Outside Topic OT - Fire - Printable Version
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RE: OT - Fire - 82 Card - 08-25-2020
An article on SFGate gets into the causes for the fires in the last several years. A particularly depressing passage:
Quote:Q: But shouldn't there be a very tiny silver lining here? Things can't burn twice.
A: One of the interesting things we saw, especially in the LNU complex fire in Napa, Solano and Lake counties, is a lot of the areas that burned have already burned in the past couple of years-in some cases twice. There are some places where this is the third time they've burned in six years. Usually you would expect burn scars to last for a few years and reduce, if not prevent, fires. Most folks would think we'd have at least five or seven years of reduced risk in some of these areas. But there was just enough time for the vegetation to grow back and support a fire. The warming and drying effect has been so profound that stuff that had regrown was actually dry enough to burn pretty intensely.
I'm not convinced turning logging companies loose in our forests would do any more good than having had a recent fire. Having seen some logged sites, it's not like the loggers leave the place free of debris.
RE: OT - Fire - OutsiderFan - 08-25-2020
If roads are the issue, is it feasible to remove logs by helicopter?
I don't know how many of you have seen a clear cut area that used to be forest, but it is an ugly blight on a landscape. I remember going up to Port Angeles, Washington one time by single engine plane and looking down to see such a sight. Several hills just covered in stumps and not much else.
The good news is even the timber companies don't seem to see clear cutting as good for business now. Select tree removal, and a heavy re-planting program seems to be the new model. But on federal or state park land the issues get trickier for a lot of reasons.
RE: OT - Fire - Genuine Realist - 08-25-2020
(08-25-2020, 11:16 AM)Goose Wrote:God, I guess.(08-25-2020, 09:36 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: What I'm smoking is wood ash right at the moment. Monstrous fires are a wonderful educational tool.Strange, me too, and not by choice.
One thing that really bothers me is that when you look at an arial photo of the Sierras you see large patches of dead trees. Those trees are doing nobody any good, and if they catch fire, they will do lots of harm. Yet as I understand it, the Sierra Club always opposes removing those trees because they fear the damage logging roads through healthy parts of the forest will cause. It seems that all the stakeholders, the BLM, the loggers, and the Sierra Club should be able to get together on this and come up with a solution that is acceptable to everyone, at worst the "lesser of may evils". Yet it doesn't happen and we get massive fires. Who wins then?
My anti-elitist credentials are on view here without apology, and I will freely concede that there is a definite bias in me on that point. I try not to let it get in the way of critical thinking, but it probably does.
That said, has anyone ever commented on the public stage about the colossal damage the Sierra Club has done to the world in the last 50 years? First, there was the Luddite opposition to nuclear power, which has resulted in the unnecessary burning of billions of gallons of oil to heat and provide transportation to the world. To be sure, nuclear has its negatives. But anecdotally, I'm aware of a professor who taught a class on macro economics at a major college. One of the projects the class had to undertake collectively was to devise an energy plan for the US for the next several decades - using coal, oil, renewables, nuclear, etc. Every semester the class would start out with the predictable bias against nuclear . . . and every semester the class would reluctantly conclude that a substantial reliance on nuclear was the most practical strategy for the near future, despite the negatives. But thanks to the Sierra Club and its fellow travelers, plus the insane form of litigation in the US, adoption of that strategy was abandoned year ago.
The result is a substantial contribution to the carbon emissions that partially cause global warming, which I would think serves them right, except that me and my children and grandchildren also have to live on the verdammte planet to which they have caused so much harm. There are few apostates that concede the error of their ways, but of course it is decades too late.
We also have a reflexive reaction even to sensible commercial forest harvesting, for which we are all paying now and will pay in the future.
The Sierra Club is a classic example of complacent elitism gone mad. But no one seems to say so.
RE: OT - Fire - Mick - 08-25-2020
(08-25-2020, 11:16 AM)Goose Wrote:(08-25-2020, 09:36 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote: What I'm smoking is wood ash right at the moment. Monstrous fires are a wonderful educational tool.Strange, me too, and not by choice.
One thing that really bothers me is that when you look at an arial photo of the Sierras you see large patches of dead trees. Those trees are doing nobody any good, and if they catch fire, they will do lots of harm. Yet as I understand it, the Sierra Club always opposes removing those trees because they fear the damage logging roads through healthy parts of the forest will cause. It seems that all the stakeholders, the BLM, the loggers, and the Sierra Club should be able to get together on this and come up with a solution that is acceptable to everyone, at worst the "lesser of may evils". Yet it doesn't happen and we get massive fires. Who wins then?
Well, Trump suggested that there was too much fuel that could catch fire. So even if the Sierra Club et al were inclined to reduce the amount of flammable material throughout California, the fact that Trump mentioned it means that it is an invalid statement. It's axiomatic. And I do recall the loud and long intra-state amusement in the local media at Trump the Rube's statement during the last set of uncontrollable CA fires, that maybe, just possibly, if you get rid of all this stuff that catches on fire easily, perhaps California won't have so many uncontrollable fires.
RE: OT - Fire - Genuine Realist - 08-25-2020
(08-25-2020, 11:44 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: If roads are the issue, is it feasible to remove logs by helicopter?Heavy replanting was also the old model, as the loggers have been saying plaintively for years. But no one listens.
I don't know how many of you have seen a clear cut area that used to be forest, but it is an ugly blight on a landscape. I remember going up to Port Angeles, Washington one time by single engine plane and looking down to see such a sight. Several hills just covered in stumps and not much else.
The good news is even the timber companies don't seem to see clear cutting as good for business now. Select tree removal, and a heavy re-planting program seems to be the new model. But on federal or state park land the issues get trickier for a lot of reasons.
No way you could do the massive removal that has to happen by aerial means.
RE: OT - Fire - Goose - 08-25-2020
(08-25-2020, 11:42 AM)82 Card Wrote: I'm not convinced turning logging companies loose in our forests would do any more good than having had a recent fire. Having seen some logged sites, it's not like the loggers leave the place free of debris.Turning anybody lose isn't a good idea. However, if there was an agreed "clean up" requirement and an observer from the BLM there to ensure compliance, the big problems could be eliminated. It would cost the loggers some money, but if they knew that going in, they could adjust their pricing/bidding appropriately. It could also be a combined effort, with a replanting crew from the Sierra Club accompanying/following the loggers. It is more of a "can do" approach to the problem.
RE: OT - Fire - Genuine Realist - 08-25-2020
(08-25-2020, 11:42 AM)82 Card Wrote: An article on SFGate gets into the causes for the fires in the last several years. A particularly depressing passage:This is rather typical. Who said anything about letting them loose? But more in moderation would be a good thing.
Quote:Q: But shouldn't there be a very tiny silver lining here? Things can't burn twice.
A: One of the interesting things we saw, especially in the LNU complex fire in Napa, Solano and Lake counties, is a lot of the areas that burned have already burned in the past couple of years-in some cases twice. There are some places where this is the third time they've burned in six years. Usually you would expect burn scars to last for a few years and reduce, if not prevent, fires. Most folks would think we'd have at least five or seven years of reduced risk in some of these areas. But there was just enough time for the vegetation to grow back and support a fire. The warming and drying effect has been so profound that stuff that had regrown was actually dry enough to burn pretty intensely.
I'm not convinced turning logging companies loose in our forests would do any more good than having had a recent fire. Having seen some logged sites, it's not like the loggers leave the place free of debris.
RE: OT - Fire - 82 Card - 08-26-2020
Moderation may be a good thing. So would college students not partying in a pandemic and lobbyists not buying off politicians. Any attempt to enforce moderation would be immediately denounced as a communist plot.This is America. We don't do moderation.
RE: OT - Fire - Genuine Realist - 08-26-2020
(08-26-2020, 12:53 AM)82 Card Wrote: Moderation may be a good thing. So would college students not partying in a pandemic and lobbyists not buying off politicians. Any attempt to enforce moderation would be immediately denounced as a communist plot.This is America. We don't do moderation.At the end of the day, we actually sorta do, which is why there has been so much social change in the US since the Civil War without violent revolutions.
You are right, however, that the public dialog is dominated by voices that are anything but moderate.
RE: OT - Fire - g1313 - 08-26-2020
I'm in favor of reforming government agency forest management practices and increasing funding for treating vs firefighting. However, I am quite skeptical that capitalism (which I think is a good solution to many things) will help this problem.
My rationale is:
1) The forest thinning practices seem to mostly involve removing brush and small trees, which have limited economic value for timber companies.
2) Clear-cutting to maintain fire breaks requires clearing down to the dirt and keeping it that way forever. The initial clear cutting might be profitable, but the maintenance seems unlikely to be.
3) This last one is more editorial than factual, but companies are by definition profit-seeking, so even if a reasonable compromise is worked out in the beginning, I have my doubts on keeping it that way into the future when paid lobbyists will perhaps have a disproportionate influence on whether the fire breaks are 2 miles wide or 5 miles wide.
(08-25-2020, 01:45 PM)Genuine Realist Wrote:(08-25-2020, 11:42 AM)82 Card Wrote: An article on SFGate gets into the causes for the fires in the last several years. A particularly depressing passage:This is rather typical. Who said anything about letting them loose? But more in moderation would be a good thing.
Quote:Q: But shouldn't there be a very tiny silver lining here? Things can't burn twice.
A: One of the interesting things we saw, especially in the LNU complex fire in Napa, Solano and Lake counties, is a lot of the areas that burned have already burned in the past couple of years-in some cases twice. There are some places where this is the third time they've burned in six years. Usually you would expect burn scars to last for a few years and reduce, if not prevent, fires. Most folks would think we'd have at least five or seven years of reduced risk in some of these areas. But there was just enough time for the vegetation to grow back and support a fire. The warming and drying effect has been so profound that stuff that had regrown was actually dry enough to burn pretty intensely.
I'm not convinced turning logging companies loose in our forests would do any more good than having had a recent fire. Having seen some logged sites, it's not like the loggers leave the place free of debris.
RE: OT - Fire - Goose - 08-26-2020
(08-26-2020, 11:50 AM)g1313 Wrote: I'm in favor of reforming government agency forest management practices and increasing funding for treating vs firefighting. However, I am quite skeptical that capitalism (which I think is a good solution to many things) will help this problem.I would agree that capitalism will not SOLVE this problem, but I do believe it can/will help with this problem.
Quote:My rationale is:True, but it may have economic value to companies that specialize in doing this kind of work. My gardener would take it on, but he would need a few more people -).
1) The forest thinning practices seem to mostly involve removing brush and small trees, which have limited economic value for timber companies.
Quote:2) Clear-cutting to maintain fire breaks requires clearing down to the dirt and keeping it that way forever. The initial clear cutting might be profitable, but the maintenance seems unlikely to be.May be true, so contract out the initial clear cut (under careful supervision) and maintain it some other way. Maybe a direct BLM job or maybe somebody can figure out a reasonable use for the fire breaks.
Quote:3) This last one is more editorial than factual, but companies are by definition profit-seeking, so even if a reasonable compromise is worked out in the beginning, I have my doubts on keeping it that way into the future when paid lobbyists will perhaps have a disproportionate influence on whether the fire breaks are 2 miles wide or 5 miles wide.It is important that everybody involved maintain an active interest in what happens. If the environmentalists "go to sleep" on the issue, bad things will happen. If the BLM caves in to every possible conservation idea, bad things will happen. If loggers are frozen out, dead trees are just left there. Everybody has a role to play.
RE: OT - Fire - BostonCard - 08-26-2020
I think what GR meant was not so much clearcutting fire breaks or cutting through shrubs, but thinning out the number of full grown trees, which do have economic value. I haven't fact checked this statement, but:
Quote:The tree population has expanded in the same way. According to the linked report, a healthy forest should have between 40 t0 60 trees per acre. California forests have between 100 to 200 AND massive amounts of small shrubbery, dried leaves and branches, and, of course, a lot of dead trees from the drought and losing the battle for survival. They are tinderboxes just waiting for the right match. Despite the 10 fold increase in population since the 30's, California forests have 30% more trees now than they did 90 years ago. They are, plainly and simply, too damn dense. A couple of commentators have made the ironic point that the excessive amount of carbon dioxide the trees emit actually contributes to global warming. This has nothing to do with which party controls the legislature or who's President. It has taken nearly a century of pretending this wasn't a problem to get here, and it's going to take a long time to undo it.
If he is correct on the facts, then I wonder whether it would be economically helpful to thin parts of the forest back down to the "healthy forest" level.
BC
RE: OT - Fire - Goose - 08-26-2020
(08-26-2020, 02:20 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I think what GR meant was not so much clearcutting fire breaks or cutting through shrubs, but thinning out the number of full grown trees, which do have economic value. I haven't fact checked this statement, but:
Quote:The tree population has expanded in the same way. According to the linked report, a healthy forest should have between 40 t0 60 trees per acre. California forests have between 100 to 200 AND massive amounts of small shrubbery, dried leaves and branches, and, of course, a lot of dead trees from the drought and losing the battle for survival. They are tinderboxes just waiting for the right match. Despite the 10 fold increase in population since the 30's, California forests have 30% more trees now than they did 90 years ago. They are, plainly and simply, too damn dense. A couple of commentators have made the ironic point that the excessive amount of carbon dioxide the trees emit actually contributes to global warming. This has nothing to do with which party controls the legislature or who's President. It has taken nearly a century of pretending this wasn't a problem to get here, and it's going to take a long time to undo it.
If he is correct on the facts, then I wonder whether it would be economically helpful to thin parts of the forest back down to the "healthy forest" level.
BC
Assuming he is correct on facts, the problem would be to thin the forest while not damaging the trees you intend to keep. It can be done, but it is lots harder than clear cutting and therefore less lucrative. There used to be small logging companies that specialized in this kind of thing, where they couldn't cut the whole thing down. I don't know if they still exist, because it got very hard to obtain permission to cut anything.
RE: OT - Fire - g1313 - 08-26-2020
The "dry" source (no pun intended) that GR originally cited actually has some useful illustrations in it. The one below seems to indicate that the increased density is not a lot more mature trees, but a lot more brush and small trees. A quote is "As discussed earlier, woody biomass typically is not useable in traditional lumber mills. This is because these byproducts of timber harvest or thinning operations may be of an undesirable species, too small in diameter for lumber production, or malformed. Historically, much of this excess forest product was burned to produce bioenergy." Hard to know exactly though without numbers.
![[Image: fig10.png]](https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2018/3798/fig10.png)
On the plus side, there is an example in there of newer technologies like Cross-Laminated Timber that can use smaller trees to produce a commercially viable product.
(08-26-2020, 02:20 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I think what GR meant was not so much clearcutting fire breaks or cutting through shrubs, but thinning out the number of full grown trees, which do have economic value. I haven't fact checked this statement, but:
Quote:The tree population has expanded in the same way. According to the linked report, a healthy forest should have between 40 t0 60 trees per acre. California forests have between 100 to 200 AND massive amounts of small shrubbery, dried leaves and branches, and, of course, a lot of dead trees from the drought and losing the battle for survival. They are tinderboxes just waiting for the right match. Despite the 10 fold increase in population since the 30's, California forests have 30% more trees now than they did 90 years ago. They are, plainly and simply, too damn dense. A couple of commentators have made the ironic point that the excessive amount of carbon dioxide the trees emit actually contributes to global warming. This has nothing to do with which party controls the legislature or who's President. It has taken nearly a century of pretending this wasn't a problem to get here, and it's going to take a long time to undo it.
If he is correct on the facts, then I wonder whether it would be economically helpful to thin parts of the forest back down to the "healthy forest" level.
BC
RE: OT - Fire - Goose - 08-26-2020
For those of you who don't follow this normally, listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=868&v=NlrldwtzuCQ&feature=emb_title
The presenter talks about how the fire is going to reset the forest and clean out lots of the undergrowth for years to come. It may be making a virtue of necessity, but it sure sounds like he believes it. This points to the real benefitsof thinning the forest to eliminate undergrowth and dead trees in a less destructive way. Pretty timely.
RE: OT - Fire - dabigv13 - 08-26-2020
I'm not an expert in wildland fires, but I bet the current disaster has much less to do with any purported increase in forest density, than climate change. The largest 10 fires in California history have all occurred since 2003. Coincidentally the warmest period in earth's human history. Also one of abnormal drought conditions in CA. Did forest density increase dramatically in the past 20 years causing these massive fires, or has it gotten hotter and drier?
Fire is an integral part of healthy forests. But they've never been as massive as they are now. And they will get worse, with I suspect limited impact from any sort of forest thinning logging operation.
RE: OT - Fire - g1313 - 08-26-2020
Of course climate change is a brobdingnagian driver which we need to address. But if there are more local mitigation efforts like forest thinning that can reduce impacts, I think that is also worth doing.
(08-26-2020, 06:49 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: I'm not an expert in wildland fires, but I bet the current disaster has much less to do with any purported increase in forest density, than climate change. The largest 10 fires in California history have all occurred since 2003. Coincidentally the warmest period in earth's human history. Also one of abnormal drought conditions in CA. Did forest density increase dramatically in the past 20 years causing these massive fires, or has it gotten hotter and drier?
Fire is an integral part of healthy forests. But they've never been as massive as they are now. And they will get worse, with I suspect limited impact from any sort of forest thinning logging operation.
RE: OT - Fire - dabigv13 - 08-26-2020
I think it can make sense it certain areas, definitely. But considering the scale and inaccessibility of so much of the California forests, it can only help in a focused, local way. CC is the big dog that needs to be tackled.
Right now I'm bummed about canceling a trip to the Southern Sierras next week, affected by the SQF complex fire. Have to find somewhere else to camp that's not burning or covered in smoke.
RE: OT - Fire - fullmetal - 08-26-2020
Something that got lost in the discussion earlier was that logging companies need roads to get their equipment in and out, lest they're forced to use helicopters and render the whole operation economically infeasible (or in need of subsidy...is that politically viable?). Those roads are generally pretty wide and can affect the landscape poorly if not planned properly (accounting for erosion, impact on hydrology, etc).
In the Boy Scouts, we were taught the difference between conservation and preservation. It seems these forests have been "preserved" too well.
Edit:
So I read an article that detailed some of the reasons why prescribed burns haven't been conducted much over the last two years.
Quote:“We haven’t done a large burn in Big Basin in the last three years because the weather hasn’t lined up,” Halbert says in the podcast. She brings up other bottlenecks to prescribed burns including permitting issues, staffing, and a short — or nonexistent — window for favorable weather conditions.
Big Basin burns can only happen in the fall. The fuel, composed of vegetation and plant material that burns easily, can’t be too wet or too dry. There must be some rain, but not too much. Winds must be blowing away from populated areas. If the winter rains come, the opportunity is gone.
Strict guidelines established by the Clean Air Act and enforced by air-quality districts can also prevent burns. “It’s a great thing to protect public health, but it makes it challenging for us to actually implement prescribed fires,” Halbert says.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Top-scientist-knew-Big-Basin-was-at-risk-for-a-15514626.php
There's a linked Nature article in there written by three Stanford scholars and two UMiami scholars:
Barriers and enablers for prescribed burns for wildfire management in California
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0451-7
lex24 - lex24 - 08-27-2020
I was in Bend around 2000. Was talking to a forestry service guy as to why fires seemed so much worse in 2000 than 30 years prior. He said - too many trees. Fires are supposed to happen. It’s natures way. But more trees means more fuel.
And when you add fuel the fires are more powerful. And when the state swells to 41,000,000 and people move into areas that would have been considered essentially inhabitable decades ago that is an issue. FrNkly, it’s not rocket science. It’s pure common sense.
Certainly climate change also plays its part. But if we truly are going to do something about this, we need to take a comprehensive approach. Which in today’s political climate seems impossible.