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This 1962 documentary film produced by the Los Angeles Fire Department, describes the historic Bel Air / Brentwood wildfire that …
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"well protected city" haha. If it was well protected, it wouldn't have burned.
This voice and the music was so 50's and 60's, I remember well. All announcers sounded like him.
guess they predicted the LA fire
Quick question for my fellow Emergency vehicle nerds: I have noticed that MANY of the rigs in this video do not have a steady burning, front-facing red light which is prescribed as the standard for emergency vehicles in California for quite some time now. Was this just not something for fire departments back then?
Who's here after the 2038 fires?
L.A. mayor Bass didn’t watch this Prior to her FIRE ignorance.
AT 10.50 I SAW THAT SAME HOUSE ON PALARINE FIRE BUT SURVIVE THIS TIME
So what just happened is no different than 63 years ago except now its all because of sudden climate change.
This should be required viewing for ANYONE who is even considering buying a home in the L.A. basin.
William Conrad aka "Canon" was a great actor and also a captivating narrator in this documentary
The good old days when you could expect a firefighter to carry you out of a burning building.
This must be climate change denier fake video. We never had big fires before Global Warming started about 1977.
Historical
I was there: evacuated from Mandeville Canyon. We had a swimming pool, which was a big deal, but none of the houses in the canyon itself were destroyed. What stopped that fire was a well-maintained fire break on the west side of the canyon. Due to a change in policy, these are no longer maintained as they once were. Another point is the extensive eucalyptus growths. 1961 these trees were only 40 years old. They were young and full of moisture. This year those threes were 100 years old with dead limbs at the top ready burst into flame carry it with the wind and cause destruction miles away. Note that the video begins with a view of some of those 40 year old trees. The danger was well known. I believe it was the City of Berkeley that removed the eucalyptus from Tilden park because of the extreme fire danger. The recent disaster was the result of driminal negligence on the part of Los Angeles public officials. Trees like these were scattered throughout Pacific Palisades and the "Little Sicily" area near the Getty Mansion.
Yes, this has aged very well
My dad, Kenny Rupp, fought this fire with his Station 109 (atop Mulholland Drive). I'm scouring the internet and videos like this to get a glimpse of Dad at work. We lost him in 1971 after he died from injuries sustained on the job following the Sylmar quake March 1971. My siblings and I (and everyone who knew Dad) still miss him like crazy – it would be awesome to find clips of Dad so we can share this part of his life with his grandchildren he never met.
I was reading a Burt Lancaster biography and got to the part about this fire. In retrospect, I wanted to know about a competent fire fight.
Santana “The Devil Wind”
24:25 was prescient for last month's fire disasters in almost exactly the same areas of LA city
So there ya go… if the idiot politicians and current fire chief with “mis-aligned priorities” had just watched this 60+ year old film they mighta had a better shot… don’t let them lie to you about “a new normal…” absolute bullshit.
At least they had water back then
Someone should show this to Newscum
This was filmed before America became a third-world country 🌏
Even back in 1962, this was all the fault of Biden, Newsom and DEI. Long before we knew what DEI was and the firefighters were, well, not all DEI candidates. Did Kennedy feel the need to "release the water" back then since the lines ran dry? /s
aaand…we learned very little from the 1961 fires apparently :((
Ah, progress. Every year, Indigenous people set small low-intensity fires to manage the landscape and clean out low-lying brush — a process that magnified the yield of their plants for medicine and craft-making. It also helped to prevent intense crown fires.
The Spanish colonizers suppressed this intentional annual brush burning, claiming it was incompatible with agriculture. In 1850, when California became the nation’s 31st state, legislators passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which prohibited intentional burning in prairie lands. And, California's wetland area has shrunk by 90%, from about 5,000,000 acres in the 1780s to 450,000 acres by the mid-1980s. About 300,000 of the remaining wetland acres are located in the Central Valley.
Wow. We didnt learn anything. ..
The current lesbian leftist LAFD chief could have definitely stopped this fire 😂
Wait, this video can’t be real. I was told by democrats that “climate change” causes these SoCal coastal fires!
Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass, I guess you never watched this documentary.
In order to extinguish anything, it only takes 10% of the population not cooperating to void the 90% that are. Clearing dead wood and under growth will not only protect your home but the entire neighborhood. Polio and German Measles were wiped out at one point because 95% of the population got their vaccine since the 60's. Fast forward to 2000's, Polio and German measles outbreaks were showing up all over because large groups were not getting vaccinated. This is going to get worse because of the lies about covid. People no longer trust the government nor the media. So what do we do for the next pandemic? The next vaccine could be 100% effective and with 0 side effects, but 50% of the population will refuse to get it because we can not trust "scientists".
LAFD of today says the firefighters need to look like the residents whose homes they're putting out the fires. Half the firefighters seen in this video would not get hired today because they're the "wrong" skin color. "Progressive" Los Angeles.
Hell, even the old Lou Grant show had its wildfire and then mudslides episodes.
It's more proof this area should never have been urbanized