Forest Fires

[Huntin' Fool]

About 33 million acres of forest in California.

GOP solutions - clear cut 1/2, overgraze all of it, rake it.

Effect: During heavy rains massive mud slides and flows. Sediment fills reservoirs.

Chaparral brush fields grow back in 5 years or so. Fuel loads come right back.

 

[BigHornRam]

About 33 million acres of forest in California.

GOP solutions - clear cut 1/2, overgraze all of it, rake it.

Effect: During heavy rains massive mud slides and flows. Sediment fills reservoirs.

Chaparral brush fields grow back in 5 years or so. Fuel loads come right back.

If you want to live in a chaparral brush field, with Santa Ana winds, you better learn how to manage it.

 

[elkantlers]

About 33 million acres of forest in California.

GOP solutions - clear cut 1/2, overgraze all of it, rake it.

Effect: During heavy rains massive mud slides and flows. Sediment fills reservoirs.

Chaparral brush fields grow back in 5 years or so. Fuel loads come right back.

Clearly the "Dems" solution is working fantastic.

This Partisan blame is getting old.

 

[Bill Zent]

Grass fires were less common and easier to contain when sheep, cows, goats, and wildlife grazed the land.

 

[Huntin' Fool]

Jimmy Carter had many solutions in the '70's. The only way to have had any effect in 2025.

GOP made sure they didn't happen.

 

[BuzzH]

If you want to live in a chaparral brush field, with Santa Ana winds, you better learn how to manage it.

Yeah, how's that?

 

[Huntin' Fool]

The Great Plains now have ‘wildfire years,’ not seasons, as blazes start and spread earlier

This year, wildfires have already burned thousands of acres in the Great Plains. Dry conditions and unseasonably warm temperatures have optimal settings for wildfires, and some experts say they are seeing more intense fires.

www.kcur.org

Lots of grazing here

few trees

 

[Moserkr]

My .02... Fires used to be natural and just mainly burn the understory. It was a healthy refresh to the forests which left the old trees intact. It's only when humans started managing forests that fires were declared bad. The question is how do we manage to log forests in a fire friendly way, and build houses / protect communities to allow fires to burn... all while simultaneously rebuilding the forest so the fires only burn the undergrowth and the not the canopy of large trees?

My opinion for Northern CA forests, Id start by using heavy selective harvest and masticating the undergrowth until it's fire resistant. Leave select older trees trimmed up and spaced far enough apart to where a fire could burn the undergrowth but not jump to the canopy. Begin this process around population centers and high value areas, then expand to create fire breaks with this method. Build 1/4 mile defensible spaces around population centers and then let fires burn the managed areas. Will that work? Is it cost effective? Has to be better than our current mismanagement.

Currently the forests are chock full of young trees and brush which allows the jump to the canopy of older trees, resulting in large scale forest fires. Had one in my backyard (caldor fire) and the damage was scorched earth. They are actually kind of implementing what I said above but not to the level Id want to see. The recovery is slow but wild animals are thriving in the new growth. No cows graze here because it's mostly brush when it regrows.

In Southern CA, where its just large chaparral brush, its just going to burn and thats the end of it. Defensible space and fire resistant infrastructure is needed.

 

[Huntin' Fool]

Study shows wildfires are increasing on the Great Plains | Announce | University of Nebraska-Lincoln

newsroom.unl.edu

 

[BigHornRam]

Yeah, how's that?

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

 

[BuzzH]

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

Same.

 

[LuketheDog]

About 33 million acres of forest in California.

GOP solutions - clear cut 1/2, overgraze all of it, rake it.

Effect: During heavy rains massive mud slides and flows. Sediment fills reservoirs.

Chaparral brush fields grow back in 5 years or so. Fuel loads come right back.

Yes, let's dump all of the CA wildfires (mountains, forests, coastal brush, grasslands, etc.) in to the same bucket and say the causes and effects are exactly the same for all them, and mix in a little politics too for good measure...excellent critical thinking here

 

[Huntin' Fool]

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

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

www.e-education.psu.edu

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

Hotter and drier.

Man is directly responsible for the increase in fires.

 

[gouch]

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

Unfortunately, the discipline they are pushing is political science.

 

[BigHornRam]

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

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

www.e-education.psu.edu

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

Hotter and drier.

Man is directly responsible for the increase in fires.

Try eating some ice cream. It's good.

 

[hank4elk]

Worked 10 year on the Sierra Nevada Forest plan.
Selective logging, thinning, control burns, etc...
Save the big old growth, harvest mature trees, harvest small trees, Bio-mass, mastication, control burns.

Shut down the 1st thinning projects and never done.
Stopped by eco-nuts and big business.

Now half the forests are deadwood and a major fire problem.

 

[BigHornRam]

Four ingredients for a wildfire. Low humidity, wind, fuel, ignition source.

 

[BigHornRam]

I watched this one in real time.

This morning walking the dogs.



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

 

[Nameless Range]

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.

 

[elkduds]

Trump says there is no elephant in the room.