Which I suppose goes to show how good all the earthquake infrastructure is at preventing everything from collapsing to "mere five-point-eights". Another victory for big government, because you can bet that there wouldn't be nearly enough standards to prevent everything from caving in the moment the ground so much as twitches if there wasn't the government resources to back that up.
(Of course, this has led to the apparently universal experience of Californians visiting other states and seeing the overpasses and wondering how they stay up on those toothpick-like supports compared to the earthquake resistant behemoths we have (mostly installed here after Loma Prieta destroyed the highways around the two bays in '89, and in the south after Northridge two years later.))
It's geography. Norcal is largely redwood, riparian, and other forest types, popular camping ground, and prone to storms. People have large compost piles, which can spontaneously combust, PG&E has miles of powerline and not nearly enough workers up there, etc. Socal just gets brushfires, if that, because it doesn't have as many sources nor as many things that burn and spread fire. It's mostly desert and farmland, neither of which burn nearly as large or dangerously.
It's also contributed to by not nearly as many people living in Far-Norcal (Lassen, Del Norte, Modoc, Trinity, Butte, basically every county north of the Salinas Valley.) Firefighting is less of a priority there, and less easy, because the land is mostly undeveloped.
But the issue with fire standards as opposed to earthquake standards is that fire doesn't hit all infrastructure. It mostly hits structures. Structures are in private hands, and have a slow renovation rate, so they tend to get grandfathered in without the standards in effect. Meanwhile, earthquakes damage roads and bridges, which are government territory, and the government can upgrade them as needed right after standards roll up.
Also, another thing is that fire standards, because fireproofing isn't nearly as much of an exact science as earthquakeproofing, tend to revolve around evacuation and warning ahead, to prevent loss of life.
With fires, a common misconception is that the outside of the house starts burning first. Usually it's the inside that starts burning first, when the curtains burn from touching the windows, which are the main vector for heat. That's the reason you have these completely untouched houses in the middle of burned out neighborhoods sometimes. As long as nothing inside starts burning, the house will usually survive. That's another reason that fireproofing is difficult for residential buildings. People like windows, but windows are the main way fire gets in.
Oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach in Orange County.
A pipe burst 5 miles offshore and 126,000 gallons of oil leaked out. Beaches are closed for about a 13 mile strip (all the way down to Laguna at least) and you can imagine the effect this will have on wildlife.
I actually saw news crews chilling out at an estuary yesterday and wondered what they were doing. This explains it.
70,000 Californians have died from COVID-19
. That's a pretty large death toll.
The calling of Palo Alto/70,000 people a "mid-sized city" in the article felt off though. Surely a "mid-sized city" has a population at least double or triple that.
Nonetheless, the fact that per-capita that's a relatively low death rate is good. Not bottom quartile good, but good. It also really underscores just how massive California is, when the most total deaths is bottom-half per-capita.
Looks like rainy season might start with not one but two bangs
.
Aye, the action, wind-wise, is happening north: Low pressure analyzed to 943 mb on the 12z OPC surface analysis this morning, generating hurricane force winds and significant wave heights to 45 feet (top right). Buoys 46002 and 46006 have cameras, check out the incredible images of the very high seas!
For something entertaining, there is this brilliant story going around about a California man who had the bright idea of buying an unlimited year-round pass to Six Flags for 150 a year, which includes a parking pass and two meals a day. He has been eating there for seven years now, and has used the money he saved to pay off his student debt.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times

Yeah I was wondering about that last Thursday because my allergies were acting up worse than usual if they ever flared up (rarely).
Burning love!