11 ms·

To manage wildfire, California looks to what tribes have known all along

90 points by jweir 6y ago

jekdoce 6y ago
Since burning releases CO2 into the atmosphere, are there alternatives to burning? Maybe it's difficult to do something with the vast amount of dry wood/plants, even if one manages to collect them?
- olliej 6y ago
  ... the goal of controlled regular burns is to prevent large scale wild fires. You’re not comparing no-CO2 to some CO2 (and CO, and everything else, etc). You’re comparing some co2 to unbelievably large amounts of CO2 (etc)
- bamboozled 6y ago
  Burning wood and plant matter in a non destructive way is carbon neutral as that carbon will grow back as trees. It’s part of a natural cycle, like a carbon bank. The problem is that we’ve been pulling up buried and fossilised trees and burning them, which introduces excessive amounts of CO2 and ruins the natural balance of the carbon bank.
  - joe_the_user 6y ago
    Yes, burning wood is carbon neutral in the long run but clearly emits carbon now (and the earth gets hotter now). It would be nice to think about maybe collecting undergrowth and turning it to charcoal in something like a kiln and then burying it - reverse coal mining. Of course, we'd want to stop regular coal mining first.
    - rajamaka 6y ago
      The logistics required to do this will eventuate in much more CO2 being emitted than just burning the undergrowth.
    - rmrm 6y ago
      Plants leave roots in the ground and carbon in soil. No till farming practices of grains and corns sequester massive amounts of carbon into the soil. We dont need to do anything special just quit doing things wrong.
      - adrianN 6y ago
        I think you underestimate the amount of carbon we dug out of the soil if you believe that no-till farming will sequester even a fraction of that back in reasonable time frames.
- white-flame 6y ago
  The non-burning natural decomposition of wood also releases the carbon into the atmosphere, as CO2, methane, etc. It's a neutral cycle, as plants are recently grown from atmospherically-sourced carbon. Deforestation and pulling old oil & coal out of the ground and into the atmosphere is what tips the balance.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  This is a totally valid question that is getting down votes it shouldn't. And the answer is yes, there are alternatives to burning. Burning will return what the tree pulled out of the atmosphere, so it's already carbon neutral. Decomposition and fertilization (eg hugelkulture) will also release greenhouse gases. So, again, carbon neutral. Pyrolysis allows you to produce synthetic gas, biochar, and energy from the wood. Biochar is a useful industrial and agricultural product, and it's pretty much just solid carbon. Hypothetically you could bury it and be carbon negative, but there isn't really anyone doing that at scale. You could also bury the wood deeply enough that it wouldn't re enter the carbon cycle, but wood is heavy, large, and difficult to move around. I hope your down voters realize the intent of your question (can we sequester the carbon from forest waste/slash rather than releasing it?) and adjust their votes.
  - jekdoce 6y ago
    Thank you for seeing the question for what it is. Genuinely was wondering if there are good alternatives to controlled burns. If not then of course controlled burns are significantly better than wild fires. One thought that crossed my mind was if a burn after collecting the debris can be used for energy generation with proper emissions filtering/control etc. That would also offset other energy related emissions. But as someone below writes perhaps the collection and transportation of the debris would take more energy than what this would generate.
  - jstanley 6y ago
    > Burning will return what the tree pulled out of the atmosphere, so it's already carbon neutral. Couldn't you make the same argument about burning literally anything? Doesn't burning oil just return carbon to the atmosphere that was already in the atmosphere at one point anyway?
    - diamondlovesyou 6y ago
      Oil is CO2 that was previously removed from the cycle. So carbon positive.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Selective logging. Sequester the CO2 by converting the logged trees to lumber and paper.
white-flame 6y ago
The US and state governments have long done controlled burns as well; this isn't some lost native american art. It's just that in more recent years, homeowners and tourism boards and the like really, really didn't want any fires at all, no matter the consequence.
- dfsegoat 6y ago
  Sonoma County, CA here. Can confirm it’s not some lost art and controlled burns were common. From the time I was a child to now, controlled burns have basically vanished. It correlated with people moving here. Propublica recently confirmed this anecdote: https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-...
  - krn 6y ago
    What a great read. Thank you. > We live in a Mediterranean climate that’s designed to burn, and we’ve prevented it from burning anywhere close to enough for well over a hundred years. Now climate change has made it hotter and drier than ever before, and the fire we’ve been forestalling is going to happen, fast, whether we plan for it or not. > Megafires, like the ones that have ripped this week through 1 million acres (so far), will continue to erupt until we’ve flared off our stockpiled fuels. No way around that.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      Would controlled burns still be useful at this stage, or is flaring off in megafires the only way forward now? I'm from South Australia, so raging fatal bushfires were a part of my childhood.
      - akiselev 6y ago
        Controlled burns are harder to do as climate change gets worse, but that just means creating larger firebreaks around burn zones and dedicating more resources in a shorter timespan (due to the shrinking season for safe burns). Many insurance companies in fire prone areas already require homeowners to clear their yards of fuel so with well funded, proactive fire departments, the vast majority of populated areas can be protected with a once a decade (or less frequent) burns.
olliej 6y ago
And the aborigines in Australia - I don’t know what The US education about native Americans is like, but the Aussie one apparently still talked about controlled burns as being backwards nonsense by brown people into the 90s. I’m not sure that the US education system gets even that far as I know many state education systems say that many slaves enjoyed being slaves...
- captainredbeard 6y ago
  Non-sequitur
  - olliej 6y ago
    yeah, will leave it there for people to marvel at my unnecessary tangent :)
- IncRnd 6y ago
  > I know many state education systems say that many slaves enjoyed being slaves... Out of those many state education systems, would you mind naming one of them? A reference would be nice.
heimatau 6y ago
Make no mistake. These problems are solvable. There is an active political will (via the majority of people). Yet, the three States that are burning millions of acres are apathetic right now. This could be solved for many years going forward. Raise taxes (the richer, the higher the fee) then fix the problem and also force the Federal Government to do a better job with their land. This isn't just a State/local govt problem a large portion of the West Coast is owned by the Federal Government. Trump is brazen, you now have political coverage to be just as brazen to fix these issues. We should be expecting more from our leaders because what we have now is a poor rationalization for shitty leadership. 16 of the past 20 years have been record breaking fires in California, this isn't a new problem. It's just long overdue to be solved. P.S. I have zero faith that this will be fixed. It's fairly clear to me that the entire political servants aren't actually leading, they're apathetic while the country literally burns. It's not a difficult thing to ask that our elected leaders stop this in the short-term, let alone the long-term. It's difficult when we rationalize their bullshit, so expect more.
- captainredbeard 6y ago
  > Raise taxes (the richer, the higher the fee) then fix the problem Is there any indication that this is caused by shortage of funds? Policy is what is preventing proper forest management. Compared to building highways and state-funded healthcare, forest raking and related tasks are cheap.
  - bumblebritches5 6y ago
    Please stop pushing that idea that people can actually rake the dead pine needles across millions of acreas of forests as an actual solution. The problem isn't the pine needles, the problem is the 25 ton tree trucks laying everywhere... Raking the ground is useless, empty busy work.
  - heimatau 6y ago
    > Is there any indication that this is caused by shortage of funds? States don't have the luxury to just print money. For example, California uses inmates to supplement their firefighting workforce and at least 9 States have come to our aid this season, due to covid19 reducing that slave/prison labor. I wouldn't call it 'policy' that prevents OR and WA. Most likely true in CA. I'd call it lack of desire. Most politicians aim for the most popular ideas that help get them reelected, not something prudent. I don't care if I get down voted. Even if the West Coast wasn't in drier conditions, this would still be a problem. Not only that, I'm skeptical that WA is that dry. Maybe in select places but I'm very skeptical, maybe the heat changed the situation as well (record highs all throughout the West Coast prior to these fires). Look, if you aren't blaming your leaders while things are this bad. How can you praise them when things are good? This is your life. This is your health. This is you and your families future. The blame falls on them, full stop. The fact that the Governor didn't threaten the Bay/Tech Sector with steep taxes if they don't help fix it, is another stupid move. This isn't rocket science. This isn't something too far for humanity to solve. If you care about your State, be patriot and save it from the fires. We're in crisis after crisis, yet no one is actually leading. Good luck having a State with 2 more decades of this. If you didn't murder them through gross negligence then you destroyed their lungs/health with all this smoke. Gov Newsom signed a thing to allow prisoners to accept a low paying job as a firefighter? Seriously? Why not argue with your legislature and work on behalf of the people? That's right, no one gives a damn and if you think to the contrary, what actions have they done that make you think that? Did you know a lot of residential new construction, in CA, is in fire prone areas? This is because...? Good leaders? Or are the people going to demand more from their leaders?
Zippogriff 6y ago
1491 covers "Indian fire" quite a bit. Seems that much of North America was under some form of active management by native peoples before Europeans arrived, and one of the main ways, and probably the main way, by area, was very frequent fire-setting. The book even suggests that might be why there is a "Great Plains", in the nearly-treeless form European settlers found it, while in the East early European accounts tell of huge forest "wildernesses" so universally free of undergrowth one could easily ride a horse through them, which would become impassably full of low growth by a couple hundred years later as the burning stopped.
- jankotek 6y ago
  Fire was used in ancient europe for agriculture by semi nomadic people.
  - Max10101 6y ago
    Fire is used for agriculture by modern people. Burning your farm at the end of the season was banned in Oregon in 2014 (with some exceptions), but is still practiced most places in the world.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      If I recall correctly that practice is banned because it results in terrible land erosion from wind and rain. I could be wrong.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I live next to a greenbelt. It is pretty much impossible to push your way through the undergrowth. I'm aware that if it ever catches on fire my house is toast.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
TheRealPomax 6y ago
More like "literally everyone remotely working in wildfire management", but government refuses to actually enact it on the scale necessary.
IncRnd 6y ago
To be blunt, this is CAs own fault. I remember a couple of decades ago people were talking about how they weren't allowed to clear or perform controlled burns on the dead underbrush. People can think they are doing good but are actually being shortsighted, causing more problems than they fix.
- ngokevin 6y ago
  CA owns 3% of its forest lands.
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    CA can put restrictions on land owned by individuals. What's your point?
    - mattnewton 6y ago
      Not who you are responding to, but can they put restrictions on land under the federal BLM? My understanding is that the feds manage about 58% of California’s forestland, including much of what is on fire right now. It’s a mess; the state and local government should do more, but also the feds, people should stop building up so much in the woods, etc. lots of blame in a complicated situation with no easy answers. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-serv...
throwawaysea 6y ago
Preventative techniques are being ignored by our governments, who are instead focused on political messaging around climate change. Climate change may indeed be worsening dry fuel loads, but there’s a lot in terms of forest management that simply isn’t being addressed and could go a long way in preventing wildfires. As this article notes, controlled burns are an important tool, and based on personal observation they seem vastly underused today compared to the frequency with which we used to see them in the past. We also need responsible forest management to thin trees and clear brush. We also need proper management (or funding) of power utilities, which have been responsible for many wildfires on the West coast - and I don’t mean just PG&E in CA (see https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-sparked-at-least-1-500-california-fires-now-the-utility-faces-collapse-11547410768 https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-sparked-at-least-1-500-cal...), as some recent fires in WA were also sparked by power lines downed by trees that were too close and poorly managed. We also need relaxed regulations for private land owners - I know home owners in WA who were prevented from removing dangerous trees on their land and the difficult, expensive, time consuming process of getting permits caused them to give up and ignore the trees ultimately until they naturally fell. Unfortunately I had a tree fall on my house that my neighbor ignored for the same reasons. It feels to me like basic common sense techniques to prevent wildfires have been abandoned, and rules intended to protect the environment have backfired in some cases. Forestry management works: WaPo has noted that Finland does a lot better than its neighbors when it comes to wildfires due to controlled burns and compartmentalization of forests (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/19/why-finland-is-so-good-handling-forest-fires-hint-its-not-because-raking/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/19/why-finland-...). That compartmentalizations comes in part from a dense forest road network that makes the forests accessible and has also subdivided them (https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000005903733.html https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000005903733.html). Another interesting note is that Trump was widely ridiculed for his “raking” comment, but he was somewhat correct, although he misunderstood the term. Visit a clear cut of a timber stand in WA or OR and you’ll see a tangled mess left on the ground (brush, branches, stumps) that’ll dry up into a mass of fuel waiting for a spark. In Finland, they invest in clearing the land of what would otherwise be prime forest fire fuel in a process known as a “root rake” (see example video of machinery at https://youtu.be/o_EZeAiy3ew https://youtu.be/o_EZeAiy3ew). Voters need to draw more attention to preventative techniques and ask that funds be redirected accordingly. In Washington state, our Department of Natural Resources has been asking for increased investment in managing the fuel load and thinning forests for years (see https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection). The private forestry industry also has been asking for increased investment/assistance from the state in thinning and prescribed burns (http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-risk/ http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-ris...). However these calls have been ignored, despite ever increasing state budgets, and our governor and legislature have done little to address the issue. Please contact your representatives and don’t let them get away with foregoing responsibility by blindly blaming just climate change for wildfires.
cubictoaster 6y ago
I don't get why we talk about forest management as if it's the main culprit for what's going on right now. Don't y'all remember between 2012 and 2017 the west coast went through a MASSIVE DROUGHT? Are Californians really this forgetful? The constant dry heat waves killing off large swaths of our forests is the thing that is now providing the tinder for our massive fires. Other states like Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are experiencing the same thing. It's not just California. I've been here a long time and I don't ever remember experiencing smoke smothering our cities for weeks on end until these past few years. Calling out forest management like it's some sort of magic bullet is kind of like telling individuals to stop using straws to clean up ocean waste. Sure, it might help a little but it doesn't really solve the root cause systemic issue: Climate Change.
- mas3god 6y ago
  The droughts happen in multi year intervals, and the reservoir system hasnt been expanded since the 60s. The primary issue is fuel buildup and invasive species. Global warming is just icing on the cake.
  - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
    Global warming is just icing on the cake. Or, ahem, gasoline on the fire.
    - cubictoaster 6y ago
      Global warming is the cake. We have a small window of opportunity to decide if it's a cake made of shit or if it's a mildly overcooked chocolate cake.
      - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
        We’re already zooming past the 1° limits. 2°C feels like the best outcome. 3-4°C seems realistic given that 52 US Senators are adamantly opposed to any climate action. This isn’t meant to dissuade anyone from voting on Nov 3. On the contrary, I firmly believe that the future of our civilization rests on the outcome. We need a clear headed, science-heeding majority of legislators in congress come January, plus a president willing to sign their legislation into law. We are out of time. Shit cake or chocolate, this is it.
blackflame7000 6y ago
What Tribes Have Known All Along... in the far away land of Texas
TinkersW 6y ago
The part of northern California I grew up in has been experiencing weather that I never experienced in over 30 years growing up there & going back to visit. It has been far hotter and more humid, so I'd say this isn't just down to overgrown forests.
konjin 6y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but the culprits for the fires are Eucalyptus trees imported from Australia. It seems a bit backwards that American Indians would know how Australian Aborigines dealt with forests.
- kelnos 6y ago
  While the imported eucalyptus is awful (easily catches fire, often explodes while on fire, grows like a weed), I don't think we can point to just one culprit here.
babesh 6y ago
In the 80’s, there was a fight won by the left to stop logging especially of old growth. I think that they were right to prevent the wholesale cutting down of trees but they went too far. They also prevented culling of trees and controlled burns. They argued that culling would just be an excuse to continue logging. They also argued that controlled burns would incentivize logging. The prevention of culling and controlled burns caused underbrush to grow and grow. The side effect of massive fires was known even then and was ignored by the left. Now we are suffering from that ideological purity stupidity. The forests were just a bomb waiting to go off and at least in the Bay Area were triggered by the massive number of lightning strikes. Some additional points. This isn’t due to urban encroachment. Just look at the number and extent of the forest fires. They are basically everywhere including areas with very few people. Forest fires are a natural occurrence but our actions tilted it toward massive fires and massive numbers of simultaneous fires. Must we again suffer from ideological purity stupidity? This isn’t directly caused by global warming. Edit: people who downvote because this strikes too close to home are sad
pvaldes 6y ago
Why to ask a scientist, when you can ask a chaman?
dang 6y ago
Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24323379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24323379

90 points by jweir 6y ago

Since burning releases CO2 into the atmosphere, are there alternatives to burning? Maybe it's difficult to do something with the vast amount of dry wood/plants, even if one manages to collect them?

olliej 6y ago
... the goal of controlled regular burns is to prevent large scale wild fires. You’re not comparing no-CO2 to some CO2 (and CO, and everything else, etc). You’re comparing some co2 to unbelievably large amounts of CO2 (etc)
bamboozled 6y ago
Burning wood and plant matter in a non destructive way is carbon neutral as that carbon will grow back as trees. It’s part of a natural cycle, like a carbon bank. The problem is that we’ve been pulling up buried and fossilised trees and burning them, which introduces excessive amounts of CO2 and ruins the natural balance of the carbon bank.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  Yes, burning wood is carbon neutral in the long run but clearly emits carbon now (and the earth gets hotter now). It would be nice to think about maybe collecting undergrowth and turning it to charcoal in something like a kiln and then burying it - reverse coal mining. Of course, we'd want to stop regular coal mining first.
  - rajamaka 6y ago
    The logistics required to do this will eventuate in much more CO2 being emitted than just burning the undergrowth.
  - rmrm 6y ago
    Plants leave roots in the ground and carbon in soil. No till farming practices of grains and corns sequester massive amounts of carbon into the soil. We dont need to do anything special just quit doing things wrong.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      I think you underestimate the amount of carbon we dug out of the soil if you believe that no-till farming will sequester even a fraction of that back in reasonable time frames.
white-flame 6y ago
The non-burning natural decomposition of wood also releases the carbon into the atmosphere, as CO2, methane, etc. It's a neutral cycle, as plants are recently grown from atmospherically-sourced carbon. Deforestation and pulling old oil & coal out of the ground and into the atmosphere is what tips the balance.
Pfhreak 6y ago
This is a totally valid question that is getting down votes it shouldn't. And the answer is yes, there are alternatives to burning. Burning will return what the tree pulled out of the atmosphere, so it's already carbon neutral. Decomposition and fertilization (eg hugelkulture) will also release greenhouse gases. So, again, carbon neutral. Pyrolysis allows you to produce synthetic gas, biochar, and energy from the wood. Biochar is a useful industrial and agricultural product, and it's pretty much just solid carbon. Hypothetically you could bury it and be carbon negative, but there isn't really anyone doing that at scale. You could also bury the wood deeply enough that it wouldn't re enter the carbon cycle, but wood is heavy, large, and difficult to move around. I hope your down voters realize the intent of your question (can we sequester the carbon from forest waste/slash rather than releasing it?) and adjust their votes.
- jekdoce 6y ago
  Thank you for seeing the question for what it is. Genuinely was wondering if there are good alternatives to controlled burns. If not then of course controlled burns are significantly better than wild fires. One thought that crossed my mind was if a burn after collecting the debris can be used for energy generation with proper emissions filtering/control etc. That would also offset other energy related emissions. But as someone below writes perhaps the collection and transportation of the debris would take more energy than what this would generate.
- jstanley 6y ago
  > Burning will return what the tree pulled out of the atmosphere, so it's already carbon neutral. Couldn't you make the same argument about burning literally anything? Doesn't burning oil just return carbon to the atmosphere that was already in the atmosphere at one point anyway?
  - diamondlovesyou 6y ago
    Oil is CO2 that was previously removed from the cycle. So carbon positive.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
WalterBright 6y ago
Selective logging. Sequester the CO2 by converting the logged trees to lumber and paper.

white-flame 6y ago

The US and state governments have long done controlled burns as well; this isn't some lost native american art. It's just that in more recent years, homeowners and tourism boards and the like really, really didn't want any fires at all, no matter the consequence.

dfsegoat 6y ago
Sonoma County, CA here. Can confirm it’s not some lost art and controlled burns were common. From the time I was a child to now, controlled burns have basically vanished. It correlated with people moving here. Propublica recently confirmed this anecdote: https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-...
- krn 6y ago
  What a great read. Thank you. > We live in a Mediterranean climate that’s designed to burn, and we’ve prevented it from burning anywhere close to enough for well over a hundred years. Now climate change has made it hotter and drier than ever before, and the fire we’ve been forestalling is going to happen, fast, whether we plan for it or not. > Megafires, like the ones that have ripped this week through 1 million acres (so far), will continue to erupt until we’ve flared off our stockpiled fuels. No way around that.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    Would controlled burns still be useful at this stage, or is flaring off in megafires the only way forward now? I'm from South Australia, so raging fatal bushfires were a part of my childhood.
    - akiselev 6y ago
      Controlled burns are harder to do as climate change gets worse, but that just means creating larger firebreaks around burn zones and dedicating more resources in a shorter timespan (due to the shrinking season for safe burns). Many insurance companies in fire prone areas already require homeowners to clear their yards of fuel so with well funded, proactive fire departments, the vast majority of populated areas can be protected with a once a decade (or less frequent) burns.

olliej 6y ago

And the aborigines in Australia - I don’t know what The US education about native Americans is like, but the Aussie one apparently still talked about controlled burns as being backwards nonsense by brown people into the 90s. I’m not sure that the US education system gets even that far as I know many state education systems say that many slaves enjoyed being slaves...

captainredbeard 6y ago
Non-sequitur
- olliej 6y ago
  yeah, will leave it there for people to marvel at my unnecessary tangent :)
IncRnd 6y ago
> I know many state education systems say that many slaves enjoyed being slaves... Out of those many state education systems, would you mind naming one of them? A reference would be nice.

heimatau 6y ago

Make no mistake. These problems are solvable. There is an active political will (via the majority of people). Yet, the three States that are burning millions of acres are apathetic right now. This could be solved for many years going forward. Raise taxes (the richer, the higher the fee) then fix the problem and also force the Federal Government to do a better job with their land. This isn't just a State/local govt problem a large portion of the West Coast is owned by the Federal Government. Trump is brazen, you now have political coverage to be just as brazen to fix these issues. We should be expecting more from our leaders because what we have now is a poor rationalization for shitty leadership. 16 of the past 20 years have been record breaking fires in California, this isn't a new problem. It's just long overdue to be solved. P.S. I have zero faith that this will be fixed. It's fairly clear to me that the entire political servants aren't actually leading, they're apathetic while the country literally burns. It's not a difficult thing to ask that our elected leaders stop this in the short-term, let alone the long-term. It's difficult when we rationalize their bullshit, so expect more.

captainredbeard 6y ago
> Raise taxes (the richer, the higher the fee) then fix the problem Is there any indication that this is caused by shortage of funds? Policy is what is preventing proper forest management. Compared to building highways and state-funded healthcare, forest raking and related tasks are cheap.
- bumblebritches5 6y ago
  Please stop pushing that idea that people can actually rake the dead pine needles across millions of acreas of forests as an actual solution. The problem isn't the pine needles, the problem is the 25 ton tree trucks laying everywhere... Raking the ground is useless, empty busy work.
- heimatau 6y ago
  > Is there any indication that this is caused by shortage of funds? States don't have the luxury to just print money. For example, California uses inmates to supplement their firefighting workforce and at least 9 States have come to our aid this season, due to covid19 reducing that slave/prison labor. I wouldn't call it 'policy' that prevents OR and WA. Most likely true in CA. I'd call it lack of desire. Most politicians aim for the most popular ideas that help get them reelected, not something prudent. I don't care if I get down voted. Even if the West Coast wasn't in drier conditions, this would still be a problem. Not only that, I'm skeptical that WA is that dry. Maybe in select places but I'm very skeptical, maybe the heat changed the situation as well (record highs all throughout the West Coast prior to these fires). Look, if you aren't blaming your leaders while things are this bad. How can you praise them when things are good? This is your life. This is your health. This is you and your families future. The blame falls on them, full stop. The fact that the Governor didn't threaten the Bay/Tech Sector with steep taxes if they don't help fix it, is another stupid move. This isn't rocket science. This isn't something too far for humanity to solve. If you care about your State, be patriot and save it from the fires. We're in crisis after crisis, yet no one is actually leading. Good luck having a State with 2 more decades of this. If you didn't murder them through gross negligence then you destroyed their lungs/health with all this smoke. Gov Newsom signed a thing to allow prisoners to accept a low paying job as a firefighter? Seriously? Why not argue with your legislature and work on behalf of the people? That's right, no one gives a damn and if you think to the contrary, what actions have they done that make you think that? Did you know a lot of residential new construction, in CA, is in fire prone areas? This is because...? Good leaders? Or are the people going to demand more from their leaders?

Zippogriff 6y ago

1491 covers "Indian fire" quite a bit. Seems that much of North America was under some form of active management by native peoples before Europeans arrived, and one of the main ways, and probably the main way, by area, was very frequent fire-setting. The book even suggests that might be why there is a "Great Plains", in the nearly-treeless form European settlers found it, while in the East early European accounts tell of huge forest "wildernesses" so universally free of undergrowth one could easily ride a horse through them, which would become impassably full of low growth by a couple hundred years later as the burning stopped.

jankotek 6y ago
Fire was used in ancient europe for agriculture by semi nomadic people.
- Max10101 6y ago
  Fire is used for agriculture by modern people. Burning your farm at the end of the season was banned in Oregon in 2014 (with some exceptions), but is still practiced most places in the world.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    If I recall correctly that practice is banned because it results in terrible land erosion from wind and rain. I could be wrong.
WalterBright 6y ago
I live next to a greenbelt. It is pretty much impossible to push your way through the undergrowth. I'm aware that if it ever catches on fire my house is toast.
- pvaldes 6y ago

TheRealPomax 6y ago

More like "literally everyone remotely working in wildfire management", but government refuses to actually enact it on the scale necessary.

IncRnd 6y ago

To be blunt, this is CAs own fault. I remember a couple of decades ago people were talking about how they weren't allowed to clear or perform controlled burns on the dead underbrush. People can think they are doing good but are actually being shortsighted, causing more problems than they fix.

ngokevin 6y ago
CA owns 3% of its forest lands.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  CA can put restrictions on land owned by individuals. What's your point?
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    Not who you are responding to, but can they put restrictions on land under the federal BLM? My understanding is that the feds manage about 58% of California’s forestland, including much of what is on fire right now. It’s a mess; the state and local government should do more, but also the feds, people should stop building up so much in the woods, etc. lots of blame in a complicated situation with no easy answers. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-serv...

throwawaysea 6y ago

Preventative techniques are being ignored by our governments, who are instead focused on political messaging around climate change. Climate change may indeed be worsening dry fuel loads, but there’s a lot in terms of forest management that simply isn’t being addressed and could go a long way in preventing wildfires. As this article notes, controlled burns are an important tool, and based on personal observation they seem vastly underused today compared to the frequency with which we used to see them in the past. We also need responsible forest management to thin trees and clear brush. We also need proper management (or funding) of power utilities, which have been responsible for many wildfires on the West coast - and I don’t mean just PG&E in CA (see https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-sparked-at-least-1-500-california-fires-now-the-utility-faces-collapse-11547410768 https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-sparked-at-least-1-500-cal...), as some recent fires in WA were also sparked by power lines downed by trees that were too close and poorly managed. We also need relaxed regulations for private land owners - I know home owners in WA who were prevented from removing dangerous trees on their land and the difficult, expensive, time consuming process of getting permits caused them to give up and ignore the trees ultimately until they naturally fell. Unfortunately I had a tree fall on my house that my neighbor ignored for the same reasons. It feels to me like basic common sense techniques to prevent wildfires have been abandoned, and rules intended to protect the environment have backfired in some cases. Forestry management works: WaPo has noted that Finland does a lot better than its neighbors when it comes to wildfires due to controlled burns and compartmentalization of forests (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/19/why-finland-is-so-good-handling-forest-fires-hint-its-not-because-raking/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/19/why-finland-...). That compartmentalizations comes in part from a dense forest road network that makes the forests accessible and has also subdivided them (https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000005903733.html https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000005903733.html). Another interesting note is that Trump was widely ridiculed for his “raking” comment, but he was somewhat correct, although he misunderstood the term. Visit a clear cut of a timber stand in WA or OR and you’ll see a tangled mess left on the ground (brush, branches, stumps) that’ll dry up into a mass of fuel waiting for a spark. In Finland, they invest in clearing the land of what would otherwise be prime forest fire fuel in a process known as a “root rake” (see example video of machinery at https://youtu.be/o_EZeAiy3ew https://youtu.be/o_EZeAiy3ew). Voters need to draw more attention to preventative techniques and ask that funds be redirected accordingly. In Washington state, our Department of Natural Resources has been asking for increased investment in managing the fuel load and thinning forests for years (see https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection https://www.dnr.wa.gov/StrategicFireProtection). The private forestry industry also has been asking for increased investment/assistance from the state in thinning and prescribed burns (http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-risk/ http://www.wfpa.org/sustainable-forestry/reduce-wildfire-ris...). However these calls have been ignored, despite ever increasing state budgets, and our governor and legislature have done little to address the issue. Please contact your representatives and don’t let them get away with foregoing responsibility by blindly blaming just climate change for wildfires.

cubictoaster 6y ago

I don't get why we talk about forest management as if it's the main culprit for what's going on right now. Don't y'all remember between 2012 and 2017 the west coast went through a MASSIVE DROUGHT? Are Californians really this forgetful? The constant dry heat waves killing off large swaths of our forests is the thing that is now providing the tinder for our massive fires. Other states like Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are experiencing the same thing. It's not just California. I've been here a long time and I don't ever remember experiencing smoke smothering our cities for weeks on end until these past few years. Calling out forest management like it's some sort of magic bullet is kind of like telling individuals to stop using straws to clean up ocean waste. Sure, it might help a little but it doesn't really solve the root cause systemic issue: Climate Change.

mas3god 6y ago
The droughts happen in multi year intervals, and the reservoir system hasnt been expanded since the 60s. The primary issue is fuel buildup and invasive species. Global warming is just icing on the cake.
- aaronbrethorst 6y ago
  Global warming is just icing on the cake. Or, ahem, gasoline on the fire.
  - cubictoaster 6y ago
    Global warming is the cake. We have a small window of opportunity to decide if it's a cake made of shit or if it's a mildly overcooked chocolate cake.
    - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
      We’re already zooming past the 1° limits. 2°C feels like the best outcome. 3-4°C seems realistic given that 52 US Senators are adamantly opposed to any climate action. This isn’t meant to dissuade anyone from voting on Nov 3. On the contrary, I firmly believe that the future of our civilization rests on the outcome. We need a clear headed, science-heeding majority of legislators in congress come January, plus a president willing to sign their legislation into law. We are out of time. Shit cake or chocolate, this is it.

blackflame7000 6y ago

What Tribes Have Known All Along... in the far away land of Texas

TinkersW 6y ago

The part of northern California I grew up in has been experiencing weather that I never experienced in over 30 years growing up there & going back to visit. It has been far hotter and more humid, so I'd say this isn't just down to overgrown forests.

konjin 6y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but the culprits for the fires are Eucalyptus trees imported from Australia. It seems a bit backwards that American Indians would know how Australian Aborigines dealt with forests.

kelnos 6y ago
While the imported eucalyptus is awful (easily catches fire, often explodes while on fire, grows like a weed), I don't think we can point to just one culprit here.

babesh 6y ago

In the 80’s, there was a fight won by the left to stop logging especially of old growth. I think that they were right to prevent the wholesale cutting down of trees but they went too far. They also prevented culling of trees and controlled burns. They argued that culling would just be an excuse to continue logging. They also argued that controlled burns would incentivize logging. The prevention of culling and controlled burns caused underbrush to grow and grow. The side effect of massive fires was known even then and was ignored by the left. Now we are suffering from that ideological purity stupidity. The forests were just a bomb waiting to go off and at least in the Bay Area were triggered by the massive number of lightning strikes. Some additional points. This isn’t due to urban encroachment. Just look at the number and extent of the forest fires. They are basically everywhere including areas with very few people. Forest fires are a natural occurrence but our actions tilted it toward massive fires and massive numbers of simultaneous fires. Must we again suffer from ideological purity stupidity? This isn’t directly caused by global warming. Edit: people who downvote because this strikes too close to home are sad

pvaldes 6y ago

Why to ask a scientist, when you can ask a chaman?

dang 6y ago

Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24323379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24323379