Zinke the Troll speaks

[wylerr]

I understand that perspective for sure, and for the most part its fine. But you would be amazed at the stuff that gets ordered for no good reason at all. Or crews/departments use these fires to order stuff that they needed beforehand and couldn't afford or justify. This doesnt even take into account the severe waste of people. You will have multiple people in positions such as resource aide as an example. Some of these resources people go out, walk the fireline, and try to make recommendations or critiques on the line location and destruction. This "advice" is often ignored unless its a real big deal anyway, but these are often biologist, rec guys, etc. that can often be GS-9/11s/12s etc. That guy is now getting paid 10-16 hour days to walk around and look nice. Thats just one example of the waste and he at least leaves fire camp.

Also, just think about your local National Forest. If it is any like the ones I have worked for, just on the fire side of management on a normal, non-fire day, they have a District Ranger, Assistant Fire Management Officer, and a Fire Management Officer. Those are usually high GS, think 11s/12s/13s that all 3 do similar things and then go out on fires to run stuff. Every forest basically has those three positions that do similar jobs, think of how many millions of dollars that is.

 

[TwistedSage]

As far as gov ordering supplies it does not need, I have seen this at every facet of gov. For some reason budget funds can never roll over so there is a pressing need to spend the whole budget or face cuts for the following year. No one wants to be the one responsible for thier org receiving less money so everyone spends it all every year. Period. Not accounting for surplus spending where needed.

Why can gov budgets not roll over? One should be commended for saving money not reprimanded for not meeting budget requirements. It's the gov, it's all damn monopoly money to them anyways. In my opinion that needs to chaged first before we can ever make a real impact on budget/dept. Also it would allow for units to save for a catastrophe year where the previous years may have been uneventful.

 

[TheJason]

Odd that he didn't list one of the main reasons for the increase in wildfires: 100+ years of fire suppression.

Or an increase in number of frost free days across the entire west.

 

[Irrelevant]

We're currently going into week 2 of the worse air quality in the US, here in E WA. This has become the norm. It is extremely difficult to workout and maintain any level of sanity when the air quality fluctuates between Very Unhealthy and Hazardous. I wondered the other day, while inspecting a construction site where everyone was wearing masks and cooking their brains out in 100+ degree heat, if we'll get to a point again where we simply do not tolerate forest fires due to the public health concerns. The local incident commander on the nearest fire claimed they couldn't use any aerial attacks because of the smoke. I have to believe is we can fly to moon we can figure out how to drop water on a fire in the smoke. It just seems like we're not making it priority. I'm ready to make it a priority. I'm sick if F-ing tired of the smoke. Let's divert our $100 billion defense machine into a fire fighting effort. Team it with significant prescribed burns (not summer or winter, but times when we actually have air movement) and timber thinnings. Anything except this.

Sorry rant over.

 

[TheJason]

We're currently going into week 2 of the worse air quality in the US, here in E WA. This has become the norm. It is extremely difficult to workout and maintain any level of sanity when the air quality fluctuates between Very Unhealthy and Hazardous. I wondered the other day, while inspecting a construction site where everyone was wearing masks and cooking their brains out in 100+ degree heat, if we'll get to a point again where we simply do not tolerate forest fires due to the public health concerns. The local incident commander on the nearest fire claimed they couldn't use any aerial attacks because of the smoke. I have to believe is we can fly to moon we can figure out how to drop water on a fire in the smoke. It just seems like we're not making it priority. I'm ready to make it a priority. I'm sick if F-ing tired of the smoke. Let's divert our $100 billion defense machine into a fire fighting effort. Team it with significant prescribed burns (not summer or winter, but times when we actually have air movement) and timber thinnings. Anything except this.

Sorry rant over.

A friend of mine survived a helicopter crash because of heavy smoke in a fire. There are significant risks involved with flying around fires. Visibility is the obvious one, as is the altered horsepower output of engines in a fire environment.

 

[MTGomer]

We're currently going into week 2 of the worse air quality in the US, here in E WA. This has become the norm. It is extremely difficult to workout and maintain any level of sanity when the air quality fluctuates between Very Unhealthy and Hazardous. I wondered the other day, while inspecting a construction site where everyone was wearing masks and cooking their brains out in 100+ degree heat, if we'll get to a point again where we simply do not tolerate forest fires due to the public health concerns. The local incident commander on the nearest fire claimed they couldn't use any aerial attacks because of the smoke. I have to believe is we can fly to moon we can figure out how to drop water on a fire in the smoke. It just seems like we're not making it priority. I'm ready to make it a priority. I'm sick if F-ing tired of the smoke. Let's divert our $100 billion defense machine into a fire fighting effort. Team it with significant prescribed burns (not summer or winter, but times when we actually have air movement) and timber thinnings. Anything except this.

Sorry rant over.

Too bad you don’t like it. Michael Garrity and a San Francisco judge know better than professional forest managers and you. Let it burn. It helps the old growth.

https://missoulian.com/lifestyles/r...cle_48aa1a7b-e4df-5427-ad26-1b189d68d625.html

 

[SandyCreek]

We're currently going into week 2 of the worse air quality in the US, here in E WA. This has become the norm. It is extremely difficult to workout and maintain any level of sanity when the air quality fluctuates between Very Unhealthy and Hazardous. I wondered the other day, while inspecting a construction site where everyone was wearing masks and cooking their brains out in 100+ degree heat, if we'll get to a point again where we simply do not tolerate forest fires due to the public health concerns. The local incident commander on the nearest fire claimed they couldn't use any aerial attacks because of the smoke. I have to believe is we can fly to moon we can figure out how to drop water on a fire in the smoke. It just seems like we're not making it priority. I'm ready to make it a priority. I'm sick if F-ing tired of the smoke. Let's divert our $100 billion defense machine into a fire fighting effort. Team it with significant prescribed burns (not summer or winter, but times when we actually have air movement) and timber thinnings. Anything except this.

Sorry rant over.

I'll crunch some numbers; get this solved quickly as to restore your sanity and god willing get you back to your workouts

 

[wylerr]

I worked in Northeast Oregon on a forest. A forest not far away in WA in the fall/winter of 2015 tried to do prescribed burns. This mind you was the year of the worst fire season in WA state history with I believe 1 million acres burned, especially the North Star Complex or whatever the hell it ended up getting called. BTW, that fire was hell, I spent a month there getting my butt kicked and then it only slowed cause of snow. Anyway, the forest tried to do burns and the people of a town nearby got it canceled. The reason: they didn't want any poor air quality during the fall or winter months....

Trust me I get not wanting to suck smoke for a bit, especially small particles from a fire far far away boo hoo, but jesus people. You either choose to possibly have a bit of low smoke in a time of year when most people aren't outside a ton (WINTER btw) or you don't burn and then we have these catastrophic large fires. Pick one and lets use some common sense....

 

[pdq_wizzard]

Problem now is many Internet Service Providers (ISP) give people dynamic IP's... Static IPs of earlier days were linked to a person or single client. Dynamic is always changing... They will link to the ISP and if one has pull with someone at that ISP, have discovery via court order or a warrant - you may be able to find who had that IP address during the specific time frame of use.

Earlier, it was static IP which was basically a number assigned to each person within that ISP and that could be tracked to the house.

Maybe some new way of tracking dynamic IP's has become available...(?) Anyone ever play, "Where in the world is Carmen Santiago"? Haha! Kinda fun pondering the identity of such people.

you may not have a static IP from your provider any more but you might have that assigned IP for months or more. (I have had the same IP for more than a year at a time).

it depends on if you are still logged in when your lease is up, if you are you get another lease on the IP you had.

 

[Elkmagnet]

you may not have a static IP from your provider any more but you might have that assigned IP for months or more. (I have had the same IP for more than a year at a time).

it depends on if you are still logged in when your lease is up, if you are you get another lease on the IP you had.

If you get the boot a V.P.N. (virtual private network) would allow you to keep on a trollin. Its actually a very good safety measure for browsing.
Now fin will kick me out for telling you guys that.....

 

[JDH]

If you get the boot a V.P.N. (virtual private network) would allow you to keep on a trollin. Its actually a very good safety measure for browsing.
Now fin will kick me out for telling you guys that.....

Since you have a VPN, if you get kicked out you can come right back.

 

[Elkmagnet]

Since you have a VPN, if you get kicked out you can come right back.

I don't use one. Well except to stalk greenhorn on Facebook

 

[Sytes]

you may not have a static IP from your provider any more but you might have that assigned IP for months or more. (I have had the same IP for more than a year at a time).

it depends on if you are still logged in when your lease is up, if you are you get another lease on the IP you had.

Edited... VPN / DHCP Lease / cell phone IP and continued chat along this line is not really productive to reduce tantrum/partisan hacks... Meh, if other circumstance, this would be a fun tech guru chat.

 

[noharleyyet]

So...sock puppets have chronic butthurt.....

 

[Bambistew]

Weird, that we know the reason why the fires are happening yet, we don't change our management plans to include management for drought? Seems like we've been a drought for 25 years. Even for gov't that's enough time to change policy, no?

 

[BuzzH]

Weird, that we know the reason why the fires are happening yet, we don't change our management plans to include management for drought? Seems like we've been a drought for 25 years. Even for gov't that's enough time to change policy, no?

What policy/management are you going to change to account for drought that you cant predict, 100+ years of fire suppression, lightning and arson ignitions that you have no control of, private citizens that refuse to mitigate any of the risks of where they build, places that are over-built in the wildland interface, half the public that bitches when you do a controlled burn, etc. etc. etc.

We're wayyyy past the threshold to apply fire back on the landscape in a vast majority of the West to replicate past fire behavior, timing, etc.

What we're experiencing now is the new normal, and I'm highly suspect that its not going to change for a long, long time. Bottom line is that people are afraid of fire as well as what it takes to put forest ecology back on the right path. Took 100 years to get to this point, wont be solved easily or quickly.

For the record, I also don't expect wildland fire fighters (which I was one of for 7 years) to risk their lives to save brush, trees, houses, or anything else.

 

[TheJason]

What we're experiencing now is the new normal, and I'm highly suspect that its not going to change for a long, long time.

I completely agree. I just told my wife and kids this the other day, get used to August being a blanket of smoke and haze.

 

[oldschool.06]

I'm not sure where the OP lives or how much time has been spent in the woods of California but the forest needs to be logged its an over grown mess. There hasn't been drought conditions for over 2 years and we had a huge wet winter 2 years ago. Granted we flirt with drought and flooding every couple of years which has been the norm my whole life in this crap state . Fire is a natural thing and we need fires in the forest from time to time to keep things balanced. The lack of logging is an issue no doubt that combined with 100 years of fire suppression have no doubt been a HUGE contributing factor to the fire storms out here . There is a huge majority of almost uninhabitable forest land here through out the whole state. Just my measly .02 cents

BTW I bet there will be some good hunting a few years from now around all these burn areas

 

[oldschool.06]

I completely agree. I just told my wife and kids this the other day, get used to August being a blanket of smoke and haze.

Possibly we will burn out a bunch of wilderness and then settle into a new norm with better hunting and less fires for a while . But you are right its been terrible here as well with all the ash and smoke .

 

[hank4elk]

Possibly we will burn out a bunch of wilderness and then settle into a new norm with better hunting and less fires for a while . But you are right its been terrible here as well with all the ash and smoke .

3rd day in a row of smokey haze from CA & WA fires...............in Pie Town,NM.
Reminds me of growing up & never seeing the mtn's a mile away,which were not burning all the time. Smog they called it.