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The largest wildfire in the US is only 7% contained

40 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

drivers99 5y ago
Wildfire Today article with map and satellite picture. https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/15/bootleg-fire-grows-to-a-quarter-of-a-million-acres/ https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/15/bootleg-fire-grows-to-a... Edit: They posted another update, Firefighters pulled off sections of the Bootleg Fire: https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/16/firefighters-pulled-off-sections-of-the-bootleg-fire/ https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/16/firefighters-pulled-off... And for completeness, here's their front page for further updates: https://wildfiretoday.com/ https://wildfiretoday.com/
vavooom 5y ago
Visual map of the wildfire can be found here: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4bfb02b41eb7473ca95b04c3cbd1da21 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4bfb0... Using the Klamath lakes as a visual guide really gives reference as to just how large an area of forest this is...
DeadBeatDad 5y ago
> "Climate change impacts are contributing to wildfires that are increasingly dangerous and destructive across the Western U.S.," It's baffling that here we are in the full motions of global warming, and we can find all manner of distractions to take our mind off it, and divert attention. Yes, there is a movement to halt global warming or slow it down, but it needs more traction. The topic needs to be the frontpage of every newspaper. The world is burning before our eyes.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  “The greatest minds of my generation…” As long as our society is structured to reward crypto gamblers and other parasites over all others, this phenomenon will continue.
  - dogman144 5y ago
    I don’t think crypto bros are at the top of Western World awards matrix.
- weimerica 5y ago
  I haven't followed the fire closely - is there a reason I'm supposed to chalk this one up to climate change rather than poor forestry management?
  - geerlingguy 5y ago
    This is my quibble with reporting on weather events lately. Over in Germany, where they had massive flooding due to a ton of rain in a short period, everything about it is pinned on climate change, to the exclusion of discussing any other problems that can lead to disaster. How much could also be other human factors, like building up levees and flood control systems that aren't up to snuff and/or shift worse flooding problems downstream (this has been the case in many parts of the US for decades now; can we presume Europe is better in flood control management than the Army Corps and thousands of small river towns?).
    - warglebargle 5y ago
      doesn’t really matter what the problem is attributed to when not enough is being done about either way (at least in the case of the US, can’t speak for Germany) I'd be all for attributing it to not sweeping forests well enough if that actually got the funding to start seriously combating the issue, it’s a positive feedback loop that needs to be mitigated
      - JohnWhigham 5y ago
        No, how about we be honest with ourselves first as to what the real root cause is? Answering "Yes, but...climate change!" to "Is the cause actually due to poor forestry management over the past 50 years?" doesn't actually solve anything.
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        If it is bad forestry management, we can fix that and it's much easier to hold the people responsible for that job because it's a defined role that they failed at. Compared to how much climate change will supposedly cost us to fix and that it's much more arguable who is responsible for what...
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  There is literally no reason to pin this one on climate change. There are a million more likely explanations (lightning, gasoline spill, electrical fault, campfire) mixed with other explanations (lots of dead brush, bad forestry management). Take your pick. Don't automatically pin it on something that, day to day, without our scientific readings most people would be completely unaware of.
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
    The article specifically talks about how the hotter climate is causing fires to behave differently, it’s not about ignition source, but go on...
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      No, it doesn't. It only mentions climate change once in a quote that contains no scientific measurements. Just the claim that climate change is doing something, and that's it.
  - lhorie 5y ago
    FTA: > This fire is going to continue to grow -- the extremely dry vegetation and weather are not in our favor," said Joe Hessel, an incident commander for the Oregon Department of Forestry. So clearly they acknowledge that the weather is a factor, and that seems pretty related to climate change. Why does it have to be an either/or thing? If a fire magnitude becomes newsworthy because several factors aligned to make it that way, it seems silly to point fingers at scapegoats as an excuse for continuing to do nothing on any front.
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      Of course it could be. The problem is that there's no proof that "dry vegetation and bad weather" can only be caused by climate change, or that the cause of these events is climate change. There has been bad weather before humans walked this planet according to scientists, and dry vegetation also.
- throwaway24124 5y ago
  I think "distractions" is an unfair way of putting it. Most people (at least in America) are focused on working enough to survive. Even though a significant portion of the population is aware of climate collapse, what can they do about it? Without a direct confrontation to global capitalism, emissions will continue. Even if emissions were halted completely today, we're still going to be dealing with a collapsing biosphere with unpredictable consequences for generations. I just don't see how awareness of the issue will do anything to improve our situation.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    There's also the risk, according to some scientists, that if we cut our emissions overnight (I don't know how, like we all got together collectively and did at once or something), the climate could be significantly adversely affected by the shock drop. Cutting emissions entirely is also a no-win. So where's the balance? There's also the issue that some countries (the US) are a lot more concerned about it than other countries (not naming names). Those other countries have every incentive to watch us flail around making the lives of our citizens harder (through taxation, meat reduction, other proposals) trying to cut emissions while they sit back and egg us on, and maybe pay lip service once in a while with the occasional inconsequential project.
    - hanniabu 5y ago
      What type of effect would there be on the climate from a sudden decrease in CO2?
      - pjc50 5y ago
        There can't be. The amount of lag in the system is huge. Ceasing industrial CO2 emissions instantly would simply start a slow downtrend in the amount of atmospheric CO2. It would take decades to return to, say the 1900 level. I don't know where that person got their idea from but it's clearly a very bad source.
      - js8 5y ago
        I think he is (somewhat confusingly) talking about global dimming, i.e. particulate pollution, masking warming effect of CO2. But we can't really do much about that if we want to stop global warming at all. And it's not even completely clear whether that theory (of dimming) is valid or not, clouds can have a varying effect on temperature.
- jmcgough 5y ago
  We're approaching the point where we'll be scrambling to deal with increasingly regular natural disasters, heat waves, etc and too busy dealing with the immediate problems (because that's what constituents are crying out for help with) to solve the underlying problem. What kills me is An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006 and we've chosen to ignore the issue until it radically changes the planet.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    But the problem with An Inconvenient Truth these days is that it was made by a politician who is not a scientist. You might agree with that politician or think his grasp of the science is solid, but it is not helpful if you are trying to bridge the divide because opponents will easily grasp those errors. Why would you trust a politician on science when he has a political agenda (allegedly) and isn't a scientist to begin with? If it had been made by the head of NASA or similar, that might have done better. Even if that doesn't mean people would believe it more, it's just the principle of the thing. It made the issue come out the gate as more partisan than it had to be.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      Not being a politician won't save you from being dismissed as having a political agenda. Again, we've seen this all over the pandemic.
      - gjsman-1000 5y ago
        I agree - see Fauci for example. I'm saying it was a bad choice in principle. If I was funding a movie about climate change or trying to convince the world... I'd get some PhDs and scientists of notable standing. A politician is the last, worst choice I would have done.
    - snypher 5y ago
      Do you think people who deny climate change trust scientists more than politicians?
- galacticaactual 5y ago
  It seems a good amount of folks on HN are fine with the world burning as long as their paychecks and vesting schedules aren’t affected. Just look at the recent thread about the Google guy moving to Twitter and the mental gymnastics on display therein.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Unfortunately this is true of, like, pretty much everyone in every industrialized society.
- pjc50 5y ago
  The pandemic has made it very clear that the response to "climate change is going to kill a bunch of people and cause a lot of damage" is "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that".
- voisin 5y ago
  Until it is burning literally in front of people, they won’t change their behaviour - the most important behaviour of which is how they vote. I am sad for those impacted by these fires but if this is what it takes to change voting behaviour and overcome lobbyists then so be it.
jeffbee 5y ago
It’s pretty big but I’m more concerned that all those fires in British Columbia are going to merge into one massive pan-Canadian disaster.
the_arun 5y ago
I like the format of Lite CNN over regular one which is littered with ads. On the topic itself - Global Warming should be part of middle or high school syllabus. I know they talk about effects of it - but not sure they talk about prevention that seriously.
- voisin 5y ago
  > Global Warming should be part of middle or high school syllabus. I concur, but I think it is almost 30 years too late. The decisions need to be made now - like today - in order to have a chance of solving anything. Waiting for these middle and high schoolers to graduate and get into positions to change anything will be waiting until it is too late. This is a boomer created problem, a boomer ignored problem, and now needs to be a boomer enabled solution.
AcerbicZero 5y ago
I really don’t have the time (or inclination) to become an expert on forest management - any chance maybe that big ol’ government which owns all the land, and takes all my money could do their job?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffbee 5y ago
  The USFS offers up every inch of its territory for logging, but nobody wants it because western mountain forests are just too difficult to harvest, compared to tree plantations in flat territory. If you want these forests better managed we have to throw out the idea that a marketplace can solve it.
- Hokusai 5y ago
  > any chance maybe that big ol’ government which owns all the land, and takes all my money could do their job? I completely agree on that. The government needs money to affront this challenges. In the 40s tax was around 90% to pay for all the needed infrastructure and other projects. It is time that the USA stop thinking that everything comes for free and start getting money to survive to the new century challenges. I see an Asian future otherwise were Western countries are under funded and lack infrastructure.
  - voisin 5y ago
    > In the 40s tax was around 90% to pay for all the needed infrastructure and other projects. I think this applied to the highest tax bracket which only covered a few people.
plank_time 5y ago
We should just let all these forest fires burn themselves out at this point, regardless of how big it gets. The idea that people would sacrifice their lives to save structures in the face of the full force of nature is stupid. Evacuate everyone in the area, divert firefighting resources to home the evacuees, and let it burn out. The silver lining is that the area won’t be hospitable for a large forest fire for a while.
- MarcScott 5y ago
  You've been downvoted, but if we had always just let forest fires burn, we'd be in a lot less trouble. Instead we put out fires to protect homes and infrastructure, resulting in a build up of several feet of combustible duff. When this does eventually burn, it burns hot, causing older trees that would have survived otherwise to go up in flames. Forests have pretty much evolved to handle forest fires. BTW, I'm not dismissing climate change as a major factor here for the prevalence and seriousness of seasonal fires. It's just that the idea of forest management as a remedy to these issues is a nonsense. Forests have managed themselves for millions of years, if we left them to it, they'd probably do alright now.
dicomdan 5y ago
West Coast is getting lucky wind isn’t blowing their way. Inland western states - not so much.
JTbane 5y ago
Not trying to criticize the Forest Service, but is it politically feasible to cut down large amounts of trees in the right areas to prevent this?
- triceratops 5y ago
  Where would you put the wood? And cutting down trees at enough scale to make a difference would likely exacerbate the drought that makes such fires more likely.
  - soperj 5y ago
    leave it where it is. Great for soil health and forest rejuvenation.
    - jimmyjazz14 5y ago
      I actually think leaving the wood where it falls is partially part of the problem in some cases. That said the wood could be used for all the things we use wood for (building house, mulch, etc).
      - soperj 5y ago
        Deadwood soaks up a lot of water during the wet seasons, which results in less flooding, and allows other plants to access it during the dry seasons. Tons of trees start in dead wood. Honestly, try to use decomposing wood in a fire sometime. It's not flammable.
    - gdubs 5y ago
      At that point you’re just seasoning firewood. And whatever does decompose — unless you bury it our turn it into biochar, is going to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
      - soperj 5y ago
        You're really not if it's in a forest. It decomposes, and lots of other plants start growing from it, including other trees. CO2 from a forest isn't really something we need to worry about. A 25 year old maple will sequester 400 pounds of co2 in it's lifetime. It can't emit more than that over the years that it decomposes. An average commuter car will emit that in 2 weeks. That's what we need to worry about.
tengbretson 5y ago
The article doesn't really establish a point of reference. 7% contained sounds low, but I have no clue what a normal amount of containment is.
- drivers99 5y ago
  It refers to the amount of the perimeter that the fire (probably) can't cross. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/21/572305828/what-does-containing-a-fire-really-mean https://www.npr.org/2017/12/21/572305828/what-does-containin... > That means that [x] percent of the fire is surrounded by containment lines — any physical barrier that stops the fire from passing a certain point. Those lines can be trenches, natural barriers like rivers, or even already-burned patches of land. Most often, the containment line is a shallow, 10- to 12-feet wide trench firefighters dig into the dirt.
- zie 5y ago
  It normally starts off very small like this 7%, they have to get a beach-head as it were and get SOME boundaries set up, then it's just a matter of extending that boundary, such that it can't grow anymore and then it mostly puts itself out. That's the very high level, skipping loads of important details overview of how they tend to fight fires.
gdubs 5y ago
On our property in northern Oregon we’ve been working hard to reduce fuel loads in the forest. We’ve also invested in limbing trees — removing the branches below 10’ which helps lower the risks of ladder fires (fire jumping from the ground cover to the trees). Around the farmhouse we’ve torn out a ton of shrubs and flammable trees to create a more defensible fire zone. We’ve replaced them with stone, more fire resistant species like maple, etc. It’s time consuming and expensive. And this is on a property that’s about 80 acres. Small by farm standards. People have no concept of the scale of federal forest land. Nor do people have a concept of the scale of modern firestorms. Yes, the 20th century policy of suppressing fires has led to hazardous fuel loads. Yes, wildfires are a part of the ecosystem. Yes, building right up to the wilderness’s edge makes the destructiveness of these fires ever greater. But climate change is real, yo. You can see the trees drying out. The Douglas Fir which are so iconic to the state of Oregon are more stressed every year — and dead trees are more flammable. Greater heatwaves, longer and deeper droughts — they have very obvious consequences in regards to fire. You have essentially rain forests in a lot of regions drying out, creating massive fuel sources. How do you even begin to deal with that through forest management? Controlled Burns are great — but they’re not always feasible. Nor are they without risk — in this climate they’re getting harder to do safely, in ever-shrinking seasonal windows. And again, the scale of land we’re talking about is hard for people to comprehend. If you want to wait for the peer reviewed study that links every specific fire to climate change, you do you. But these events are exactly what the science has predicted, and despite the armchair quarterbacking, there is no easy solution.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  If there is a place for principled contrarianism, something so many HN people cherish, it is NOT in dealing with the climate crisis. This is NOT the time to be clever by thinking out of the box. We are very much firmly stuck in a box we need to sort out. The solutions are obvious, painful and difficult, but they need to be taken.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Around the farmhouse we’ve torn out a ton of shrubs and flammable trees to create a more defensible fire zone. We’ve replaced them with stone, more fire resistant species like maple, etc. The NFPA has a handy guide for protecting the structures on one's property: * https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/Wildfire/Preparing-homes-for-wildfire https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/... * https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-ready/defensible-space/ https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-re... It's broken down into three zones (0-5', 0-2m; 5-30', 2-10m; 30-100', 10-30m), and what best practices are for each.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
EDIT: Seriously? I'm getting downvoted for converting an area? Am I the only person who finds a square measured in miles easier to visualize than hundreds of thousands of acres? I'm not minimizing the import of the fire. --- Per google, 200,000 acres = 312.5 square miles. Per GHCI, the square root of that is 17.7. That is, the fire covers area equivalent to a square less than 18 miles on a side.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rm_-rf_slash 5y ago
It would be swell to have one extreme weather hazard thread on HN that didn’t largely devolve into whinging about climate change, as if your snide comment ever made a difference. Speaking practically, our forestry policies are zombies from a knee-jerk era of “protect everything” in response to a previous industrial perspective of “cut it all down.” You’d be surprised - or sickened - how much forest coverage in the US is replanted. We’ve already made our mark on the environment, so why freeze our policies in place while the situation continues to evolve? One approach often left unmentioned every fire season is clearing brush and trees for biofuels. Trump caught a lot of flack a while ago for blaming California wildfires on a lack of raking the forest, but he wasn’t entirely wrong there either. Forests need to be maintained. The native Americans understood this and had all kinds of forestry techniques like controlled burns. So why not turn a cost center into a profit center? You can make quality pellets out of crap wood. I’ve seen it. Wood pellets are a fairly renewable resource too, since most of the growth necessary to sustain them happens in the very early parts of a tree’s lifecycle. That could gradually replace fuel oil and propane for rural areas (where nat gas pipes are uneconomical). And investing in forestry would be a good economic basis for long-neglected areas, such as New York State’s Southern Tier and North Country. But for the love of God, if you’re going to take the time to complain, DO SOMETHING.
mcint 5y ago
Thanks for sharing the lite. link.

40 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

Wildfire Today article with map and satellite picture. https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/15/bootleg-fire-grows-to-a-quarter-of-a-million-acres/ https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/15/bootleg-fire-grows-to-a... Edit: They posted another update, Firefighters pulled off sections of the Bootleg Fire: https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/16/firefighters-pulled-off-sections-of-the-bootleg-fire/ https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/16/firefighters-pulled-off... And for completeness, here's their front page for further updates: https://wildfiretoday.com/ https://wildfiretoday.com/

vavooom 5y ago

Visual map of the wildfire can be found here: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4bfb02b41eb7473ca95b04c3cbd1da21 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4bfb0... Using the Klamath lakes as a visual guide really gives reference as to just how large an area of forest this is...

DeadBeatDad 5y ago

> "Climate change impacts are contributing to wildfires that are increasingly dangerous and destructive across the Western U.S.," It's baffling that here we are in the full motions of global warming, and we can find all manner of distractions to take our mind off it, and divert attention. Yes, there is a movement to halt global warming or slow it down, but it needs more traction. The topic needs to be the frontpage of every newspaper. The world is burning before our eyes.

jeffbee 5y ago
“The greatest minds of my generation…” As long as our society is structured to reward crypto gamblers and other parasites over all others, this phenomenon will continue.
- dogman144 5y ago
  I don’t think crypto bros are at the top of Western World awards matrix.
weimerica 5y ago
I haven't followed the fire closely - is there a reason I'm supposed to chalk this one up to climate change rather than poor forestry management?
- geerlingguy 5y ago
  This is my quibble with reporting on weather events lately. Over in Germany, where they had massive flooding due to a ton of rain in a short period, everything about it is pinned on climate change, to the exclusion of discussing any other problems that can lead to disaster. How much could also be other human factors, like building up levees and flood control systems that aren't up to snuff and/or shift worse flooding problems downstream (this has been the case in many parts of the US for decades now; can we presume Europe is better in flood control management than the Army Corps and thousands of small river towns?).
  - warglebargle 5y ago
    doesn’t really matter what the problem is attributed to when not enough is being done about either way (at least in the case of the US, can’t speak for Germany) I'd be all for attributing it to not sweeping forests well enough if that actually got the funding to start seriously combating the issue, it’s a positive feedback loop that needs to be mitigated
    - JohnWhigham 5y ago
      No, how about we be honest with ourselves first as to what the real root cause is? Answering "Yes, but...climate change!" to "Is the cause actually due to poor forestry management over the past 50 years?" doesn't actually solve anything.
      - gjsman-1000 5y ago
        If it is bad forestry management, we can fix that and it's much easier to hold the people responsible for that job because it's a defined role that they failed at. Compared to how much climate change will supposedly cost us to fix and that it's much more arguable who is responsible for what...
gjsman-1000 5y ago
There is literally no reason to pin this one on climate change. There are a million more likely explanations (lightning, gasoline spill, electrical fault, campfire) mixed with other explanations (lots of dead brush, bad forestry management). Take your pick. Don't automatically pin it on something that, day to day, without our scientific readings most people would be completely unaware of.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  The article specifically talks about how the hotter climate is causing fires to behave differently, it’s not about ignition source, but go on...
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    No, it doesn't. It only mentions climate change once in a quote that contains no scientific measurements. Just the claim that climate change is doing something, and that's it.
- lhorie 5y ago
  FTA: > This fire is going to continue to grow -- the extremely dry vegetation and weather are not in our favor," said Joe Hessel, an incident commander for the Oregon Department of Forestry. So clearly they acknowledge that the weather is a factor, and that seems pretty related to climate change. Why does it have to be an either/or thing? If a fire magnitude becomes newsworthy because several factors aligned to make it that way, it seems silly to point fingers at scapegoats as an excuse for continuing to do nothing on any front.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Of course it could be. The problem is that there's no proof that "dry vegetation and bad weather" can only be caused by climate change, or that the cause of these events is climate change. There has been bad weather before humans walked this planet according to scientists, and dry vegetation also.
throwaway24124 5y ago
I think "distractions" is an unfair way of putting it. Most people (at least in America) are focused on working enough to survive. Even though a significant portion of the population is aware of climate collapse, what can they do about it? Without a direct confrontation to global capitalism, emissions will continue. Even if emissions were halted completely today, we're still going to be dealing with a collapsing biosphere with unpredictable consequences for generations. I just don't see how awareness of the issue will do anything to improve our situation.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  There's also the risk, according to some scientists, that if we cut our emissions overnight (I don't know how, like we all got together collectively and did at once or something), the climate could be significantly adversely affected by the shock drop. Cutting emissions entirely is also a no-win. So where's the balance? There's also the issue that some countries (the US) are a lot more concerned about it than other countries (not naming names). Those other countries have every incentive to watch us flail around making the lives of our citizens harder (through taxation, meat reduction, other proposals) trying to cut emissions while they sit back and egg us on, and maybe pay lip service once in a while with the occasional inconsequential project.
  - hanniabu 5y ago
    What type of effect would there be on the climate from a sudden decrease in CO2?
    - pjc50 5y ago
      There can't be. The amount of lag in the system is huge. Ceasing industrial CO2 emissions instantly would simply start a slow downtrend in the amount of atmospheric CO2. It would take decades to return to, say the 1900 level. I don't know where that person got their idea from but it's clearly a very bad source.
    - js8 5y ago
      I think he is (somewhat confusingly) talking about global dimming, i.e. particulate pollution, masking warming effect of CO2. But we can't really do much about that if we want to stop global warming at all. And it's not even completely clear whether that theory (of dimming) is valid or not, clouds can have a varying effect on temperature.
jmcgough 5y ago
We're approaching the point where we'll be scrambling to deal with increasingly regular natural disasters, heat waves, etc and too busy dealing with the immediate problems (because that's what constituents are crying out for help with) to solve the underlying problem. What kills me is An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006 and we've chosen to ignore the issue until it radically changes the planet.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  But the problem with An Inconvenient Truth these days is that it was made by a politician who is not a scientist. You might agree with that politician or think his grasp of the science is solid, but it is not helpful if you are trying to bridge the divide because opponents will easily grasp those errors. Why would you trust a politician on science when he has a political agenda (allegedly) and isn't a scientist to begin with? If it had been made by the head of NASA or similar, that might have done better. Even if that doesn't mean people would believe it more, it's just the principle of the thing. It made the issue come out the gate as more partisan than it had to be.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Not being a politician won't save you from being dismissed as having a political agenda. Again, we've seen this all over the pandemic.
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      I agree - see Fauci for example. I'm saying it was a bad choice in principle. If I was funding a movie about climate change or trying to convince the world... I'd get some PhDs and scientists of notable standing. A politician is the last, worst choice I would have done.
  - snypher 5y ago
    Do you think people who deny climate change trust scientists more than politicians?
galacticaactual 5y ago
It seems a good amount of folks on HN are fine with the world burning as long as their paychecks and vesting schedules aren’t affected. Just look at the recent thread about the Google guy moving to Twitter and the mental gymnastics on display therein.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Unfortunately this is true of, like, pretty much everyone in every industrialized society.
pjc50 5y ago
The pandemic has made it very clear that the response to "climate change is going to kill a bunch of people and cause a lot of damage" is "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that".
voisin 5y ago
Until it is burning literally in front of people, they won’t change their behaviour - the most important behaviour of which is how they vote. I am sad for those impacted by these fires but if this is what it takes to change voting behaviour and overcome lobbyists then so be it.

jeffbee 5y ago

It’s pretty big but I’m more concerned that all those fires in British Columbia are going to merge into one massive pan-Canadian disaster.

the_arun 5y ago

I like the format of Lite CNN over regular one which is littered with ads. On the topic itself - Global Warming should be part of middle or high school syllabus. I know they talk about effects of it - but not sure they talk about prevention that seriously.

voisin 5y ago
> Global Warming should be part of middle or high school syllabus. I concur, but I think it is almost 30 years too late. The decisions need to be made now - like today - in order to have a chance of solving anything. Waiting for these middle and high schoolers to graduate and get into positions to change anything will be waiting until it is too late. This is a boomer created problem, a boomer ignored problem, and now needs to be a boomer enabled solution.

AcerbicZero 5y ago

I really don’t have the time (or inclination) to become an expert on forest management - any chance maybe that big ol’ government which owns all the land, and takes all my money could do their job?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jeffbee 5y ago
The USFS offers up every inch of its territory for logging, but nobody wants it because western mountain forests are just too difficult to harvest, compared to tree plantations in flat territory. If you want these forests better managed we have to throw out the idea that a marketplace can solve it.
Hokusai 5y ago
> any chance maybe that big ol’ government which owns all the land, and takes all my money could do their job? I completely agree on that. The government needs money to affront this challenges. In the 40s tax was around 90% to pay for all the needed infrastructure and other projects. It is time that the USA stop thinking that everything comes for free and start getting money to survive to the new century challenges. I see an Asian future otherwise were Western countries are under funded and lack infrastructure.
- voisin 5y ago
  > In the 40s tax was around 90% to pay for all the needed infrastructure and other projects. I think this applied to the highest tax bracket which only covered a few people.

plank_time 5y ago

We should just let all these forest fires burn themselves out at this point, regardless of how big it gets. The idea that people would sacrifice their lives to save structures in the face of the full force of nature is stupid. Evacuate everyone in the area, divert firefighting resources to home the evacuees, and let it burn out. The silver lining is that the area won’t be hospitable for a large forest fire for a while.

MarcScott 5y ago
You've been downvoted, but if we had always just let forest fires burn, we'd be in a lot less trouble. Instead we put out fires to protect homes and infrastructure, resulting in a build up of several feet of combustible duff. When this does eventually burn, it burns hot, causing older trees that would have survived otherwise to go up in flames. Forests have pretty much evolved to handle forest fires. BTW, I'm not dismissing climate change as a major factor here for the prevalence and seriousness of seasonal fires. It's just that the idea of forest management as a remedy to these issues is a nonsense. Forests have managed themselves for millions of years, if we left them to it, they'd probably do alright now.

dicomdan 5y ago

West Coast is getting lucky wind isn’t blowing their way. Inland western states - not so much.

JTbane 5y ago

Not trying to criticize the Forest Service, but is it politically feasible to cut down large amounts of trees in the right areas to prevent this?

triceratops 5y ago
Where would you put the wood? And cutting down trees at enough scale to make a difference would likely exacerbate the drought that makes such fires more likely.
- soperj 5y ago
  leave it where it is. Great for soil health and forest rejuvenation.
  - jimmyjazz14 5y ago
    I actually think leaving the wood where it falls is partially part of the problem in some cases. That said the wood could be used for all the things we use wood for (building house, mulch, etc).
    - soperj 5y ago
      Deadwood soaks up a lot of water during the wet seasons, which results in less flooding, and allows other plants to access it during the dry seasons. Tons of trees start in dead wood. Honestly, try to use decomposing wood in a fire sometime. It's not flammable.
  - gdubs 5y ago
    At that point you’re just seasoning firewood. And whatever does decompose — unless you bury it our turn it into biochar, is going to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
    - soperj 5y ago
      You're really not if it's in a forest. It decomposes, and lots of other plants start growing from it, including other trees. CO2 from a forest isn't really something we need to worry about. A 25 year old maple will sequester 400 pounds of co2 in it's lifetime. It can't emit more than that over the years that it decomposes. An average commuter car will emit that in 2 weeks. That's what we need to worry about.

tengbretson 5y ago

The article doesn't really establish a point of reference. 7% contained sounds low, but I have no clue what a normal amount of containment is.

drivers99 5y ago
It refers to the amount of the perimeter that the fire (probably) can't cross. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/21/572305828/what-does-containing-a-fire-really-mean https://www.npr.org/2017/12/21/572305828/what-does-containin... > That means that [x] percent of the fire is surrounded by containment lines — any physical barrier that stops the fire from passing a certain point. Those lines can be trenches, natural barriers like rivers, or even already-burned patches of land. Most often, the containment line is a shallow, 10- to 12-feet wide trench firefighters dig into the dirt.
zie 5y ago
It normally starts off very small like this 7%, they have to get a beach-head as it were and get SOME boundaries set up, then it's just a matter of extending that boundary, such that it can't grow anymore and then it mostly puts itself out. That's the very high level, skipping loads of important details overview of how they tend to fight fires.

gdubs 5y ago

On our property in northern Oregon we’ve been working hard to reduce fuel loads in the forest. We’ve also invested in limbing trees — removing the branches below 10’ which helps lower the risks of ladder fires (fire jumping from the ground cover to the trees). Around the farmhouse we’ve torn out a ton of shrubs and flammable trees to create a more defensible fire zone. We’ve replaced them with stone, more fire resistant species like maple, etc. It’s time consuming and expensive. And this is on a property that’s about 80 acres. Small by farm standards. People have no concept of the scale of federal forest land. Nor do people have a concept of the scale of modern firestorms. Yes, the 20th century policy of suppressing fires has led to hazardous fuel loads. Yes, wildfires are a part of the ecosystem. Yes, building right up to the wilderness’s edge makes the destructiveness of these fires ever greater. But climate change is real, yo. You can see the trees drying out. The Douglas Fir which are so iconic to the state of Oregon are more stressed every year — and dead trees are more flammable. Greater heatwaves, longer and deeper droughts — they have very obvious consequences in regards to fire. You have essentially rain forests in a lot of regions drying out, creating massive fuel sources. How do you even begin to deal with that through forest management? Controlled Burns are great — but they’re not always feasible. Nor are they without risk — in this climate they’re getting harder to do safely, in ever-shrinking seasonal windows. And again, the scale of land we’re talking about is hard for people to comprehend. If you want to wait for the peer reviewed study that links every specific fire to climate change, you do you. But these events are exactly what the science has predicted, and despite the armchair quarterbacking, there is no easy solution.

user-the-name 5y ago
If there is a place for principled contrarianism, something so many HN people cherish, it is NOT in dealing with the climate crisis. This is NOT the time to be clever by thinking out of the box. We are very much firmly stuck in a box we need to sort out. The solutions are obvious, painful and difficult, but they need to be taken.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Around the farmhouse we’ve torn out a ton of shrubs and flammable trees to create a more defensible fire zone. We’ve replaced them with stone, more fire resistant species like maple, etc. The NFPA has a handy guide for protecting the structures on one's property: * https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/Wildfire/Preparing-homes-for-wildfire https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/... * https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-ready/defensible-space/ https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-re... It's broken down into three zones (0-5', 0-2m; 5-30', 2-10m; 30-100', 10-30m), and what best practices are for each.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

EDIT: Seriously? I'm getting downvoted for converting an area? Am I the only person who finds a square measured in miles easier to visualize than hundreds of thousands of acres? I'm not minimizing the import of the fire. --- Per google, 200,000 acres = 312.5 square miles. Per GHCI, the square root of that is 17.7. That is, the fire covers area equivalent to a square less than 18 miles on a side.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

rm_-rf_slash 5y ago

It would be swell to have one extreme weather hazard thread on HN that didn’t largely devolve into whinging about climate change, as if your snide comment ever made a difference. Speaking practically, our forestry policies are zombies from a knee-jerk era of “protect everything” in response to a previous industrial perspective of “cut it all down.” You’d be surprised - or sickened - how much forest coverage in the US is replanted. We’ve already made our mark on the environment, so why freeze our policies in place while the situation continues to evolve? One approach often left unmentioned every fire season is clearing brush and trees for biofuels. Trump caught a lot of flack a while ago for blaming California wildfires on a lack of raking the forest, but he wasn’t entirely wrong there either. Forests need to be maintained. The native Americans understood this and had all kinds of forestry techniques like controlled burns. So why not turn a cost center into a profit center? You can make quality pellets out of crap wood. I’ve seen it. Wood pellets are a fairly renewable resource too, since most of the growth necessary to sustain them happens in the very early parts of a tree’s lifecycle. That could gradually replace fuel oil and propane for rural areas (where nat gas pipes are uneconomical). And investing in forestry would be a good economic basis for long-neglected areas, such as New York State’s Southern Tier and North Country. But for the love of God, if you’re going to take the time to complain, DO SOMETHING.

mcint 5y ago

Thanks for sharing the lite. link.