To not want to hear any more about the Californian fires

Over 2,000 homes burnt down. A massive wildfire burning block after block of an urban city, and threatening iconic landmarks. It doesn't happen every day.

Just dont watch the news or read the paper and youll be fine. I see snippets but im good without the news of which wars happening now, what place is on fire, flooded, what Harry & Megs are up to 🙄

@embolass do you actually think floods in Lincolnshire should be getting the same kind of news coverage as the whole of LA burning down though really?

Well devastating flooding in Lincolnshire the other week is even closer to ourselves, and it didn’t get this amount of coverage of people TV news channels going into overdrive.
”it’s happening in one of the richest cities in the worlds richest country , means we’re all in this together “ 🤔 mmmmm we weren’t in it together that much when it was a poor region
Yes it’s dreadful what’s happening, I’m talking about how news worthy some issues are depending on where and who it’s affecting.

There are some poorer people, in those areas, that have lost everything as well. 🙄

Its not just celebs.

Of course not. Blocks of shops get burned to the ground in Nigeria, on official orders, to keep food prices high. People die in those fires because often there isn't a back exit and no-one knows (or cares) if they are empty. Hundreds of Christians a day get killed, girls kidnapped by other religions. There are no safe hospitals because we have poached all the good staff, so women children etc die daily. We don't hear a thing, so it disproves the "used to be under British rule= news coverage" theory.

The fires happen every year and some are started by arsonists.
The scale & impact is due to climate change.
There have been numerous meteorologists explaining this in reputable news channels in recent days.

I don’t agree. It’s not only about lives lost. It’s about impacts we can understand and relate to ourselves.
climate change is also having a devastating effect in the 3rd world too, with famines and hurricanes and flooding.
But ethe fact that it’s happening in one of the richest cities in the worlds richest country means that we are all in this together.
and it might make people think about what it means for all
of us.

Is it climate change though? I thought at least one person had been arrested on suspicion of arson. Seems odd that many fires would break out in different places st the same time.

Not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not but taken at face value this is actually very accurate and Spot on.

Pathetic for posters to call this thread USA bashing btw. And I say this as someone who has a lot of American friends and family (Dad, cousins etc). Even if you disagree with the idea there is much coverage of these fires, people are making very good points as to the reason why they think it’s too much.

And no, it wouldn’t be covered like this if it was in sub-Saharan Africa.

US is many things but a victim it is not.
It’s an aggressive, exploitative
self absorbed, hugely powerful nation that does not see itself as having a special relationship with the UK despite what the politicians here bleat on about and many Americans would agree.

Wow.

You missed -
Americans lives being affected are more important
(because of familiar TV shows and movies 😂)

Third world dirt poor countries who have regular disasters get no where near the coverage this story has had.
Western lives are more valuable it seems

And thank god they are given it’s going to affect our children in a bad way.

😲 these won’t all be rich people. What an insensitive and nasty post.

That’s OK then because it’s not going to affect you ever?

What makes the LA fires newsworthy:
They happen every year but never before in January. The scale is unprecedented and it’s because of climate change.
It’s one of the most affluent communities in the world- yet people can’t protect themselves from its impacts (albeit the numbers who have died are relatively small)
Its a city that we are all familiar with through TV shows & movies
It’s a huge densely populated urban area
The impacts will be felt for hundreds of miles around because of the smoke and air quality
It’s only going to get worse.
Now do you see why it’s been leading the news?

It's so they can bang on about climate change.

No, its a fantastic comment! And so very true. Many of us are really sick and tired of the non-stop coverage of a war that's been going on for 75 years and will still be going on when we're all dead. What's happening in Syria, and in Ukraine and elsewhere don't get anywhere near the nonstop coverage that that Gaza gets.

Not Lincolnshire, but we saw Melton Mowbray specifically mentioned several times on BBC national news, Melton being about a 15 minute drive from the nearest town in Lincolnshire.

I agree to some extent. The bad floods in Lincolnshire have barely been mentioned on our national news channels. The BBC news channel is supposed to be the British Broadcasting Corporation but every time I turn it on now they are talking about American news, whether it be the fires or Trump.

I don't pay my license fee so I can have American news and politics 24 hours a day.

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Its a shame that watching and reading the news is compulsory.

Quite OP …plastic melts unfortunately (!) but is cheap and easy to replace in the land of the free

Agree. It’s a harsh thread and lacking empathy

Sadly, not just this thread.

Agree. It’s a harsh thread and lacking empathy

Maybe people get fed up with stuff as they watch too much news

We can’t just ignore all other events due to one