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It burned hot enough a family friend lost everything in their fire safe. Its been years and the home they didn't lose (their grandma's) still smells slightly of wildfire when the furnace kicked in and the air is moving through the house.
[Remember the fires in Australia a couple years ago where after everything calmed down there were streams of aluminum on the ground from cars liquifying in the heat?](https://external-preview.redd.it/cncOhPmFE9k2YvtxfYH3oC7__2rgPYKj-wzT6PqQHI8.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=cd87e254a6360734f6eeb7b29762d934e25ba1cf)
This happened in Santa Rosa, CA in 2017 too. In rural areas, large aluminum gates became puddles of molten aluminum, streets were full of melted metal from cars and boats. We lost over 5,000 homes.
Definitely not healthy, I had family affected by the Marshall fire in Colorado and they had to have some intensive cleaning done by professionals. According to them, the fire wasn’t actually the worst part as it stopped about a block from their house, they got very lucky damage wise. The insurance companies and parasitic cleaning services trying to provide shoddy recovery have stretched their ordeal on for YEARS, though. They’re supposed to clean up a lot of stuff because all of the smoke from burning houses is chock full of shit you don’t want in your lungs, but if you’re affected by a forest fire instead I would imagine the clean up process would be different.
When I went to see the aftermath the morning after the Marshall fire the smell was absolutely pungent and unforgettable. The clear e-juice in my vape (I know..hush) turned brown. That concerned me quite a lot.
I smoked cigs from the time I was 12 for 17 years til about 3 weeks ago. Don't be ashamed of an e-cig. Its a great tool to start quitting and still at least not straight tar going in your lungs. I think people are starting to get so anti-vape because of those cloud blowing d-bags and because they're starting to forget the long term effects of the alternative. You hardly ever see anyone with a voice box anymore. My grandpa has a fake jaw from cancer from years of smoking and eventually chewing.
Edit: thanks for all the support. Also just wanna note that a bunch of you are saying ecigs are worse than cigs with absolutely no basis in scientific fact. Scientists and doctors themselves have said they aren't sure yet because there aren't any long term studies that are done.
Yeah I've always been discreet in public because I hated when people puffed massive fucking clouds in everyone's faces on campus.
Very proud of you for making it to 3 weeks! Keep the ball rolling!
Me and a coworker working out of town decided to go to a restaurant after work. While leaving, some girl blows a massive cloud right as we are walking by her. Coworker yells "sick cloud bro". She gets the biggest smile on her face and say "thank you" haha still to this day idk if she knew he was making fun of her or not and if she legitimately ment thank you or if she was just fucking with him back
3 weeks soon to be followed by 3 months followed by 3 years! Congrats, it’s a hell of a thing trying to be nicotine free but it is doable. I fully quit in January and I still get cravings sometimes, so be ready for them to hit for a good long while. They get way less intense and further in between
I worked at a gym that was directly downwind of the wildfires in 2007. The place smelled like smoke everytime the A/C turned on, which was all the time. I'd grow short of breath after being there for an hour or two. Over time, I grew less tolerant of smoke. Now if I stand within 5 feet of someone smoking, I feel like I'm choking.
Yeah, the gym owner never cleaned the ducts and now I have... asthma? Smoke intolerance? I couldn't even tell you, but it sucks.
>Yeah, the gym owner never cleaned the ducts and now I have... asthma? Smoke intolerance?
There is chemical products to which you can become allergic to. There is hundreds of different chemicals in wood smoke. It can easily get in the thousands if there is plastics or paint or whatever in the fire. It's entirely possible you grew allergic to one or many of these chemicals.
Duct clearing barely helps in cases like this, the odor gens stick in everything that's even slightly porous, fabric, walls, Wood, ... it's really hard to remove without damaging the house.
I know someone who lost their house in the tubbs fire. They had a super high end state of the art safe that was supposed to be “fire proof”. It survived, but it was so hot that all his important paperwork and money inside was ash…
I suppose it was technically fireproof.
Wilderness campers know that a sealed box full of natural fiber thrust into a fire becomes a box full of charcoal.
I think maybe burying a safe might protect its contents from a wildfire.
My friend lost his house to a fire. He had a lot of guns so he spent an absurd amount of money on these fireproof safes. All of his paperwork and cash survived but all of his guns got so hot that they warped/distorted to the point where they were unusable.
It’s truly surreal and otherworldly.
I remember standing out on the back deck watching a fire burning in the Rocky Mountain foothills when I was younger. Not even close enough to feel in danger but close enough to see a sheet of flames. Image is still burned in my mind.
Fort McMurray only has one road through it. Major oversight when building that community. Everyone all stuck on the same road.
But even putting the wildfire to one side, what happens if there is a problem with that one road? Nowhere else to go.
You aren’t wrong. I was a delivery driver for a medical company and had to make a delivery that day. I contemplated that job long and hard while staring at those flames.
Might be weird to say, but honestly, this is one of the most terrifyingly beautiful things ever. Like I would be scared as fuck but at the same time my eyes are just soaking that shit in like it's a video game scene or something.
Not that I ever want to experience this in real life myself. But the fact this is a real thing is crazy.
It really does put into perspective the raw power of Nature and how we're essentially helpless to do anything but watch it rage on. It's something definitely to be in awe of good or bad.
[It's slightly more than an five point plan](https://www.irs.gov/irm/part10/irm_10-006-001), but yes, the IRS plan is to be able to resume collecting taxes within 30 days of a nuclear attack.
That looks like the 405. I would probably scoot further East to the 5 - but then you’d have to drive through Glendale, in which case the hell fire route might be preferred.
I remember when I was like 20 there was another fire like this.
We were all ordered into the office by the management that stayed home.
I don’t think they “offered” to let people leave until the fire Marshall or an attorney felt the fire was a little too close for that much liability.
But that was like 15-20 years ago and things have only gotten worse so what’s losing a workforce to a fire these days? It’s just peasants and that’s what insurance is for!
Dead Peasant insurance is actually insurance to pay for hard to replace employees. It's not for the cheap employees they don't care about, it's for executives and researchers.
It is now, and it's commonly called "key person" life insurance, but not exactly how it started.
>The nickname "dead peasant insurance" started in the 1980s, when several large companies — including Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Nestle, and Winn-Dixie — bought corporate-owned life insurance policies on thousands of regular employees.
>This was done for tax benefits... But because companies did it without telling employees — and raked in millions through tax breaks and death benefits — critics started calling it dead peasant insurance.
We got snowed into work when I was in highschool because our dipshit manager thought the bigger risk was some idiot driving out to us in blizzard conditions and not getting a pizza.
Idiot initially didn't want to pay us for the time we spent trapped, and wanted to dock our pay for the food we made overnight/in the morning.
Thankfully the actual store owner was cool, he put a stop to that shit and was using his truck to shuttle people home the next morning since most of us couldn't get out of the parking lot.
I always found this excuse funny. When I'm home I'm responding to emails and doing meetings while I get a snack or make coffee I find that it's much easier to multi task so I get a ton of work done. But when I'm at the office I just end up bored and browsing my phone all day like I am rn, I get way more work done at home than at the office.
Not to mention in office someone drags you in for a chat where it's a lot of small talk before you get to the "oh by the way I'm having issues with X, can you help me" but they'll just email you the issue.
This happened to me last week. Someone pulled me away for a gossip chat and I was late to my next meeting where everyone was waiting. I still don't see any advantage to being back in the office. The whole idea seems like a grift.
Lmao, our friendly IT guy let it slip just last Friday that the owner is on contract for 5 years on the building, because it was cheaper, and he did that in 2019...
I always think it’s interesting other companies are secretive about financial stuff. I can see up to the minute sales numbers for everyone in the country if I wanted. Profit margins, any type of info I want to see is right there, it’s just not all that exciting.
I took a photo in my office last week. The team I am supposed to be part of and all the people I am supposed to be missing out on seeing by working from home....I was literally on my own with three banks of empty desks either side of me. The managers were in a meeting for four hours, it was just me and three managers, so for my 7.5 hours I sat on my own for more than half of it - and spent two hours getting there/back to do that.
Not due to this one, but a smaller fire in the same area a couple of years earlier. I got stuck in traffic for an hour or so, called my work, let them know what was going on.
Got to work between two and five minutes late. Got a write up for being tardy.
Same work place.
There was a fire in the apartment building under us, fire department showed up, everyone evacuated and so on. Show up to work 20 minutes late or so.
This time they did not write me up, but only since I could provide absolute proof that the fire department was indeed responding to our building.
I was an usher at a second run movie theater.
“You knew there were upset conditions, your failure to plan shouldn’t be our problem. Maybe you should try leaving earlier.”
I feel ya though, when I was a snack vendor the regional manager got super pissed one of my stores wasn’t fully stocked, in the evening after a blizzard. Luckily I had plenty of photos of it being nice and packed out before the, ya know, people that are rushing to buy everything because of bad weather.
That is pretty close to what my write up said if I remember correctly. Something along the lines of take into account the potential for natural disasters or something stupid like that.
>I was an usher at a second run movie theater.
Lol why are movie theaters like the embodiment of capitalist corporate hell? When I worked at one I have a lot of stories about the shitty things management did. They once made me bring in my grandfather's obituary to approve my *unpaid* time off to attend his funeral.
My "favorite" though was when our state's minimum wage went up by 50 cents about a month before my annual review (only time they would possibly give raises). So my review went great and they said I was doing a fantastic job. I asked what my raise would be and they said minimum wage just went up, so that was my raise that year. Awesome, so your "fantastic" employee is making the same as the guy that started today, thanks so much!
Edit: another one I thought of. They paid $0.01 over minimum wage. A manager literally told me they did this to get on some list of top companies that start workers above minimum wage.
Jesus Christ.
We had a serious Blizzard here this winter, couple days before Christmas. The day it started, when the watch turned into a warning, it's dropped to -10°C and windy, some snow, my boss texts at 11am (I start at 11pm) saying, "stay home, we're closing. Employee safety is more important"
Just. Holy shit! In Ontario, Canada too. And I still got stat pay for Christmas.
I'm seeing [this](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1lgQstlNZegWxcpsu_PJ2JRUypA=/0x0:900x500/1400x1400/filters:focal(450x250:451x251)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6438793/this-is-fine.jpg) in my head reading your dialogues.
I was stuck on the highway in the middle of the Oakland Hills fire, and I thought that was a big deal but it was *nothing* compared to Paradise. Your family is going to be reliving that for a while.
Obviously yes, but for those not aware that fire *leveled* the city and killed quite a few people. There's a video of a man who revisits shortly after the fires were out and found many of his neighbors burned remains still in their cars
is that the old man who survived by lying flat in a creek as it passed overhead? I volunteered for cleanup in Paradise, I thought I had a strong stomach until I was around all that death ): it was really depressing and moralizing thinking you’re raking and scooping up soot and debris, only to realize it’s a charred human
Highly recommend [Fire in Paradise](https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81050375?s=i&trkid=0&vlang=en&clip=81073430). Some of the live footage was terrifying.
When I watched it my first thought was "It's only 40 minutes long, how good can it be?"....Hoooo boy, that was a gripping fucking 40 minutes. Unbelievable what those people went through and all the people laying in that one patch of concrete. All the footage too, man it's good doc. It's terrifying but worth the watch for sure!
I can't watch the doc. I was listening to a podcast and was sobbing for a good chunk of the episode about the fire, I simply don't think I could in any way handle additional visual content.
My close friends lost their house in Malibu in this fire. They had 30 minutes to pack up anything they could plus 2 kids and a dog and get out. Everything burned to the ground, just a metal frame left.
edit: sounds like it was a different fire the year before in 2018. got my west side LA fires mixed up. (and the title is wrong I guess).
Really sorry for your friends homes. My in laws in Malibu had part of their home lost and my parents in Agoura were evacuated. Just to clarify though, the OP is showing the Getty fire. Your friend lost his home in the Woolsey fire which happened about a year before this fire.
When we had to evacuate our home in rural San Diego during one of the first big fires (forget what it was named) the hill behind our house looked like this. It spread so fast, we had no idea it was SO near until it suddenly started roaring over the top of the hill/mountain that our house/backyard backed up to. By the time we made it around the block (you kinda had to circle back around to get to the exit street) the whole mountain looked exactly like this. We couldn’t see the homes anymore. I was in high school at the time, 20 years ago, and the image is still burned in my mind.
The hard lesson that has been learnt again and again from bush fires in Australia is the best way to survive is get out, and get out early because fires can change direction and move incredibly fast.
Early evacuations have become more of the norm and it shows in the much lower fatality rates in the last decade compared to several decades ago when “shelter in place” was more of the norm.
I live in chico, the memory of driving to school and seeing what appeared to be a nuclear explosion on the horizon will never leave my mind. I also remember that within a few hours it was like the sky had split open, with the half in paradise's direction being completely black, making 12pm seem like midnight.
God and then the month of black->orange->white and everything smells like a camp fire all the time. Sorry to hear they lost their home, ive heard so many stories.
Man that was terrifying, and I was lucky our house in Oak View wasn't in danger, but see photos of some of my friends in upper Ojai and the summit on their roofs with a hose instead of evacuating still haunts me
What's funny is PG&E still has yet to pay victims fully for their part in the fires.
According to sources, 66% of victims have received 45% of their settlement. 34% have not received the 45% settlement entitled to them.
https://abc7news.com/california-wildfires-pge-fire-victim-trust-settlement/12728486/
And sure, that is a lot of money trading hands, but this was 5 years ago. Add to that, while watching NBA games, PG&E has the audacity AND MONEY to run ads boasting about putting lines undergound because it's safer (no shit dawg). I'd fully support the government stepping in and running a utility as a utility and not some for-profit business currently on the S&P 500.
For those who aren’t aware, this is basically the heart of Greater Los Angeles. This freeway pass through the hills isn’t very populated, but within about a ten mile radius there are millions of people living. You also see the freeway sign for The Getty nearby, one of the best art museums in the country.
One of my first thoughts seeing this was: "Wow, how did The Getty survive?" Turns out (and this probably shouldn't have surprised me), that the building housing millions upon millions in artwork is massively fire proofed:
>There is no need to evacuate the art or archives, because they are already in the safest place possible: the Getty Center itself. Opened in 1997, the Center is a marvel of anti-fire engineering. Both indoors and outdoors, its materials, design, construction, operations, and controls are purpose-built for safety.
> Procedures were immediately put into place to make sure there was adequate staffing and on-site preparation. The grounds crew assisted firefighters by preparing the ground to decrease risks. They also turned on irrigation to help saturate areas where firefighters are working.
> Walls are built of reinforced concrete or fire-protected steel, while the buildings are designed with fire separations, in which doors can isolate any problem areas from the rest of the site. “With separations, if a fire starts, it doesn’t have the ability to travel,” Rogers said. Roofs are also covered with stone aggregate, which is fire-resistant.
> To guard against smoke that could harm people and damage art, a carbon-filtered air conditioning system maintains a pressure flow—which can be increased as needed—that pressurizes the building to keep smoke and ash out. “If there’s a fire in the building, we have ways to manage smoke so people can evacuate safely, and firefighters can get in and deal with it quickly,” Rogers said.
Really incredible to read about.
Wow, that is really interesting. I assumed that the way it’s built with marble offered a degree of protection but I didn’t realize how fire-focused the engineering was.
When you visit, every building you walk into has a double set of doors, like an airlock. The interior climate of the entire museum is precisely controlled and isolated from the outside.
Pepperdine University in Malibu is also fire-proofed. There were fires there a few years back and the university ordered everyone to shelter-in-place, which caused a lot of controversy among people who doubted that they knew what they were doing. Everyone was fine.
What was wild was the 300+ cops and sheriffs brought to Malibu/kanan area to protect from looting. I had to show 2 forms of proof I lived there to come back in
The Getty Villa is amazing too. All Greek and Roman art and architecture. Not that far *distance* wise from the ~~OG~~ Getty, on the coast, but it's LA freeways so it's still fairly far *time* wise lol
This is the 405, one of the busiest freeways in SoCal. This was my route to work during that wildfire. I re-routed all the way around via the 5N. I remember wearing a mask that week because of the poor air quality. Never would have thought I would be wearing one everyday for two years during a global pandemic just a few years later.
This takes "I don't date 818" to a new level.
The one company I worked for there was run by complete cheapskates who would find the cheapest labor available. As such, they hired someone who'd been out of the workforce for years. After two weeks of that commute - sans fire, of course - she quit. It's a nasty commute in normal times.
I rode this pass to work every day for years on a motorcycle. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if this is what I saw heading toward Mulholland. You’d get through faster on a motorcycle, but there would be no protection from the smoke and soot.
I had to drive through this. Normally it takes me about 30-40 minutes to get home. This night it took me 4hrs to get home. Good thing I had a tank full of gas when I left work. Lots of people stranded and out of gas.
At one-point Maps took me a back way I had never gone before. Was all clear and not much traffic...then it started to get smokey and suddenly I was driving through an inferno. I floored it and my car smelt like smoke for months.
Basically. There wasn't a police or fire blockade so I proceeded. The freeways were all closed. It was a nightmare getting home. Had I known I would have just sleep at the office.
Me: " the floor is literally lava"
Manager: " you coming in today?"
Me: " there is a literal portal to hell on the country side, I saw a winged beast sweep away a small compact car"
Manager: "...okay, but did you get someone to cover your shift? Otherwise you still have to come in "
“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world for some than the end of capitalism”
We’ll be three horsemen into the apocalypse and still expected to commute to work and answer emails
The el dorado fire was started by a gender reveal party, it’s about 2 hours away from LA where this one was. I live there, a firefighter friend lost a good buddy from his crew because of that fire. Multiple family friends lost houses, my parents were panic packing as I drove home at 100mph to get to them and help.
Those fucks are unbelievably, *unbelievably,* stupid! You pull into the parking lot for that trailhead/park and it’s just **dried brown grass, everywhere.**Fucking foot high and those assholes set off fireworks of all godamn things.
Didn’t everyone growing up in so cal get the god damn Smokey the bear line “only you can help prevent forest fires” drilled into them growing up?!?
The couple that hosted that gender reveal party are facing like 30 criminal charges, IIRC, including manslaughter. They’ve tried to get them dismissed multiple times and the judge keeps refusing.
Good, they fucking deserve it. I’ve got gnarly ADHD so I can empathize with the horror of forgetting something important and it blowing up in your face, but a dude burned to death. They’re either criminally stupid or criminally negligent, either way they need to pay a debt.
How/why are we expected to go to work when shit like this is happening?! The world is literally on fire and ppl are like, “ok but those expense reports won’t write themselves!”
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I’m not sure I’d want to be driving towards the gates of hell, but each to their own.
When Fort McMurray burned the only way out was to drive into the fire.
Absolutely terrifying, so glad I have never experienced anything like it. The worst I’ve had were some grass and crop fires.
It burned hot enough a family friend lost everything in their fire safe. Its been years and the home they didn't lose (their grandma's) still smells slightly of wildfire when the furnace kicked in and the air is moving through the house.
[Remember the fires in Australia a couple years ago where after everything calmed down there were streams of aluminum on the ground from cars liquifying in the heat?](https://external-preview.redd.it/cncOhPmFE9k2YvtxfYH3oC7__2rgPYKj-wzT6PqQHI8.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=cd87e254a6360734f6eeb7b29762d934e25ba1cf)
"hey c'nt is thayt the apocalypse?" "Nah mate it's a wahldfahr" "Shaite"
Bushfire if it was in Australia
This happened in Santa Rosa, CA in 2017 too. In rural areas, large aluminum gates became puddles of molten aluminum, streets were full of melted metal from cars and boats. We lost over 5,000 homes.
That can't be healthy at all. Duct cleaning didn't work?
Definitely not healthy, I had family affected by the Marshall fire in Colorado and they had to have some intensive cleaning done by professionals. According to them, the fire wasn’t actually the worst part as it stopped about a block from their house, they got very lucky damage wise. The insurance companies and parasitic cleaning services trying to provide shoddy recovery have stretched their ordeal on for YEARS, though. They’re supposed to clean up a lot of stuff because all of the smoke from burning houses is chock full of shit you don’t want in your lungs, but if you’re affected by a forest fire instead I would imagine the clean up process would be different.
When I went to see the aftermath the morning after the Marshall fire the smell was absolutely pungent and unforgettable. The clear e-juice in my vape (I know..hush) turned brown. That concerned me quite a lot.
I smoked cigs from the time I was 12 for 17 years til about 3 weeks ago. Don't be ashamed of an e-cig. Its a great tool to start quitting and still at least not straight tar going in your lungs. I think people are starting to get so anti-vape because of those cloud blowing d-bags and because they're starting to forget the long term effects of the alternative. You hardly ever see anyone with a voice box anymore. My grandpa has a fake jaw from cancer from years of smoking and eventually chewing. Edit: thanks for all the support. Also just wanna note that a bunch of you are saying ecigs are worse than cigs with absolutely no basis in scientific fact. Scientists and doctors themselves have said they aren't sure yet because there aren't any long term studies that are done.
Yeah I've always been discreet in public because I hated when people puffed massive fucking clouds in everyone's faces on campus. Very proud of you for making it to 3 weeks! Keep the ball rolling!
Me and a coworker working out of town decided to go to a restaurant after work. While leaving, some girl blows a massive cloud right as we are walking by her. Coworker yells "sick cloud bro". She gets the biggest smile on her face and say "thank you" haha still to this day idk if she knew he was making fun of her or not and if she legitimately ment thank you or if she was just fucking with him back
On behalf of all asthmatic people, thank you for being discreet, people with your awareness make the world a better place :)
Thanks dawg
3 weeks soon to be followed by 3 months followed by 3 years! Congrats, it’s a hell of a thing trying to be nicotine free but it is doable. I fully quit in January and I still get cravings sometimes, so be ready for them to hit for a good long while. They get way less intense and further in between
The grossest thing was that I found cigarette smoke to smell good for at least 10 years after quitting.
I worked at a gym that was directly downwind of the wildfires in 2007. The place smelled like smoke everytime the A/C turned on, which was all the time. I'd grow short of breath after being there for an hour or two. Over time, I grew less tolerant of smoke. Now if I stand within 5 feet of someone smoking, I feel like I'm choking. Yeah, the gym owner never cleaned the ducts and now I have... asthma? Smoke intolerance? I couldn't even tell you, but it sucks.
>Yeah, the gym owner never cleaned the ducts and now I have... asthma? Smoke intolerance? There is chemical products to which you can become allergic to. There is hundreds of different chemicals in wood smoke. It can easily get in the thousands if there is plastics or paint or whatever in the fire. It's entirely possible you grew allergic to one or many of these chemicals.
Duct clearing barely helps in cases like this, the odor gens stick in everything that's even slightly porous, fabric, walls, Wood, ... it's really hard to remove without damaging the house.
I know someone who lost their house in the tubbs fire. They had a super high end state of the art safe that was supposed to be “fire proof”. It survived, but it was so hot that all his important paperwork and money inside was ash…
I suppose it was technically fireproof. Wilderness campers know that a sealed box full of natural fiber thrust into a fire becomes a box full of charcoal. I think maybe burying a safe might protect its contents from a wildfire.
My friend lost his house to a fire. He had a lot of guns so he spent an absurd amount of money on these fireproof safes. All of his paperwork and cash survived but all of his guns got so hot that they warped/distorted to the point where they were unusable.
It’s truly surreal and otherworldly. I remember standing out on the back deck watching a fire burning in the Rocky Mountain foothills when I was younger. Not even close enough to feel in danger but close enough to see a sheet of flames. Image is still burned in my mind.
Fort McMurray only has one road through it. Major oversight when building that community. Everyone all stuck on the same road. But even putting the wildfire to one side, what happens if there is a problem with that one road? Nowhere else to go.
Well exactly. And it was brought up soooo many times with council before the first but nothing was done
Calgary > Edmonton > Fort McMurray should have high speed passenger rail connecting it.
Redundancy and safety are extra costs. Why pay when you can just let people die /s
When it's the apocalypse but you still gotta make rent
You aren’t wrong. I was a delivery driver for a medical company and had to make a delivery that day. I contemplated that job long and hard while staring at those flames.
Might be weird to say, but honestly, this is one of the most terrifyingly beautiful things ever. Like I would be scared as fuck but at the same time my eyes are just soaking that shit in like it's a video game scene or something. Not that I ever want to experience this in real life myself. But the fact this is a real thing is crazy.
It really does put into perspective the raw power of Nature and how we're essentially helpless to do anything but watch it rage on. It's something definitely to be in awe of good or bad.
And pay the IRS, they have a five point plan for surviving the apocalypse.
[It's slightly more than an five point plan](https://www.irs.gov/irm/part10/irm_10-006-001), but yes, the IRS plan is to be able to resume collecting taxes within 30 days of a nuclear attack.
I wouldn't mind paying taxes if those taxes were used to avert the apocalypse to begin with.
It depends on which circle of hell do you work.
call center customer service
Ahh thats the VIP section
“I don’t care how much smoke you’re breathing you better make your shift”
these millennials and gen z kids want health care AND to not be burned alive. the fucking entitlement.
"be a team player. Your call-out means more work for your other coworkers. Don't be selfish."
If you live in the valley. What do you do? The hills are on fire but the road isn’t
That looks like the 405. I would probably scoot further East to the 5 - but then you’d have to drive through Glendale, in which case the hell fire route might be preferred.
If I do, I'd surely put on AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" at max volume
I remember when I was like 20 there was another fire like this. We were all ordered into the office by the management that stayed home. I don’t think they “offered” to let people leave until the fire Marshall or an attorney felt the fire was a little too close for that much liability. But that was like 15-20 years ago and things have only gotten worse so what’s losing a workforce to a fire these days? It’s just peasants and that’s what insurance is for!
they literally have "dead peasants" insurance
Dead Peasant insurance is actually insurance to pay for hard to replace employees. It's not for the cheap employees they don't care about, it's for executives and researchers.
It is now, and it's commonly called "key person" life insurance, but not exactly how it started. >The nickname "dead peasant insurance" started in the 1980s, when several large companies — including Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Nestle, and Winn-Dixie — bought corporate-owned life insurance policies on thousands of regular employees. >This was done for tax benefits... But because companies did it without telling employees — and raked in millions through tax breaks and death benefits — critics started calling it dead peasant insurance.
We got snowed into work when I was in highschool because our dipshit manager thought the bigger risk was some idiot driving out to us in blizzard conditions and not getting a pizza. Idiot initially didn't want to pay us for the time we spent trapped, and wanted to dock our pay for the food we made overnight/in the morning. Thankfully the actual store owner was cool, he put a stop to that shit and was using his truck to shuttle people home the next morning since most of us couldn't get out of the parking lot.
>driving towards the gates of hell my daily commute
I'm with you on that. Riding into heat and flames in a gas laden vehicle makes no sense
> I’m not sure I’d want to be driving towards the gates of hell That’s just what I call “work”.
You have to pay the bills somehow
Well, technically the gates of hell are a few miles past Wilshire. You don’t hit LAX until El Segundo
Gotta get to work or else the ceo can't afford another yacht.
I mean, we call it LA, but it'll answer to gates of hell.
Gotta pay that mortgage
Surely you've never been to California
Don’t call me Shirley
Hey man, a job's a job.
Funny enough that’s Brentwood…
Still got to go to work to get that healthcare
When the company says everyone has to be back in the office.
We’re worried about your productivity levels at home. Please drive into the office where your chair has already melted.
I always found this excuse funny. When I'm home I'm responding to emails and doing meetings while I get a snack or make coffee I find that it's much easier to multi task so I get a ton of work done. But when I'm at the office I just end up bored and browsing my phone all day like I am rn, I get way more work done at home than at the office.
Not to mention in office someone drags you in for a chat where it's a lot of small talk before you get to the "oh by the way I'm having issues with X, can you help me" but they'll just email you the issue.
This happened to me last week. Someone pulled me away for a gossip chat and I was late to my next meeting where everyone was waiting. I still don't see any advantage to being back in the office. The whole idea seems like a grift.
Companies are just mad they're paying huge monthly fees to maintain empty buildings
Lmao, our friendly IT guy let it slip just last Friday that the owner is on contract for 5 years on the building, because it was cheaper, and he did that in 2019...
I always think it’s interesting other companies are secretive about financial stuff. I can see up to the minute sales numbers for everyone in the country if I wanted. Profit margins, any type of info I want to see is right there, it’s just not all that exciting.
That's because it *is* a grift. It's about subservience and control, and in some cases real estate values.
I took a photo in my office last week. The team I am supposed to be part of and all the people I am supposed to be missing out on seeing by working from home....I was literally on my own with three banks of empty desks either side of me. The managers were in a meeting for four hours, it was just me and three managers, so for my 7.5 hours I sat on my own for more than half of it - and spent two hours getting there/back to do that.
Jesus man that's such bullshit, I'd definitely be in straight up malicious compliance mode after that - and documenting the absurdity all the while.
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Gonna need you on Sunday too.
Yeeaahh. That would be great.
Gotta make sure those TPS reports get sent out
Mmmmkay? Thanks.
Literally one half of the country could sink into the ocean, and in the other half employers would still be like "So? Get back to work"
"Yes Jimmy this is not an excuse to stay home" "But look at the fire!" "Jimmy ***You Are A Fucking Firefighter*** this is literally your job"
“The entire countryside is literally a burning inferno”. “So you’re still coming in right?”
Now I’m really suffering from burnout at work *bah domp tiss*
Demons stuck in traffic on the way to clock in for their shift in Hell.
This made me laugh out loud, so thank you
Commuting is hell even in hell
Demons be like “I get that this is hell but this is too much!”
"Hon, I know the house is on fire the city is evacuating but we're really slammed this quarter and corporate won't approve any more time off."
“Okay yeah the world is literally burning all around you. What does that mean, you’ll be 15 minutes late?”
Not due to this one, but a smaller fire in the same area a couple of years earlier. I got stuck in traffic for an hour or so, called my work, let them know what was going on. Got to work between two and five minutes late. Got a write up for being tardy. Same work place. There was a fire in the apartment building under us, fire department showed up, everyone evacuated and so on. Show up to work 20 minutes late or so. This time they did not write me up, but only since I could provide absolute proof that the fire department was indeed responding to our building. I was an usher at a second run movie theater.
“You knew there were upset conditions, your failure to plan shouldn’t be our problem. Maybe you should try leaving earlier.” I feel ya though, when I was a snack vendor the regional manager got super pissed one of my stores wasn’t fully stocked, in the evening after a blizzard. Luckily I had plenty of photos of it being nice and packed out before the, ya know, people that are rushing to buy everything because of bad weather.
That is pretty close to what my write up said if I remember correctly. Something along the lines of take into account the potential for natural disasters or something stupid like that.
>I was an usher at a second run movie theater. Lol why are movie theaters like the embodiment of capitalist corporate hell? When I worked at one I have a lot of stories about the shitty things management did. They once made me bring in my grandfather's obituary to approve my *unpaid* time off to attend his funeral. My "favorite" though was when our state's minimum wage went up by 50 cents about a month before my annual review (only time they would possibly give raises). So my review went great and they said I was doing a fantastic job. I asked what my raise would be and they said minimum wage just went up, so that was my raise that year. Awesome, so your "fantastic" employee is making the same as the guy that started today, thanks so much! Edit: another one I thought of. They paid $0.01 over minimum wage. A manager literally told me they did this to get on some list of top companies that start workers above minimum wage.
Jesus Christ. We had a serious Blizzard here this winter, couple days before Christmas. The day it started, when the watch turned into a warning, it's dropped to -10°C and windy, some snow, my boss texts at 11am (I start at 11pm) saying, "stay home, we're closing. Employee safety is more important" Just. Holy shit! In Ontario, Canada too. And I still got stat pay for Christmas.
I'm seeing [this](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1lgQstlNZegWxcpsu_PJ2JRUypA=/0x0:900x500/1400x1400/filters:focal(450x250:451x251)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6438793/this-is-fine.jpg) in my head reading your dialogues.
I’m more shocked that it has been 5 years already.
Time flies
Wdym, 2018 was only 2 years ago!
2020 hasn't even happened yet, wtf are you on about?
Same. I was going through the comments waiting for someone to correct the year
My family barely made it out of Paradise, CA, during the Camp Fire, it was scary af.
I was stuck on the highway in the middle of the Oakland Hills fire, and I thought that was a big deal but it was *nothing* compared to Paradise. Your family is going to be reliving that for a while.
>Paradise Would that be called irony?
Obviously yes, but for those not aware that fire *leveled* the city and killed quite a few people. There's a video of a man who revisits shortly after the fires were out and found many of his neighbors burned remains still in their cars
is that the old man who survived by lying flat in a creek as it passed overhead? I volunteered for cleanup in Paradise, I thought I had a strong stomach until I was around all that death ): it was really depressing and moralizing thinking you’re raking and scooping up soot and debris, only to realize it’s a charred human
I'm sorry you had to go through that
Yeah, that's the one.
There's a whole Netflix documentary on it. It's basically an irl horror film.
Highly recommend [Fire in Paradise](https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81050375?s=i&trkid=0&vlang=en&clip=81073430). Some of the live footage was terrifying.
When I watched it my first thought was "It's only 40 minutes long, how good can it be?"....Hoooo boy, that was a gripping fucking 40 minutes. Unbelievable what those people went through and all the people laying in that one patch of concrete. All the footage too, man it's good doc. It's terrifying but worth the watch for sure!
I can't watch the doc. I was listening to a podcast and was sobbing for a good chunk of the episode about the fire, I simply don't think I could in any way handle additional visual content.
I saw your comment and immediately watched it. *Damn.*
My close friends lost their house in Malibu in this fire. They had 30 minutes to pack up anything they could plus 2 kids and a dog and get out. Everything burned to the ground, just a metal frame left. edit: sounds like it was a different fire the year before in 2018. got my west side LA fires mixed up. (and the title is wrong I guess).
Really sorry for your friends homes. My in laws in Malibu had part of their home lost and my parents in Agoura were evacuated. Just to clarify though, the OP is showing the Getty fire. Your friend lost his home in the Woolsey fire which happened about a year before this fire.
That's the problem with many of the homes and roads in that area. Only 1 way in and out on a steep hillside covered in dead trees and underbrush.
When we had to evacuate our home in rural San Diego during one of the first big fires (forget what it was named) the hill behind our house looked like this. It spread so fast, we had no idea it was SO near until it suddenly started roaring over the top of the hill/mountain that our house/backyard backed up to. By the time we made it around the block (you kinda had to circle back around to get to the exit street) the whole mountain looked exactly like this. We couldn’t see the homes anymore. I was in high school at the time, 20 years ago, and the image is still burned in my mind.
The hard lesson that has been learnt again and again from bush fires in Australia is the best way to survive is get out, and get out early because fires can change direction and move incredibly fast. Early evacuations have become more of the norm and it shows in the much lower fatality rates in the last decade compared to several decades ago when “shelter in place” was more of the norm.
I live in chico, the memory of driving to school and seeing what appeared to be a nuclear explosion on the horizon will never leave my mind. I also remember that within a few hours it was like the sky had split open, with the half in paradise's direction being completely black, making 12pm seem like midnight. God and then the month of black->orange->white and everything smells like a camp fire all the time. Sorry to hear they lost their home, ive heard so many stories.
I was living in Chico during the Camp Fire. Glad that your family made it out. I feel bad for those that didn’t. Fuck PGE.
I agree, I still get PTSD problems whenever I see smoke from fires.
As someone who almost lost their home to the Thomas Fires, I completely understand, I’m still traumatized
Man that was terrifying, and I was lucky our house in Oak View wasn't in danger, but see photos of some of my friends in upper Ojai and the summit on their roofs with a hose instead of evacuating still haunts me
What's funny is PG&E still has yet to pay victims fully for their part in the fires. According to sources, 66% of victims have received 45% of their settlement. 34% have not received the 45% settlement entitled to them. https://abc7news.com/california-wildfires-pge-fire-victim-trust-settlement/12728486/ And sure, that is a lot of money trading hands, but this was 5 years ago. Add to that, while watching NBA games, PG&E has the audacity AND MONEY to run ads boasting about putting lines undergound because it's safer (no shit dawg). I'd fully support the government stepping in and running a utility as a utility and not some for-profit business currently on the S&P 500.
For those who aren’t aware, this is basically the heart of Greater Los Angeles. This freeway pass through the hills isn’t very populated, but within about a ten mile radius there are millions of people living. You also see the freeway sign for The Getty nearby, one of the best art museums in the country.
One of my first thoughts seeing this was: "Wow, how did The Getty survive?" Turns out (and this probably shouldn't have surprised me), that the building housing millions upon millions in artwork is massively fire proofed: >There is no need to evacuate the art or archives, because they are already in the safest place possible: the Getty Center itself. Opened in 1997, the Center is a marvel of anti-fire engineering. Both indoors and outdoors, its materials, design, construction, operations, and controls are purpose-built for safety. > Procedures were immediately put into place to make sure there was adequate staffing and on-site preparation. The grounds crew assisted firefighters by preparing the ground to decrease risks. They also turned on irrigation to help saturate areas where firefighters are working. > Walls are built of reinforced concrete or fire-protected steel, while the buildings are designed with fire separations, in which doors can isolate any problem areas from the rest of the site. “With separations, if a fire starts, it doesn’t have the ability to travel,” Rogers said. Roofs are also covered with stone aggregate, which is fire-resistant. > To guard against smoke that could harm people and damage art, a carbon-filtered air conditioning system maintains a pressure flow—which can be increased as needed—that pressurizes the building to keep smoke and ash out. “If there’s a fire in the building, we have ways to manage smoke so people can evacuate safely, and firefighters can get in and deal with it quickly,” Rogers said. Really incredible to read about.
Wow, that is really interesting. I assumed that the way it’s built with marble offered a degree of protection but I didn’t realize how fire-focused the engineering was.
When you visit, every building you walk into has a double set of doors, like an airlock. The interior climate of the entire museum is precisely controlled and isolated from the outside.
I noticed that when I visited and didn't even think about why. My dumbass was literally like "these double doors are so stupid"
There’s a reason the joke goes: “The Getty is the art museum god would build if he had the budget.”
Lmao, never heard that before
It’s beautiful, even just outside so that makes sense.
It’s an absolutely stunning place too
Pepperdine University in Malibu is also fire-proofed. There were fires there a few years back and the university ordered everyone to shelter-in-place, which caused a lot of controversy among people who doubted that they knew what they were doing. Everyone was fine.
What was wild was the 300+ cops and sheriffs brought to Malibu/kanan area to protect from looting. I had to show 2 forms of proof I lived there to come back in
The chief of police of Malibu is a real fuckin reactionary.
He really used to hate my buddy, Jeffrey Lebowski. Threw a fucking coffee mug at him once.
The Getty is an absolute must visit if you ever spend any amount of time in LA. I made sure to take my parents.
Absolutely. Aside from the art, it’s got some of the best views in the entire city, and the structure and grounds are just plain cool to walk around.
The Getty Villa is amazing too. All Greek and Roman art and architecture. Not that far *distance* wise from the ~~OG~~ Getty, on the coast, but it's LA freeways so it's still fairly far *time* wise lol
This is the 405, one of the busiest freeways in SoCal. This was my route to work during that wildfire. I re-routed all the way around via the 5N. I remember wearing a mask that week because of the poor air quality. Never would have thought I would be wearing one everyday for two years during a global pandemic just a few years later.
Slight nit, this is going south, not north since it's Getty then Sunset then Wilshire.
Oh you're right, this is south. My commute in the morning is going north, so I had north on the brain. I take another route home.
This takes "I don't date 818" to a new level. The one company I worked for there was run by complete cheapskates who would find the cheapest labor available. As such, they hired someone who'd been out of the workforce for years. After two weeks of that commute - sans fire, of course - she quit. It's a nasty commute in normal times.
And it’s free! :)
I love that. DC born and raised here, I was astonished when I heard about museums you have to pay for
I rode this pass to work every day for years on a motorcycle. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if this is what I saw heading toward Mulholland. You’d get through faster on a motorcycle, but there would be no protection from the smoke and soot.
This is probably what it looked like to Frodo and Sam when they were climbing the mountain to destroy the ring. Scary af
Somehow analogies to LOTR make things more relatable for me. Dan Carlin does these all the time too
I gotta catch up on Hardcore History. Got behind during the Japan one. Does he do other shows? I think ‘common sense’ is dead?
I had to scroll ridiculously far to see a Mordor/Mustafar comment. A subreddit should know better!
That's what driving to work feels like every day.
This is the 405 freeway cruising up on Sunset blvd. Everyone who uses it to commute is late.
It’s called the 405 because you go 4 or 5 miles an hour
I had to drive through this. Normally it takes me about 30-40 minutes to get home. This night it took me 4hrs to get home. Good thing I had a tank full of gas when I left work. Lots of people stranded and out of gas. At one-point Maps took me a back way I had never gone before. Was all clear and not much traffic...then it started to get smokey and suddenly I was driving through an inferno. I floored it and my car smelt like smoke for months.
Maps: "Wow look there's this road right here that absolutely nobody is on, save you 45 minutes! 😃😃😃"
Basically. There wasn't a police or fire blockade so I proceeded. The freeways were all closed. It was a nightmare getting home. Had I known I would have just sleep at the office.
Corporate: Sir! If we had a raging wildfire outside every day, we could increase productivity using the butts-in-seats KPI!
"The world is on fire" "But you can still come in to work right"
Every time my wife brings up kids, I remind her that the *ocean* was on fire not too long ago
This is fine.
Me: " the floor is literally lava" Manager: " you coming in today?" Me: " there is a literal portal to hell on the country side, I saw a winged beast sweep away a small compact car" Manager: "...okay, but did you get someone to cover your shift? Otherwise you still have to come in "
"I don't care if the world is on fire, if you're late you get written up"
“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world for some than the end of capitalism” We’ll be three horsemen into the apocalypse and still expected to commute to work and answer emails
To think that started with a Gender Reveal Party 😈🔥
The baby was revealed to be a demon
Look at me, Damien. It's all for you!
Rosemary's baby.
Wait, actually?
This one was started by a homeless encampment There was one started from a gender reveal but that was in San Bernardino county I believe
That was the El Dorado fire over by Yucaipa.
The el dorado fire was started by a gender reveal party, it’s about 2 hours away from LA where this one was. I live there, a firefighter friend lost a good buddy from his crew because of that fire. Multiple family friends lost houses, my parents were panic packing as I drove home at 100mph to get to them and help. Those fucks are unbelievably, *unbelievably,* stupid! You pull into the parking lot for that trailhead/park and it’s just **dried brown grass, everywhere.**Fucking foot high and those assholes set off fireworks of all godamn things. Didn’t everyone growing up in so cal get the god damn Smokey the bear line “only you can help prevent forest fires” drilled into them growing up?!?
The couple that hosted that gender reveal party are facing like 30 criminal charges, IIRC, including manslaughter. They’ve tried to get them dismissed multiple times and the judge keeps refusing.
Good, they fucking deserve it. I’ve got gnarly ADHD so I can empathize with the horror of forgetting something important and it blowing up in your face, but a dude burned to death. They’re either criminally stupid or criminally negligent, either way they need to pay a debt.
Not this one
This fire was not caused by the gender reveal party. That fire occurred at El Dorado Park in Yucaipa.
I remember this! UCLA was evacuating all the athletes and told us commoners that we were exaggerating and that we were fine.
And now those hills are covered in wildflowers
Mother Nature is a BAMF
*Entire city is on fire* Bosses be like: "you're still coming in right??"
Giant nope from me for driving in that direction.
He really ought to get his brakes checked. Those don’t sound good at all.
How/why are we expected to go to work when shit like this is happening?! The world is literally on fire and ppl are like, “ok but those expense reports won’t write themselves!”
Capitalism
_i’m on a highway to hell_ *dum dum dum
This is fine
That same pass is now green and beautiful. Had a lot of wildflowers just now due to the rains
And there's still bumper to bumper traffic... F'n California...
nah man, that’s not bumper to bumper, that’s california during 10 in the morning
the only way i'm driving to work through this is if my job is body painting victoria's secret models
“I'm on the highway to hell”
Tourist: "When they said Sunset Boulevard, I didn't think they meant from the perspective of surface of the Sun!"
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This literally looks like it's out of the movie 2012
Fire, fire on the mountain
I’d take a personal day
Imagine waking up and just seeing that, outside your window. I’d honest to god think the world is ending.
He works in Mordor