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I'm rather confident very few in California "forgot" that their areas burn. Large parts of California burn down every year and have done so through the height

I'm rather confident very few in California "forgot" that their areas burn. Large parts of California burn down every year and have done so through the height of "excessive fire suppression". Also fire insurance premiums help jog the memory. The core of the issue has little to do with the fire suppression policy and more to do with the interface between humans and wildlands. There just aren't many areas that are even safe to do proscribe burns en masse that won't threaten some property or structures even if prescribed burns were emphasized. And I just don't understand how ever single one of these "The REAL problem is California doesn't let wildfires burn" threads is they always start with, "yeah climate change could possibly maybe be one cause but the REAL cause is..." No, really, climate change is not some incidental factor here, the climate conditions in CA are a huge contributor to these fires and possibly dominating factor in these fires.

nitrogen 5y ago
No, really, climate change is not some incidental factor here, the climate conditions in CA are a huge contributor to these fires and possibly dominating factor in these fires. All the more reason to focus on managing them, and remember the state's history of fires when deciding where and how to build structures and manage urban/wild interfaces in the future.
- lliamander 5y ago
  This really needs to be emphasized more. Just because a problem is caused by climate change doesn't mean that waiting for climate change to be stopped is the right solution. There is local action that can and should be taken.
  - deeviant 5y ago
    And that action is? Government seizes control of any property that is on these interfaces and kicks the people out of their homes? Or maybe the less harsh: government buys all these properties with eminent domain, kicks people off and lets the lands go fallow? What reality are you guys living in that you think any of this will happen and why do I feel that that same type of people placing forth such armchair planning and development mandates will be part of the crowd up in arms when people are being told they can no longer live where they do because we need to give the land back to the earth to burn in a peace. The reality of the situation is far more complex as is the solution.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      There's no need to jump to kicking people out of their homes. There are plenty of options: Special taxing districts and/or community volunteer programs in high fire risk areas to fund fuel removal initiatives -- think a crowd of people with power tools clearing dry grass and underbrush. Incentives and/or code changes for fire-resistant building. I know of someone in a fire-prone area who had to replace their cedar shake roof with a metal roof because the fire department told them they won't bother trying to save houses with wooden roofs. Changing expectations and funding for controlled burns, and helping/expecting property owners to assist with clearing debris so that controlled burns remain controlled. Ecosystem engineering beyond controlled burns -- it's a wicked hard problem, but it might be possible to breed, engineer, or import cultivars and species that are less prone to out-of-control fires.
      - deeviant 5y ago
        So instead of kicking them out of your homes, you price them out with taxes? Mind you, I'm more mirroring the sentiment of the people who would be affected by your policy rather than simply dismissing it. There are policies, lots of policies. State, county, local. All up and down CA, but none of them are moving at the speed of climate change. Controlled burning is there, fire resistant buildings are there (although if you ez-bake a house it's gone regardless), building defensible areas (green belts) around cities that fuel control is economically feasible, all on the table. You can look at cities like Paradise, which was basically destroyed, for what these policies look like. The thing is, these policies take money, and time. Lots of both, and they already largely exist.
        mjevans 5y ago
        If someone builds a home in a flood plane... Oh wait they do. Something has to give, subsidizing those who live in harm's way; to continue living in harms way; isn't the answer. Mistakes were made with zoning and building code. The proper fix seems situation dependent, but probably includes some combination of local engineering changes to safety (materials, what's allowed how close to what, evac routes, etc) and abandoning indefensible positions as unsafe for habitation. It generally makes sense for society as a whole to make a one time payment to reclaim areas for nature.
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    Climate change can't be stopped. Even if we magically slash CO2 entirely tomorrow we're still fucked. It's just mitigating the damage now.
_greim_ 5y ago
> proscribed burns "Proscribed" means prohibited. I think you must mean prescribed burns? I assume it's a typo but it conveys the opposite meaning.
- deeviant 5y ago
  Good catch, edited.
btilly 5y ago
It may help your understanding a whole lot to realize that, in fact, the REAL problem REALLY IS the buildup of burnable stuff because of past wildfire policy. Climate change explains why it is all catching on fire now. But if we had the forests that we had a century ago, and current climate conditions, we would have far smaller fires than we would if we had current forests and climate conditions from a century ago. Did you know that in a healthy forest, most of the mature trees do not get killed by the fire when a fire comes through? It is easy to see that it has to be true - trees survive centuries and fires come through much more often than that. And the reason why it is true is that when you have minimal underbrush, it burns past quickly and doesn't catch the trunk on fire. But we have enough fuel that it burns, and stays burning long enough to catch the whole tree. Which generates such intense heat that you get local weather conditions that dry out the next area so that when it burns, its trees will catch fire more easily. Guess what? Climate change may start the fire and make it hard to fight. But fuel load is the biggest factor in how intense it is. And that is the result of past forest policy.
- deeviant 5y ago
  Perhaps you missed the part where it's infeasible to do controlled burns on the scale that people around here are armchairing around because there are many of human structures within these wildlands. That is the reason why these fires are suppressed, because if they aren't they will kill humans or destroy structures. Put another way, if you want to pull your car out of your drive way, but you can't because there is a child standing behind you. The problem is not that you didn't pull you car out, it's the child standing behind you. Moving onto the "Ok then, just change policy and fix that then". Ok, yeah, kick millions of people off their properties, abandon who knows how many structures, easy, simple. Or maybe, you know, it's complicated.
  - btilly 5y ago
    Why did you just change the subject? And attack me for something that I didn't say rather than what I did say? The topic was to what extent the current problem is the result of past forestry policy. It wasn't how to get out of the current problem. It *certainly* wasn't about the wisdom of large scale controlled burns in populated areas. Can we go back to the actual topic? And have you answer whether or not you now understand why people say that past forestry policy is the fundamental reason why this problem exists in the first place?

nitrogen 5y ago

No, really, climate change is not some incidental factor here, the climate conditions in CA are a huge contributor to these fires and possibly dominating factor in these fires. All the more reason to focus on managing them, and remember the state's history of fires when deciding where and how to build structures and manage urban/wild interfaces in the future.

lliamander 5y ago
This really needs to be emphasized more. Just because a problem is caused by climate change doesn't mean that waiting for climate change to be stopped is the right solution. There is local action that can and should be taken.
- deeviant 5y ago
  And that action is? Government seizes control of any property that is on these interfaces and kicks the people out of their homes? Or maybe the less harsh: government buys all these properties with eminent domain, kicks people off and lets the lands go fallow? What reality are you guys living in that you think any of this will happen and why do I feel that that same type of people placing forth such armchair planning and development mandates will be part of the crowd up in arms when people are being told they can no longer live where they do because we need to give the land back to the earth to burn in a peace. The reality of the situation is far more complex as is the solution.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    There's no need to jump to kicking people out of their homes. There are plenty of options: Special taxing districts and/or community volunteer programs in high fire risk areas to fund fuel removal initiatives -- think a crowd of people with power tools clearing dry grass and underbrush. Incentives and/or code changes for fire-resistant building. I know of someone in a fire-prone area who had to replace their cedar shake roof with a metal roof because the fire department told them they won't bother trying to save houses with wooden roofs. Changing expectations and funding for controlled burns, and helping/expecting property owners to assist with clearing debris so that controlled burns remain controlled. Ecosystem engineering beyond controlled burns -- it's a wicked hard problem, but it might be possible to breed, engineer, or import cultivars and species that are less prone to out-of-control fires.
    - deeviant 5y ago
      So instead of kicking them out of your homes, you price them out with taxes? Mind you, I'm more mirroring the sentiment of the people who would be affected by your policy rather than simply dismissing it. There are policies, lots of policies. State, county, local. All up and down CA, but none of them are moving at the speed of climate change. Controlled burning is there, fire resistant buildings are there (although if you ez-bake a house it's gone regardless), building defensible areas (green belts) around cities that fuel control is economically feasible, all on the table. You can look at cities like Paradise, which was basically destroyed, for what these policies look like. The thing is, these policies take money, and time. Lots of both, and they already largely exist.
      - mjevans 5y ago
        If someone builds a home in a flood plane... Oh wait they do. Something has to give, subsidizing those who live in harm's way; to continue living in harms way; isn't the answer. Mistakes were made with zoning and building code. The proper fix seems situation dependent, but probably includes some combination of local engineering changes to safety (materials, what's allowed how close to what, evac routes, etc) and abandoning indefensible positions as unsafe for habitation. It generally makes sense for society as a whole to make a one time payment to reclaim areas for nature.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Climate change can't be stopped. Even if we magically slash CO2 entirely tomorrow we're still fucked. It's just mitigating the damage now.

_greim_ 5y ago

> proscribed burns "Proscribed" means prohibited. I think you must mean prescribed burns? I assume it's a typo but it conveys the opposite meaning.

deeviant 5y ago
Good catch, edited.

btilly 5y ago

It may help your understanding a whole lot to realize that, in fact, the REAL problem REALLY IS the buildup of burnable stuff because of past wildfire policy. Climate change explains why it is all catching on fire now. But if we had the forests that we had a century ago, and current climate conditions, we would have far smaller fires than we would if we had current forests and climate conditions from a century ago. Did you know that in a healthy forest, most of the mature trees do not get killed by the fire when a fire comes through? It is easy to see that it has to be true - trees survive centuries and fires come through much more often than that. And the reason why it is true is that when you have minimal underbrush, it burns past quickly and doesn't catch the trunk on fire. But we have enough fuel that it burns, and stays burning long enough to catch the whole tree. Which generates such intense heat that you get local weather conditions that dry out the next area so that when it burns, its trees will catch fire more easily. Guess what? Climate change may start the fire and make it hard to fight. But fuel load is the biggest factor in how intense it is. And that is the result of past forest policy.

deeviant 5y ago
Perhaps you missed the part where it's infeasible to do controlled burns on the scale that people around here are armchairing around because there are many of human structures within these wildlands. That is the reason why these fires are suppressed, because if they aren't they will kill humans or destroy structures. Put another way, if you want to pull your car out of your drive way, but you can't because there is a child standing behind you. The problem is not that you didn't pull you car out, it's the child standing behind you. Moving onto the "Ok then, just change policy and fix that then". Ok, yeah, kick millions of people off their properties, abandon who knows how many structures, easy, simple. Or maybe, you know, it's complicated.
- btilly 5y ago
  Why did you just change the subject? And attack me for something that I didn't say rather than what I did say? The topic was to what extent the current problem is the result of past forestry policy. It wasn't how to get out of the current problem. It *certainly* wasn't about the wisdom of large scale controlled burns in populated areas. Can we go back to the actual topic? And have you answer whether or not you now understand why people say that past forestry policy is the fundamental reason why this problem exists in the first place?