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> General reminder that fires are a part of the natural order of things, and if anything we've put too much effort into suppressing them. This appears to be a

> General reminder that fires are a part of the natural order of things, and if anything we've put too much effort into suppressing them. This appears to be a case of the naturalistic fallacy. Additionally, the article cites that the predicted cause of the fires is decreased moisture content in the fuel, not abundance of the fuel due to firefighting efforts.

DuskStar 7y ago
It's also relatively accepted in US forestry research, as far as I'm aware. The policy (starting almost a century ago) of "put out every fire asap" worked for a few decades with increasing difficulty, but now many fires are simply uncontrollable and much more intense due to the increase in ground debris that would have normally been burned off far earlier. Oh, and that means that now we get crown fires instead of ground fires, killing trees that would have survived a smaller fire. Hooray? This page [0] gives a decent overview of the US history in my opinion. In short - no fires may be better than some weak fires, for certain utility functions. Unfortunately, no fires + time + not cleaning forests = huge fires, which are far worse than either. 0: https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/fire-u-s-forest-service/u-s-forest-service-fire-suppression/ https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service...
- guerrilla 7y ago
  The article is about European forestry research. There's no indication here that those researchers aren't intimately familiar with US forestry research; however, they did provide a causal explanation for these fires (i.e. climate change) and did not indicate that any further causes needed to be identified. Again, what you're saying, while possibly true and if true probably accounted for, isn't necessarily relevant, as climate change by itself is a sufficient explanation of this phenomenon.

DuskStar 7y ago

It's also relatively accepted in US forestry research, as far as I'm aware. The policy (starting almost a century ago) of "put out every fire asap" worked for a few decades with increasing difficulty, but now many fires are simply uncontrollable and much more intense due to the increase in ground debris that would have normally been burned off far earlier. Oh, and that means that now we get crown fires instead of ground fires, killing trees that would have survived a smaller fire. Hooray? This page [0] gives a decent overview of the US history in my opinion. In short - no fires may be better than some weak fires, for certain utility functions. Unfortunately, no fires + time + not cleaning forests = huge fires, which are far worse than either. 0: https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/fire-u-s-forest-service/u-s-forest-service-fire-suppression/ https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service...

guerrilla 7y ago
The article is about European forestry research. There's no indication here that those researchers aren't intimately familiar with US forestry research; however, they did provide a causal explanation for these fires (i.e. climate change) and did not indicate that any further causes needed to be identified. Again, what you're saying, while possibly true and if true probably accounted for, isn't necessarily relevant, as climate change by itself is a sufficient explanation of this phenomenon.