Forest Fires

[BigHornRam]

I’m all for more forest management, if only for the positive effect it would have on wildlife.

That said, I think the idea that we are gonna engage in fuel reduction on such a scale that it’s going to solve our wildfire problems, and the cost associated with them, is often bunk.

For one, timber is a commodity with production issues down the line in the west. For two, so much of what needs to be done will not net any money. The cost per acre of fuels reduction in areas without merchantable timber is not cheap and those areas are plenty . And third, particularly in the WUI, when it’s hot and the wind is blowing, the fire triangle becomes an isosceles, and whatever’s there will become a wall of flame - treated or not. One can look north to Canada to see examples of this.

I’m for fuels reduction and better timber management across the landscape, and I do believe it will help with fire and in particular initial attack, but I just think folks should have reasonable expectations regarding both the cost and effort, as well as the outcome. There’s a lot of glorious but overstated promises that will not prevent our next Big Burn, which most folks in the fire world know is coming.

Good odds what is happening right now in Southern California will happen in Helena. That town is a fire trap. Buildings packed close together burn at incredibly high temperatures once ignited. If a fire starts in the wui with winds blowing towards town, it will be bad. Helena area should be #1 priority landscape in Montana.

 

[INMT]

Good odds what is happening right now in Southern California will happen in Helena. That town is a fire trap. Buildings packed close together burn at incredibly high temperatures once ignited. If a fire starts in the wui with winds blowing towards town, it will be bad. Helena area should be #1 priority landscape in Montana.

Happened in small town Denton a few years back. That was a sad deal.

 

[Gr8bawana]

200 years of hyper fossil fuel burning is literally cooking the atmosphere.

Global Energy Consumption | EARTH 104: Earth and the Environment (Development)

The 70's were the decade to start real change.

Hotter and drier.

Man is directly responsible for the increase in fires.

Too many people prefer to do this and claim all is good.

 

[mtmuley]

I watched this one in real time.

This morning walking the dogs.

View attachment 358194

Those that did a good job making their properties safe, saved them. Those that didn't, lost them.

I'll never forget watching that happen. mtmuley

 

[BigHornRam]

I'll never forget watching that happen. mtmuley

I was reroofing a house up on the end of Nighthawk lane when a different fire came over the top of Downey and almost took out the Grubstake. I thought it was toast. I put a sprinkler on the roof of the client's house, turned off their propane tank, packed my tools, and got the hell out of there.

 

[mtmuley]

I was reroofing a house up on the end of Nighthawk lane when a different fire came over the top of Downey and almost took out the Grubstake. I thought it was toast. I put a sprinkler on the roof of the client's house, turned off their propane tank, packed my tools, and got the hell out of there.

My wife spotted that first puff of smoke from our house NE of Corvallis. Not long after, it was all gone. I think she has video from Hamilton. Scary how fast fire can move. mtmuley

 

[BigHornRam]

My wife spotted that first puff of smoke from our house NE of Corvallis. Not long after, it was all gone. I think she has video from Hamilton. Scary how fast fire can move. mtmuley

We lived about 5 miles across the valley on the east side when the Roaring Lion fire took off. There were green needle fir boughs laying on my driveway that evening. That tells you something about how strong the winds were in front of the fire.

 

[gouch]

Not sure. That's why I don't live in the middle of a steep banked chaparral brush field.

Don't get complacent. I don't live in the middle of a steep banked chaparral brush field. Don't have Santa Anna winds. Don't even have any kind of forest within five miles of my little town,

Yet, here is my neighborhood four years ago.








Fire don't care what it consumes. Don't care about your political leanings or who you're gunna blame. Once it gets up a head of steam it don't even care about your puny attempts to stop it. It just burns on with a life of its own.

 

[WesternCO68]

The feds probably aren't going to clear cut half the forest. Even if they wanted to, all federal timber sales have to be cleared by hydrologists and soil scientists whose job is to make sure that harvest activities won't cause mudslides, massive sediment runoff, etc.

Even if the administration raises timber sale targets to crazy levels, the worst case scenario is probably just areas being cut a decade or two before what would be ideal. That isn't great, but it's not necessarily going to turn the forest into a moonscape.

Will it reduce the thread of wildfires? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Unfortunately a lot of the wildland urban interface exists in pinyon-juniper or chaparral areas where there's not commercial timber that can pay for the cost of the thinning. Those areas will cost money to treat and will probably be neglected compared to areas with merchantable timber but fewer communities at risk.

 

[BigHornRam]

If you live in a fire prone area, going forward the discussion has to include fire resistant building materials, particularly roofing, siding and decks. Landscaping around the houses as well.

 

[Deleted member 13457]

I used to think logging, grazing, etc were the answer to preventing catastrophic fires. But over the last 30 years, I’ve seen too many catastrophic fires in areas that have been logged and grazed and managed. Now I think sometimes mother nature is just gonna say “hold my beer and watch this” and there’s nothing you can do. I do think some areas don’t make sense to build in; especially as densely as we have been, given the topography and bottleneck roads. Makes evacuating due to a fire, a nightmare.

 

[F250]

200 years of hyper fossil fuel burning is literally cooking the atmosphere.

Global Energy Consumption | EARTH 104: Earth and the Environment (Development)

The 70's were the decade to start real change.

Hotter and drier.

Man is directly responsible for the increase in fires.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

It's funny how one person can turn a hunting forum into a political forum so easily. This place wasn't half bad up until a week ago. Panties just wadding at a record pace.

 

[Redmt]

Everyone who has actually fought wildfires speak your piece. Everyone who has actually been a victim of a wildfire, let's hear what you think. Sorry guys but I've fought countless of them. I've seen my neighbors homes go up in flames. I fought the SCU fire as it burned right up and over my home. It's not political bullshit. It's arson, stupidity and mother nature.

 

[hank4elk]

Lived in a canyon next to a stream. Oak woodlands & chaparral.
Fires and floods.
I would never live in another holler or dense woods.

Passed on dozens of properties with dense woods, limited access.
Santa Fe is a deathtrap on the edges of town.
Ruidoso is waiting and trying.
Los Alamos keeps burning.

Have a gravel loop road around the house. PJ's and grasses.
Been thinning the pinions near the house and getting rid of juniper as I can.
Metal roofs and siding.
Hoses laid year round.

 

[BigHornRam]

There has been a strong push to use science-based solution for the wildfire problem.

Unfortunately, the discipline they are pushing is political science.

If any of you are interested, and seems many of you are, I would highly recommend reading this book.

Mimicking Nature's Fire: Restoring Fire-Prone Forests In The West https://g.co/kgs/K7SK8aZ

 

[Dan-06]

Clearly the "Dems" solution is working fantastic.

This Partisan blame is getting old.

Here here. That’s the truth. Let’s try something different. I’m sure it will have some side effect too.

 

[Huntin' Fool]

Only real answer is to build fire proof structures and reduce fuels around them. For shade on your house in the summer afternoons - build a sun screen that can be run up a couple of flag poles.

 

[Redmt]

Only real answer is to build fire proof structures and reduce fuels around them. For shade on your house in the summer afternoons - build a sun screen that can be run up a couple of flag poles.

Underground homes.

 

[BenP]

200 years of hyper fossil fuel burning is literally cooking the atmosphere.

Global Energy Consumption | EARTH 104: Earth and the Environment (Development)

The 70's were the decade to start real change.

Hotter and drier.

Man is directly responsible for the increase in fires.

It's always "just only fossil fuels".
No one ever seems to consider that we have created a heat absorbing dome with all the asphalt, cities and buildings and then took away huge swaths of heat regulating forests. Plus we altered the annual fire cycle that would put particulates in the air that would aid in water droplet formation for rain and to refract heat away from the surface.

Of course man is a huge part of a warming earth but don't just focus on the "easy" answer of fossil fuels.

That's the same mentality of the animal rights people of hunting is the only reason animals suffer or go extinct. All the while they sit comfortably in their fake leather or nylon/polyester chair that caused harm to the environment with who knows what toxic waste from production inside their house that sits in a previous migration corridor, after getting home from work that was a prime wintering habitat, and then eat their tofu dinner that came from a soybean field that used to be where fawns were born.

Plus we base a lot on the temperature of an average that is a fairly small percentage of the earths age whether you believe in a creation or evolution world. But from an evolutionary standpoint, that these people are, the earth will evolve and adapt like they say it's done for millions of years but yet they try to keep it static and never changing.