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> There is a direct correlation between fire suppressive actions carried out over the last hundred or so years, and the increase of more devastating wildfires i

> There is a direct correlation between fire suppressive actions carried out over the last hundred or so years, and the increase of more devastating wildfires in California. And yet, over the last 100 years, there weren't routine wildfires like this. It's only been the last 20 years--when underbrush management was prohibited because of environmental concerns--that we've had this problem.

missedthecue 6y ago
Because the consequences of fire suppression take a fair bit of time to accumulate. You don't get 30 years of overgrown dry forest 1 year into fire suppression policies.
- abernard1 6y ago
  But you do when those policies _began_ in the 70s. California's prohibiting underbrush removal due to environmentalism was just the preview of Delta Smelt Dust Bowls last decade. (The Dust Bowl, also being something that humans fixed with industrial policy, and the reason Oklahoma, despite no natural lakes, has more lakefront property per capita than anywhere in the U.S.)
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    You had me there for a few seconds but your alternate-universe view of California water policy is kinda hard to swallow. If it wasn't for the state water project there wouldn't be any water in the western San Joaquin Valley at all. All those "Congress Created Dust Bowl" signs up and down I-5 belong to land barons who really believe that not only should they get water from 500 miles away, but that they should get all the water in the state, at no cost, and no matter if it rains or doesn't.
    - abernard1 6y ago
      > no matter if it rains or doesn't. Except for one thing. There was actually nothing keeping that water from flowing except for the delta smelt. The Central Valley went from green to brown in a single year. Nobody else was affected. Irrespective of the politics of "who should get this water", the reality is that the people who were for protecting the Delta Smelt created an environmental disaster. It's the same logic that they used to prevent thinning forests via logging and clearing underbrush--and lo and behold we have too many trees and when the fires burn, they're too hot! It's the same logic that the U.N. used to ban mahogany exports, which led to those countries burning thousands of years of trees to make room for farmland, as it was their only economic recourse. At some point, the environmentalists might want to ask themselves if "they're the baddies", given that other, supposedly less enlightened cultures have similar ecological situations and different outcomes.
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? > The Central Valley went from green to brown This is a normal tactic of California water cranks, to use "Central Valley" to mean something else. The "Central Valley" is a huge, 400-mile-long flood plain, most of which is always ankle-deep in water. But the place you are talking about is just the bit of western Fresno County that you can see from I-5, what informed people call Westlands. Before 1968, the Westlands was never green. Not even once. Its natural hydrology is that of absence. > Nobody else was affected. Not sure what you could possibly be talking about with this sentence. The whole state was greatly affected by the drought. You have bought into the propaganda of a Beverley Hills billionaire. If you are actually interested in the reality of this topic, i urge you to read Mark Arax's latest book: https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California-ebook/dp/B07GD4N31V https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California...
      - abernard1 6y ago
        > > You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? I've lived in Bakersfield for over 15 years. All of these arguments are things that people have been talking about when I was there 20 years ago. There's no crankery about it. It's just now--all of a sudden the effete sensibilities of San Franciscans are affected by these problems. Oh we care now. What is remarkable, and I know you won't listen, but is to consider that perhaps a certain worldview got this wrong. When information goes one way, from privileged to unprivileged, the unprivileged know more than the privileged. They know both the situation of the privileged (because the privileged are sure to tell them) as well as their own. People in the Central are directly affected by this stuff constantly. It's the reason they'd leave and make a new state if the Bay Area wasn't holding them hostage.
bigbubba 6y ago
> And yet, over the last 100 years, there weren't routine wildfires like this. Go back another hundred years and you'll find that there were. 100 years ago was during an unusually wet period of Californian history.
- abernard1 6y ago
  > Go back another hundred years and you'll find that there were. Which is my point. Modern industrial forest management figured out how to fix this problem. There were economic incentives for lumber, and cooperative regulation allowing controlled burns + underbrush clearing by loggers solved the problem. Industrial humans allowed there to be more trees, not fewer. Everybody else in the world is experiencing the same global climate issues as California, and yet California's burned acreage over the last 2 decades is out of control. There are direct policy consequences of disallowing controlled burns and underbrush management. And it's California's fault. People in the southern Central Valley have been complaining about these policies for decades. And it's because once all the Bay Area's pollution and fires get swept downwind, those people have the luxury of breathing it as it stays in the basin.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    > Everybody else in the world is experiencing the same global climate issues as California, and yet California's burned acreage over the last 2 decades is out of control. Californian climate is relevant, not just global climate. Climate varies from region to region and the past 150 years in California were unusually wet. This is for California, not the whole world. 100 years ago, when you say California's fire management was working well, California's climate was unusually wet. California is naturally more inclined to burn than most other parts of the world, up there with Australia and Siberia. Most of the rest of the world is not nearly so imperilled as California and it's not because everybody is is better at managing forests.
  - abernard1 6y ago
    to bigbubba: > Climate varies from region to region and the past 150 years in California were unusually wet. And the last 20 have not been. These patterns also have not shown up in other places with the same climate patterns but different policies. Australia, for instance, has had nightmare fires forever. It's only been the last few decades that underbrush removal has been made more difficult or illegal in many cases.

missedthecue 6y ago

Because the consequences of fire suppression take a fair bit of time to accumulate. You don't get 30 years of overgrown dry forest 1 year into fire suppression policies.

abernard1 6y ago
But you do when those policies _began_ in the 70s. California's prohibiting underbrush removal due to environmentalism was just the preview of Delta Smelt Dust Bowls last decade. (The Dust Bowl, also being something that humans fixed with industrial policy, and the reason Oklahoma, despite no natural lakes, has more lakefront property per capita than anywhere in the U.S.)
- jeffbee 6y ago
  You had me there for a few seconds but your alternate-universe view of California water policy is kinda hard to swallow. If it wasn't for the state water project there wouldn't be any water in the western San Joaquin Valley at all. All those "Congress Created Dust Bowl" signs up and down I-5 belong to land barons who really believe that not only should they get water from 500 miles away, but that they should get all the water in the state, at no cost, and no matter if it rains or doesn't.
  - abernard1 6y ago
    > no matter if it rains or doesn't. Except for one thing. There was actually nothing keeping that water from flowing except for the delta smelt. The Central Valley went from green to brown in a single year. Nobody else was affected. Irrespective of the politics of "who should get this water", the reality is that the people who were for protecting the Delta Smelt created an environmental disaster. It's the same logic that they used to prevent thinning forests via logging and clearing underbrush--and lo and behold we have too many trees and when the fires burn, they're too hot! It's the same logic that the U.N. used to ban mahogany exports, which led to those countries burning thousands of years of trees to make room for farmland, as it was their only economic recourse. At some point, the environmentalists might want to ask themselves if "they're the baddies", given that other, supposedly less enlightened cultures have similar ecological situations and different outcomes.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? > The Central Valley went from green to brown This is a normal tactic of California water cranks, to use "Central Valley" to mean something else. The "Central Valley" is a huge, 400-mile-long flood plain, most of which is always ankle-deep in water. But the place you are talking about is just the bit of western Fresno County that you can see from I-5, what informed people call Westlands. Before 1968, the Westlands was never green. Not even once. Its natural hydrology is that of absence. > Nobody else was affected. Not sure what you could possibly be talking about with this sentence. The whole state was greatly affected by the drought. You have bought into the propaganda of a Beverley Hills billionaire. If you are actually interested in the reality of this topic, i urge you to read Mark Arax's latest book: https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California-ebook/dp/B07GD4N31V https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California...
    - abernard1 6y ago
      > > You're obviously a crank and arguing about water policy on HN is the very definition of a waste of time, but why not? I've lived in Bakersfield for over 15 years. All of these arguments are things that people have been talking about when I was there 20 years ago. There's no crankery about it. It's just now--all of a sudden the effete sensibilities of San Franciscans are affected by these problems. Oh we care now. What is remarkable, and I know you won't listen, but is to consider that perhaps a certain worldview got this wrong. When information goes one way, from privileged to unprivileged, the unprivileged know more than the privileged. They know both the situation of the privileged (because the privileged are sure to tell them) as well as their own. People in the Central are directly affected by this stuff constantly. It's the reason they'd leave and make a new state if the Bay Area wasn't holding them hostage.

bigbubba 6y ago

> And yet, over the last 100 years, there weren't routine wildfires like this. Go back another hundred years and you'll find that there were. 100 years ago was during an unusually wet period of Californian history.

abernard1 6y ago
> Go back another hundred years and you'll find that there were. Which is my point. Modern industrial forest management figured out how to fix this problem. There were economic incentives for lumber, and cooperative regulation allowing controlled burns + underbrush clearing by loggers solved the problem. Industrial humans allowed there to be more trees, not fewer. Everybody else in the world is experiencing the same global climate issues as California, and yet California's burned acreage over the last 2 decades is out of control. There are direct policy consequences of disallowing controlled burns and underbrush management. And it's California's fault. People in the southern Central Valley have been complaining about these policies for decades. And it's because once all the Bay Area's pollution and fires get swept downwind, those people have the luxury of breathing it as it stays in the basin.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  > Everybody else in the world is experiencing the same global climate issues as California, and yet California's burned acreage over the last 2 decades is out of control. Californian climate is relevant, not just global climate. Climate varies from region to region and the past 150 years in California were unusually wet. This is for California, not the whole world. 100 years ago, when you say California's fire management was working well, California's climate was unusually wet. California is naturally more inclined to burn than most other parts of the world, up there with Australia and Siberia. Most of the rest of the world is not nearly so imperilled as California and it's not because everybody is is better at managing forests.
- abernard1 6y ago
  to bigbubba: > Climate varies from region to region and the past 150 years in California were unusually wet. And the last 20 have not been. These patterns also have not shown up in other places with the same climate patterns but different policies. Australia, for instance, has had nightmare fires forever. It's only been the last few decades that underbrush removal has been made more difficult or illegal in many cases.