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Perhaps the idea of having forests near population centers should be reevaluated. Clearing a few km of city-bordering forest will create a gap in which fire wil

Perhaps the idea of having forests near population centers should be reevaluated. Clearing a few km of city-bordering forest will create a gap in which fire will not spread, if there is nothing flammable on the ground. The aesthetics of having "natural trees" nearby is not worth the risk, and polluted air from forest fires definitely doesn't help the overall health.

smhost 9y ago
Outdoor fires (which include wildfires) result in ~50 deaths annually in the U.S.[0] You want to ban trees for that? I'm curious about your thoughts on how we should deal with the actual problems we have. For example, cooking-related residential fires, which kill ~150 people annually in the U.S.[1] Clearly it's not worth the risk to cook our food. ---- [0] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v9i2.pdf https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v9i2.pdf [1] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/res_bldg_fire_estimates.pdf https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/res_bldg_...
- FrozenVoid 9y ago
  The economic damage from ruined buildings, evacuations, burned property/vehicles/etc is another factor. Its like living in a cheap wooden house in tornado valley. I'm not for "banning trees", there should be just a safety zone which separate vulnerable urban/suburban housing and forest zones. That way fire will not become an emergency in principle. I'm just advocating for a system where firebreaks are several km wide and prevent winds from spreading fire material(which short firebreaks fails to do). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebreak (this is the general concept ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensible_space_(fire_control) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensible_space_(fire_control...
gonvaled 9y ago
Who pays for cleaning the gap? How do you guarantee that the city does not extend into it? Is pollution from fire offset by the cleaning effects of trees?
jjt-yn_t 9y ago
This is in reply to FrozenVoid, the other replies to him/her outclass it maybe, and were posting near-simultaneous, this paragraph(s) submits itself to the bottom of this thread in self-apologetic 'just poetry threatsitting, thanks ... ' ................................ ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS ................................ ... homeless encampments near two-story log cabins north of 400K value with well-defined 'work for food, haul NN buckets per hour from Rivulet next door, onto local you'll never live THERE garden house for tips... ' opt-in relocations from sewage-strewn sidewalks mid-city if unemployable and classified with quasi-resume would like to take issue with 'clearing' vs SomeShadeForUs--PleaseBucketEmploy-ourEarningsareDust shadowy, no shaded for once more compassionate left-behind from pride and proud existences ... .......................... just a bookmark til my NDA fire prevention ((( ))) idea takes root, hold, helium-lofted up/down vote... ..........................
maxerickson 9y ago
People are building in forests so that they can have trees by their houses. I guess requiring huge setbacks would discourage that behavior. Also, forest fires are more or less inevitable, at least, until you decide not to have forests. Overdoing fire suppression often leads to bigger fires (because fuel builds up). There might be room to make policy decisions that minimize the amount of pollution they produce, eliminating it isn't an achievable goal.
- FrozenVoid 9y ago
  >forest fires are more or less inevitable But with wide firebreaks they would become just air pollution nuisance, not an emergency. >because fuel builds up Its fixing the problem at the source, by removing fuel from future fires. A several km zone where nothing is flammable will stop almost all fires.
maxxxxx 9y ago
People will just keep building into these gaps. It's not like forests moved close to buildings but buildings moved closer to forests.

smhost 9y ago

Outdoor fires (which include wildfires) result in ~50 deaths annually in the U.S.[0] You want to ban trees for that? I'm curious about your thoughts on how we should deal with the actual problems we have. For example, cooking-related residential fires, which kill ~150 people annually in the U.S.[1] Clearly it's not worth the risk to cook our food. ---- [0] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v9i2.pdf https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v9i2.pdf [1] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/res_bldg_fire_estimates.pdf https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/res_bldg_...

FrozenVoid 9y ago
The economic damage from ruined buildings, evacuations, burned property/vehicles/etc is another factor. Its like living in a cheap wooden house in tornado valley. I'm not for "banning trees", there should be just a safety zone which separate vulnerable urban/suburban housing and forest zones. That way fire will not become an emergency in principle. I'm just advocating for a system where firebreaks are several km wide and prevent winds from spreading fire material(which short firebreaks fails to do). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebreak (this is the general concept ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensible_space_(fire_control) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensible_space_(fire_control...

gonvaled 9y ago

Who pays for cleaning the gap? How do you guarantee that the city does not extend into it? Is pollution from fire offset by the cleaning effects of trees?

jjt-yn_t 9y ago

This is in reply to FrozenVoid, the other replies to him/her outclass it maybe, and were posting near-simultaneous, this paragraph(s) submits itself to the bottom of this thread in self-apologetic 'just poetry threatsitting, thanks ... ' ................................ ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS ................................ ... homeless encampments near two-story log cabins north of 400K value with well-defined 'work for food, haul NN buckets per hour from Rivulet next door, onto local you'll never live THERE garden house for tips... ' opt-in relocations from sewage-strewn sidewalks mid-city if unemployable and classified with quasi-resume would like to take issue with 'clearing' vs SomeShadeForUs--PleaseBucketEmploy-ourEarningsareDust shadowy, no shaded for once more compassionate left-behind from pride and proud existences ... .......................... just a bookmark til my NDA fire prevention ((( ))) idea takes root, hold, helium-lofted up/down vote... ..........................

maxerickson 9y ago

People are building in forests so that they can have trees by their houses. I guess requiring huge setbacks would discourage that behavior. Also, forest fires are more or less inevitable, at least, until you decide not to have forests. Overdoing fire suppression often leads to bigger fires (because fuel builds up). There might be room to make policy decisions that minimize the amount of pollution they produce, eliminating it isn't an achievable goal.

FrozenVoid 9y ago
>forest fires are more or less inevitable But with wide firebreaks they would become just air pollution nuisance, not an emergency. >because fuel builds up Its fixing the problem at the source, by removing fuel from future fires. A several km zone where nothing is flammable will stop almost all fires.

maxxxxx 9y ago

People will just keep building into these gaps. It's not like forests moved close to buildings but buildings moved closer to forests.