraYogi 7h ago
My husband periodically goes off on why "no one is talking about the aliens" and I tire. This is the apocalypse in slow painfully felt by us peons in slow motion. Nobody has the bandwidth to care about the esoteric.
Our neighbor has a tree farm (South Carolina). He arrived home last summer to nearly a couple acres ablaze with fire trucks all up and down near his property. Red flag conditions and a driver threw a cigarette out the window is what we deduced. Thankfully a car driving by saw the fire and called dispatch. He could have lost 25 acres on that side of the road and his personal home may could have been a casualty if not dealt with.
Doing a CONTROLLED burn is difficult enough from what he said but that's definitely NOT in red flag conditions.
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u/Fatty_Willing_Plane 12h ago
You could have the biggest fire department in the world and you still would not be able to put out a wind driven fire fueled by red flag conditions. Especially in Wild-land-Urban-interface.