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"Even though Man is responsible for a lot of ignition, he's not responsible for all of them. Even if you completely removed civilization, it's still going to be

by rsync 7y ago

"Even though Man is responsible for a lot of ignition, he's not responsible for all of them. Even if you completely removed civilization, it's still going to be a fire." Actually, other than a one-in-a-billion naturally occurring compost pile that, by chance, falls into place and reaches burning temperature, internally, the only natural source of wildland fire ignition is lightning. Which is interesting because in many parts of coastal Marin/Sonoma/Mendocino/Napa counties, there is, essentially, no lightning. I have lived in Marin for ten years and have seen lightning exactly one time - and that was during the rainy season when ignition would have very low consequence. Wildland fires in the north bay / Sac Delta / Wine Country are ignited by people ...

jerf 7y ago
My core point is that if your "fire prevention" plan is to drive the number of ignition points to zero, you don't have a fire prevention plan, because even the impossible isn't going to be enough. It's not a sensible answer, and it's not really sensible to blame the fires on the individual ignition events. Or, to put it another way, when we set off an explosive, the explosion isn't really "caused" by the electrical spark; the unusual thing that happened that primarily caused the detonation is the collection of a lot of explosives in one place. Explosives experts are careful around any concentration of explosives, because that's the real cause. By contrast you can play with the electrical detonation system in isolation all day long and at most you'll shock yourself a bit, and that only with extreme carelessness. The primary cause of these fires is the accumulation of huge amounts of easily-burnable material, not which of the thousands+ of ignition events was the unlucky one to set it off.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Human sources are about 85% of wildfire ignitions in California. That still leaves 15% of ignitions from natural sources. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-29/how-do-wildfires-start https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-29/how-do-w... Removing the human ignition would likely mean that the blazes from natural sources would take up the slack, and become larger. Another fact that I'm reminded of was that native Americans would themselves set deliberate blazes which would burn over lands fairly frequently. This would mean that there was a history dating back over centuries, possibly several thousands of years, in which large-scale burns were relatively frequent. This would have phased out beginning with the first European settlements in 1769. By 1900, there had been up to 130 years of diminished fire activity already, not from suppression, but from reduced ignition (though intentional burns by early Europeans were also practiced). Reference with multiple further citations: http://www.californiachaparral.com/enativeamericans.html http://www.californiachaparral.com/enativeamericans.html The big change seems to be with the 20th century belief that fire is an invader, undesirable, and should be massively suppressed.

by rsync 7y ago

jerf 7y ago

My core point is that if your "fire prevention" plan is to drive the number of ignition points to zero, you don't have a fire prevention plan, because even the impossible isn't going to be enough. It's not a sensible answer, and it's not really sensible to blame the fires on the individual ignition events. Or, to put it another way, when we set off an explosive, the explosion isn't really "caused" by the electrical spark; the unusual thing that happened that primarily caused the detonation is the collection of a lot of explosives in one place. Explosives experts are careful around any concentration of explosives, because that's the real cause. By contrast you can play with the electrical detonation system in isolation all day long and at most you'll shock yourself a bit, and that only with extreme carelessness. The primary cause of these fires is the accumulation of huge amounts of easily-burnable material, not which of the thousands+ of ignition events was the unlucky one to set it off.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Human sources are about 85% of wildfire ignitions in California. That still leaves 15% of ignitions from natural sources. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-29/how-do-wildfires-start https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-29/how-do-w... Removing the human ignition would likely mean that the blazes from natural sources would take up the slack, and become larger. Another fact that I'm reminded of was that native Americans would themselves set deliberate blazes which would burn over lands fairly frequently. This would mean that there was a history dating back over centuries, possibly several thousands of years, in which large-scale burns were relatively frequent. This would have phased out beginning with the first European settlements in 1769. By 1900, there had been up to 130 years of diminished fire activity already, not from suppression, but from reduced ignition (though intentional burns by early Europeans were also practiced). Reference with multiple further citations: http://www.californiachaparral.com/enativeamericans.html http://www.californiachaparral.com/enativeamericans.html The big change seems to be with the 20th century belief that fire is an invader, undesirable, and should be massively suppressed.