A few observations, mostly about the media.

First is that many of the media go off the air, either because power has been denied to their main offices, or because their transmitter sites were burned or harmed by the fire.

Early during the Thomas Fire, when most of the destruction took place in Ventura, all the hills and mountains from which the main FM stations for the region transmit were burned over. Some of those stations still aren’t back on the air.

Second is that the media have lousy Web and app presences. All the commercial stations for the Ventura area that were knocked off the air said nothing about the fire on their websites, which persisted entirely as promotional vehicles. The only commercial station with a local news presence, a right wing talk station on the AM band, was not affected by the fire; but news about the fire on its website (as well as on its only non-syndicated show) was also minimal. The regional public station, KCLU, did an excellent job. So did the Los Angeles public stations (KCRW and KPCC) that have local facilities. KNX, the Los Angeles all-news station, covered the Thomas Fire, but only as a secondary concern. Six homes lost in the Skirball fire alongside the 405 in the middle of LA got far more attention than the hundreds lost in the Thomas Fire.

Third is that useful information for particular areas is remarkably thin. All the bias on TV is toward having talking coats reporting nothings from the field ("I’m here in Dos Banos Canyon, where there is a lot of activity going on…”) and talking heads in the studio, repeating statistics as if they were a liturgical chant. Questions such as these are rarely if ever brought up:

I realize none of these have much to do with lost identities, but since we’re evacuees in the middle of experiencing a live fire that still threatens our home, they might be worthwhile in any case.

Doc