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Wildfires are a bit like crop rotation in nature. I think we're returning to the idea that wildfires aren't a bad thing when done in a safe manner. Visiting Las
by 1-6 5y ago
Wildfires are a bit like crop rotation in nature. I think we're returning to the idea that wildfires aren't a bad thing when done in a safe manner. Visiting Lassen National Park, there was a big area where it was nothing but blackened trees but an interesting caveat was that a lot of smaller trees were present in that same area.
- mulmen 5y agoAre we? Since the 1990s as a school child I thought we already came around on this. But in recent years I am hearing that is not the case, or that we are only now coming around. Did we do a 360?
- texuf 5y agoThe way I’ve heard it described is that other priorities that are also important, like spare the air days or budget concerns, kinda edged out control burns in the recent past.
- mulmen 5y agoYeah I have heard the same. And it makes sense with communities burning. They will always be the hardest places to coordinate controlled burns because of the concentration of interests. It would be interesting to correlate forestry management practices and population density.
- 1-6 5y agoPerhaps we just need constant awareness. Smokey Bear's website also includes a small section regarding the Benefits of Fire: https://smokeybear.com/en/about-wildland-fire/benefits-of-fire https://smokeybear.com/en/about-wildland-fire/benefits-of-fi... The Longleaf Pine episode on Smarter Every Day was also educational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJWG7raBlT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJWG7raBlT8
- SubiculumCode 5y agoYeah I learned about this forever ago, but as usual, its money that talks. People don't like their houses burned, and so fire suppression policy is dominant. Only now that we are having super-fires that people are opening up to it.
- cf100clunk 5y agoWildfire management organizations' budgets have been so skewed to remedial action from preventative that indigenous "Cultural Burners" in British Columbia have complained that when they've sought agreement to do controlled burns in spring and autumn they are met with plans for batteries of firefighting equipment on standby. It is a colossal mismatch of scale, since the Cultural burners tend to limit their focus on their own local, ancestral territories. Thankfully the B.C. authorities are now doing a rethink in favour of the Cultural burner concept.
- TheCondor 5y agoI think the national park service fully accepted the idea that we should let fires burn around the lsat great Yellowstone fire, maybe 1990ish. I don't know that they speak for the US Forest Service though. Between the different national level parks and forest services and then the state level ones, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are still a lot in the active suppression camp. Then there are municipalities where people can basically live in the WUI and the idea of preserving only structures is further complicated.
- almost_usual 5y agoIt’s less about the US Forest Service and more about local jurisdictions and smoke from prescribed burns being a ‘nuisance’. This talk is by someone who works for the US Forest Service. https://youtu.be/O6Vayv9FCLM https://youtu.be/O6Vayv9FCLM
- tclancy 5y agoI think it varies by region at this point. https://www.outsideonline.com/podcast/future-fire/ https://www.outsideonline.com/podcast/future-fire/
- maxerickson 5y agoTraditional nature conservation came around years ago and hasn't changed. Popular conservation, which tends towards absolute preservation, has not come around.
- evilduck 5y agoCommunities living next to or within forests also tend to prefer we put fires out.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 5y agoYou can do smaller controlled burns in those areas instead of letting the fuel pile up into an emergency.
- lazide 5y agoSounds like work, it’s no surprise it doesn’t happen. A lot of these areas struggle to rub two nickels together to get safe water.
- maxerickson 5y agoAn awful lot of encroachment into forests is from high end subdivisions that should not have been built. When the state allows construction and utility connections and so forth, it should also take up responsibility for fire management.
- walkedaway 5y ago"Only you can prevent forest fires" lays the wrong mindset that humans are the only causes of forest fires. I grew up with that mindset, took some education to realize that nature (lightning) creates fires as well, and that fires have occurred throughout history for the benefit of the ecosystem.
- mulmen 5y agoExactly. Said another way, since fire is inevitable the ecosystem adapted to it, and the species that survived are those that actually benefit from it.
- ummonk 5y agoShould also be noted that much of the California natural landscape evolved for several centuries (if not millennia) under the influence of human-initiated burns by the native tribes.
- notatoad 5y agoWe've known since the 60s that letting forests burn is healthier for forest ecosystems. But we've known about a lot of good environmental practices since the 60s and just ignored them. All it takes is one person building a cabin in the middle of a forest, and all of a sudden it's a fire that threatens property and can't be allowed to burn. We can let remote areas of the national parks burn, but it's going to take a lot of political and social change before it becomes acceptable to let people's vacation properties burn, Or to prevent development of large regions of forest so it can be allowed to burn.
- spfzero 5y agoThere are a lot of small private holdings within public lands. They should receive some property tax relief, in exchange for understanding that the forest around them is going to be managed naturally. That doesn’t mean that their property won’t be defended as much as possible, just that stopping the entire fire itself won’t be the goal.
- ip26 5y agoNot just about safety but also intensity. Super-hot fires sterilize the soil, and total-destruction fires destabilize hillsides & dramatically change microclimate (no shade -> hot & dry). Both can delay recolonization decades or centuries.
- mandelbrotwurst 5y agoWhat is recolonization in this context? Does it just mean growth of a new forest?
- throaway3141593 5y agoPerhaps a new forest, but plants in general (current conditions may favor grassland, or something else). It's "re" because there was an ecosystem there before, and now it's returning. Contrast with, say, a brand new island that is the result of volcanic action. Then it'd be just plain old colonization by way of wind-blown seeds, or seeds that survived a bird's digestive tract.
- masklinn 5y agoWell yes and no. If the soil's been sterilised the entire thing needs to be rebuilt from the grasses upwards, forests don't spring up out of nowhere they build up from precursors.
- mandelbrotwurst 5y agoThanks, I was imagining the smaller stuff as being part of the forest but I suppose maybe the plants that arise first don’t necessarily stick around for the entirety of the forest lifecycle?
- masklinn 5y agoExactly. I don’t remember the exact cycle but basically you first get grass type colonisers, then you might get shrubs, then possibly trees densifying to a forest. Even the tree presence would change as the forest builds up as some essences don’t like being crowded (so won’t replace themselves once the forest densifies) while others prefer shade (so won’t appear until there’s a canopy proper).
- newbamboo 5y agoI worry that we may committing a historical fallacy. Fires were good, back when the climate was very different. Can we extrapolate that forward given rapid changes in climate. Maybe there are other ways to accomplish similar effects. Logging gets a bad name, but maybe in today’s ecosystem and the ecosystem as it will be in future years leaving it up to fire to do naturally is longer optimal. We are no longer in the garden of eden. Some things do change.
- antisthenes 5y agoWell, our current choices may be between 2 fallacies. First one is the one you described, and the second one is that given the changes in climate that it's even possible to contain these wildfires using mechanical means, such as trenches and water drops. It may not be. The question then is which one is the lesser evil.
- maxerickson 5y agoLoggers make big waste piles and then burn them.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- almost_usual 5y agoThe fallacy is thinking humans can prevent fire in forests forever.
- bawolff 5y agoI don't see why climate change would affect the positive aspects of fire. Logging generally does not have the same effect (logging takes big trees and leave small stuff, fires leave big trees and kill small stuff. Also the heat from fire is important for the germination of some types of trees)
- chris_va 5y agoClimate change brings invasive species, so fire behavior can be very different (and regrowth post-fire can be very different).
- kzrdude 5y agoThe bigger wildfires are a sign of a changing equilibrium (for example hotter temperatures, no surprise).
- generalizations 5y agoOr forest mismanagement.
- truffdog 5y agoI was in a northern california campground a few years ago and was kind of blown away- great piles of dead trees and "no collecting firewood" signs.
- mfer 5y agoSmaller regular fires burn at lower temperatures and they clean up basic debris. If we fail to let the lower temp fires clean up debris the debris tends to grow. When there is more of that the fires burn at hotter temperatures and cause more damage. To avoid the hotter temperatures the debris needs regular cleaning. The natural method of that is fire. That's what numerous articles written on the topic from experts have said.
- phendrenad2 5y agoI'd love to see a future where we build houses with the expectation that wildfires will rage nearby. Put up some huge heat-resistant walls around civilization, let the fires burn next door. Wildfires feel like the last area where we feel entitled to destroy nature's evolved processes, just because humans want cheap land.
- Vax45 5y agoWe dabbled in heat-resistant walls with Asbestos and didn't turn out too well for our health.
- gordon_freeman 5y agoI remember one of the national parks I visited a while ago (I think it was Redwoods NPS in California but not sure) where the Ranger told me that one of the tough decisions sometimes they'd need to make when a wildfire is raging is to whether to put it out or just keep it spreading naturally to the benefit of health and biodiversity of the forest. In an extreme case, he mentioned that for a few occasions the Park Service even may need to ignite the wildfire and they have done it a few times before. This all was pretty surprising to me considering all these wildfires news I've been reading recently.
- Zenst 5y agoThere are plants (including tree's) that depend upon fire to propagate. Pyrophytic plants and some examples covered here: https://www.britannica.com/list/5-amazing-adaptations-of-pyrophytic-plants https://www.britannica.com/list/5-amazing-adaptations-of-pyr...
- pvaldes 5y agoAnd other plants that can't survive this conditions. If you want water you need to promote the second ones Why we should want water? because is a strong temperatures buffer, protecting people and providing a more stable local climate so we -should- aim to store as many water as possible in the forests. And because all our economy is centered in water supply. A few months without absolutely no water and our big cities would collapse and be quit in mass. And because putting the water in the ocean, and this is the main result of wildfires, will help to raise the sea level where the '90%' of the big cities are situated and would destroy zillions in people's property instead. We are risking more than a few forest cabins here. Some conifers need fire to multiply yes, but this technology is easy to provide so is not a big problem. And those conifers are also a symptom; they are survivors that live only where the other plants can't. If you have only a sea of pine trees it means that the soil is too poor or the climate is too cold or harsh for the other trees. To keep drying the area and destroying this soil is not always the better solution.