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That’s because we’re part of Mexican America! 
Thank you, Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum.
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And also:
ETA: As long as Americans stop shooting down our water bombers.
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They both really do send us their best people.
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So do the Aussies. There were no shortage of Aussie firefighters here when we had our big fires…well crap that’s every year. 
Likewise, firefighters from the Western US go to Australia when they have their fire season.
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It usually works out really well - our winter is your summer, so the fire seasons don’t usually overlap. But a massive fire in January in the northern hemisphere is very strange (“oh hi, climate change - we were just talking about you…”). I haven’t been following Australia’s firefighting deployments, but it may be tricky to find spare Australian firefighters.
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It’s interesting, because winter means people more likely to use firepits, camp fires, wood stoves, etc., dry very low-humidity air, and there’s a layer of dry dead leaves on the ground that if they catch will blow the fire everywhere. Often gets pretty windy too. So it’s not uncommon to have red flag warning days in the winter. Yet it’s not considered fire season.
Also quite difficult to fight fires in below-freezing conditions. Here’s a description of one from 1977:
A fire broke out at Whitney Place and Virginia Street, in the City of Buffalo, on Friday evening. Fire trucks rammed through stalled cars in an attempt to get to the scene and fire hoses were stretched two to three blocks to reach the fire, as that is as far as the fire trucks were able to make it. The National Guard assisted in taking firemen to the scene in four-wheel drive vehicles.
Not only did the weather frustrate efforts to reach the scene, but also it hampered the ability to fight the fire. Attempts to disconnect hoses to move them resulted in the water freezing and bursting the hoses. Since the street drains were blocked with snow, runoff water from the fire rose to the running boards on the fire department’s pumpers. When this water froze, it required jackhammers to extricate the pumpers. Hoses also had to be removed with jackhammers. Some fire truck pumpers stalled in the snow when wind blew into the engines or they ran out of fuel. Since their design necessitated the use of water instead of antifreeze as a coolant, the water in the pumper froze and ruined them.
The fire was eventually extinguished, but not before six or seven houses were destroyed and 50 people left homeless. Virginia Street and Whitney Place were closed for more than two weeks following the fire due to vehicles stuck in the ice. Firemen used snowmobiles to rescue trapped people, and to transport nurses and doctors to the hospitals; they also used four-wheel drive vehicles to deliver medicine.
One lucky thing for L.A. is that at least it doesn’t often get that cold there like it does in northern states.
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Hopefully, this means efforts to undermine Chinatown in Philly to make it a more attractive target for moves like this will end:
This exposed the landlords, developers, union leaders, and elected officials willing to ignore opposition from the public so they could have their own short-term gains while setting up the community for long-term pains.
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City Council & the Mayor were shown to be wholly owned subsidiaries of the billionaires. And world class chumps.
It’ll hurt some of them in the next election.
Edit;
The more I think about this the more I believe that the whole damn thing was just a bargaining tactic between the 76’ers & Comcast - who own the stadium. Their plan was half assed and they didn’t even figure out transit.
So they jerked the entire region around for nothing.
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https://www.scotsman.com/hays-way/bumblebee-population-increases-116-times-over-in-remarkable-scotland-project-4882622
[Onebox ain’t boxing so here:]
Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in ‘remarkable’ Scotland rewilding project
‘The sound of traffic and a uniform sea of barley have been replaced by the most beautiful meadows, full of wildflowers, young saplings and the buzz of bees’
The bumblebee population has made an impressive comeback in a developed area by increasing to 116 times what it was two years ago thanks to a nature restoration group.
Rewilding Denmarkfield, a 90-acre project based just north of Perth, has been working to restore nature to green spaces in an increasingly built up area for the past two years.
Statistics from the charity show in 2021, when some of the fields managed by the project were still barley monoculture, only 35 bumblebees were counted.But by 2023, after just two years of nature restoration work in the same fields, the population increased to 4,056. The diversity of bumblebee also doubled, according to the charity, from five to ten different species.
…
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“If you build it, they will come.”
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“ Titled Ringo & Friends at the Ryman , the two-hour special will find Starr performing songs from his new country album, Look Up , which arrived Jan. 10. He’ll be joined by a star-studded list of friends on stage, including Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle — both of whom collaborated on the drummer’s new LP — as well as Sheryl Crow, Rodney Crowell, Mickey Guyton, Emmylou Harris, Sarah Jarosz, Jamey Johnson, Brenda Lee, Larkin Poe, The War and Treaty, and Jack White.”
Good man, that Ringo.
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Cool
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‘Everyone thought it would cause gridlock’: the highway that Seoul turned into a stream
In Seoul, the restored waterway has been a triumph. It doesn’t just provide a peaceful refuge from the city’s busy streets, it serves as a cultural corridor with year-round festivals and performances, while helping cool the surrounding neighbourhoods, fighting air pollution and managing increasingly intense monsoon floods.
“It feels really nice here, it’s one of the main tourist attractions to visit in Seoul,” said Kareem, a tourist from Malaysia. And in fact, the stream’s history mirrors Seoul’s own transformations. For more than 600 years, it served as the city’s vital waterway, managing floods and supporting daily life since the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910). But by the Japanese colonial period in the 1930s, it had become known as “the city’s cancer”, an open sewer that threatened public health.
After the Korean war, desperate refugees built shantytowns along its banks. In the 1960s, Seoul covered it and built an elevated highway, seen then as a symbol of progress and modernisation that could hide urban poverty.
“Initially, everyone thought it would cause gridlock,” said Park Byung-chul, a local resident. “But people adapted. Now we can’t imagine the highway ever being here.”
According to studies by the Seoul Institute, the area around the stream is now 3.6C cooler than nearby streets, creating a cool corridor through Seoul’s dense centre. The removal of the elevated highway created new wind paths through the city, improving air circulation. Air pollution dropped significantly, with nitrogen dioxide levels falling by 35%.
Wildlife has returned, too: a 2022 survey by the Seoul Institute showed the area now hosted 666 species, including 174 animal species and 492 plant species.
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Wonderful!
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Maybe this belongs in the Goddamn Trump Administration thread, but I had been wondering about the impact of this; Mike Johnson removed a House Member from the Intelligence Committee, and he is now pissed;
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