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How exactly do wells and cisterns prevent wildfires? Like many others this technology treats the symptom and doesn’t solve the problem.

rsj_hn 5y ago
The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emissions and blaming political enemies aint gonna turn California into a tropical climate. It's an arid state prone to hundred-year droughts, and it's not the place where you want to see lots of trees, not unless you also enjoy seeing the occasional massive wall of flame devouring the countryside.
- eigen 5y ago
  > The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. ... A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. Agricultural and Prescribed Burn Notices are currently approved in the vast majority of the state [1]. and you can see from the historical data [2] that only Aug - Oct have significant restrictions. [1] https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/pfirs/cb3/cb3.php?id=16 https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/pfirs/cb3/cb3.php?id=16 [2] https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/histor/histor.htm https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/histor/histor.htm
- zbrozek 5y ago
  Many CA communities make it hard to cut down trees ("conservationism"), and also don't religiously enforce clearance rules that they do have on the books. The combination means that there's a huge pileup of fuel even in suburban neighborhoods. To those downvoting - this is a town-owned parcel in my neighborhood, just a few miles down the hill from the CZU complex evacuation zone. https://i.imgur.com/PVUoUVg.jpg https://i.imgur.com/PVUoUVg.jpg
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Indeed "Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres[...] California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire." https://massivesci.com/articles/megafire-california-climate-change-wildfire-controlled-burns-fire-management/ https://massivesci.com/articles/megafire-california-climate-...
    - njarboe 5y ago
      Well, 4.4 million acres burned in 2020 and 1.7 million in 2018, so were a third of the way to that 20 million already.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        > Well, 4.4 million acres burned in 2020 and 1.7 million in 2018, so were a third of the way to that 20 million already. Unfortunately this article was written in Sept 2020 so I think (but don't know) that those are baked in. But in the big picture, yes, nature will eventually burn what needs to be burned. However the hope is for controlled burns, not burns that destroy lives and property. The Camp Fire in 2018 alone killed 85 people. That's a steep price to pay for refusing to do controlled burns.
        njarboe 5y ago
        The article states: "In February 2020, Nature Sustainability published this terrifying conclusion: California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire." So the data the article is using is from before the 2020 fire season. Only 15.4 million acres to go.
      - edoceo 5y ago
        old nature wanted ~5MM acres a year, we messed with it, then nature figures out a way to get what it wants (after some delay). I thought we'd learn our lesson with that firestorm in 1991 (my first big fire memory). silly me.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Would it be a good idea to log the trees and drop them in a bog, or the equivalent, so that the carbon isn't released into the atmosphere?
  - edrxty 5y ago
    Or, you know, just build houses with them, preferably somewhere that isn't as water starved. When the houses get torn down, the wood ends up either recycled or in a landfill which is more or less the same thing.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    not sure we have enough bogs to do that -- it might be an expensive proposition. It would be nice if we could find a way to mass produce petrified wood, though.
    - kbelder 5y ago
      Convert it to charcoal, which is almost pure carbon, then dump it in an ocean trench for long-term geological recycling.
- greatgoat420 5y ago
  I don't live in CA, and I have no real knowledge of logging, could you explain more about the "greedy loggers" comment? I get that controlled burns are good, but is CA usually known for forests used for lumber? I thought most lumber was grown in the northern parts of America.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    In 1974 (when the eco movement was ascendant), California passed a series of laws regulating the cutting of trees - even on private land. You now need to file these 500 page "timber harvesting plans" (THPs), pay expensive fees, and wait a few years for approval. Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court. So yes, it's incredibly hard to harvest trees in California compared to other states, which is why the amount of trees harvested in California is much lower than in other states. The wounded souls crying about greedy timber companies clear cutting forests in the 17th Century or whatnot are strangely silent about the Ohlone regularly burning down 10 million acres a year. Because the Ohlone realized that in the arid western U.S. (what used to be called "the great American desert"), trees were dangerous elements that needed to be suppressed.
    - eigen 5y ago
      > Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court. this is for large-scale harvesting. I'm seeing <2 months from public comment close to THP approval, usually 2 weeks [1]. how long do you think is reasonable? individual lot tree removal is a pretty straightforward form [2]. provide reason, site plan, maybe arborist report, etc. [1] https://caltreesplans.resources.ca.gov/Caltrees/Report/ShowReport.aspx?module=TH_Document&reportID=492&reportType=LINK_REPORT_LIST https://caltreesplans.resources.ca.gov/Caltrees/Report/ShowR... [2] https://www.placer.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/40240/Tree-Permit https://www.placer.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/40240/Tree-Per...
      - 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pvaldes 5y ago
  The technology to prevent wildfires is ... to remove the 90% of the trees. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP (Rolling eyes). Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. This tunnel vision is defeatening. Enough is enough. This is like claiming that the solution to remove computer bugs is to smash the computer against the floor. See?. No bugs survived. And now the myth of the good savage. I don't think that what (maybe) worked for a population of, lets say, 20.000 Ohlone Indians with bronze age tools will be scalable to solve the problems of the entire LA population. Do you think that we have the same complexity of problems, same longevity, or that we use the land in the same way that indians did? We have better tools now. Ecology, science, knowledge based in facts, satellites without turtles added, scientific police. Maybe we just could try to use it instead?

rsj_hn 5y ago

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emissions and blaming political enemies aint gonna turn California into a tropical climate. It's an arid state prone to hundred-year droughts, and it's not the place where you want to see lots of trees, not unless you also enjoy seeing the occasional massive wall of flame devouring the countryside.

eigen 5y ago
> The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. ... A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. Agricultural and Prescribed Burn Notices are currently approved in the vast majority of the state [1]. and you can see from the historical data [2] that only Aug - Oct have significant restrictions. [1] https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/pfirs/cb3/cb3.php?id=16 https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/pfirs/cb3/cb3.php?id=16 [2] https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/histor/histor.htm https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/histor/histor.htm
zbrozek 5y ago
Many CA communities make it hard to cut down trees ("conservationism"), and also don't religiously enforce clearance rules that they do have on the books. The combination means that there's a huge pileup of fuel even in suburban neighborhoods. To those downvoting - this is a town-owned parcel in my neighborhood, just a few miles down the hill from the CZU complex evacuation zone. https://i.imgur.com/PVUoUVg.jpg https://i.imgur.com/PVUoUVg.jpg
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Indeed "Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres[...] California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire." https://massivesci.com/articles/megafire-california-climate-change-wildfire-controlled-burns-fire-management/ https://massivesci.com/articles/megafire-california-climate-...
  - njarboe 5y ago
    Well, 4.4 million acres burned in 2020 and 1.7 million in 2018, so were a third of the way to that 20 million already.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > Well, 4.4 million acres burned in 2020 and 1.7 million in 2018, so were a third of the way to that 20 million already. Unfortunately this article was written in Sept 2020 so I think (but don't know) that those are baked in. But in the big picture, yes, nature will eventually burn what needs to be burned. However the hope is for controlled burns, not burns that destroy lives and property. The Camp Fire in 2018 alone killed 85 people. That's a steep price to pay for refusing to do controlled burns.
      - njarboe 5y ago
        The article states: "In February 2020, Nature Sustainability published this terrifying conclusion: California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire." So the data the article is using is from before the 2020 fire season. Only 15.4 million acres to go.
    - edoceo 5y ago
      old nature wanted ~5MM acres a year, we messed with it, then nature figures out a way to get what it wants (after some delay). I thought we'd learn our lesson with that firestorm in 1991 (my first big fire memory). silly me.
javajosh 5y ago
Would it be a good idea to log the trees and drop them in a bog, or the equivalent, so that the carbon isn't released into the atmosphere?
- edrxty 5y ago
  Or, you know, just build houses with them, preferably somewhere that isn't as water starved. When the houses get torn down, the wood ends up either recycled or in a landfill which is more or less the same thing.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  not sure we have enough bogs to do that -- it might be an expensive proposition. It would be nice if we could find a way to mass produce petrified wood, though.
  - kbelder 5y ago
    Convert it to charcoal, which is almost pure carbon, then dump it in an ocean trench for long-term geological recycling.
greatgoat420 5y ago
I don't live in CA, and I have no real knowledge of logging, could you explain more about the "greedy loggers" comment? I get that controlled burns are good, but is CA usually known for forests used for lumber? I thought most lumber was grown in the northern parts of America.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  In 1974 (when the eco movement was ascendant), California passed a series of laws regulating the cutting of trees - even on private land. You now need to file these 500 page "timber harvesting plans" (THPs), pay expensive fees, and wait a few years for approval. Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court. So yes, it's incredibly hard to harvest trees in California compared to other states, which is why the amount of trees harvested in California is much lower than in other states. The wounded souls crying about greedy timber companies clear cutting forests in the 17th Century or whatnot are strangely silent about the Ohlone regularly burning down 10 million acres a year. Because the Ohlone realized that in the arid western U.S. (what used to be called "the great American desert"), trees were dangerous elements that needed to be suppressed.
  - eigen 5y ago
    > Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court. this is for large-scale harvesting. I'm seeing <2 months from public comment close to THP approval, usually 2 weeks [1]. how long do you think is reasonable? individual lot tree removal is a pretty straightforward form [2]. provide reason, site plan, maybe arborist report, etc. [1] https://caltreesplans.resources.ca.gov/Caltrees/Report/ShowReport.aspx?module=TH_Document&reportID=492&reportType=LINK_REPORT_LIST https://caltreesplans.resources.ca.gov/Caltrees/Report/ShowR... [2] https://www.placer.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/40240/Tree-Permit https://www.placer.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/40240/Tree-Per...
    - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pvaldes 5y ago
The technology to prevent wildfires is ... to remove the 90% of the trees. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP (Rolling eyes). Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. This tunnel vision is defeatening. Enough is enough. This is like claiming that the solution to remove computer bugs is to smash the computer against the floor. See?. No bugs survived. And now the myth of the good savage. I don't think that what (maybe) worked for a population of, lets say, 20.000 Ohlone Indians with bronze age tools will be scalable to solve the problems of the entire LA population. Do you think that we have the same complexity of problems, same longevity, or that we use the land in the same way that indians did? We have better tools now. Ecology, science, knowledge based in facts, satellites without turtles added, scientific police. Maybe we just could try to use it instead?