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I think you're seriously underestimating the sheer size of US National forests in California and the rest of the West coast. Wild fires have already burned well

I think you're seriously underestimating the sheer size of US National forests in California and the rest of the West coast. Wild fires have already burned well over a million acres in California and Oregon this year alone. How many people would it take to maintain an area that size? Now consider that a million acres is something like 3% of the area covered by national forests just in those two states. I can tell you from first-hand experience that clearing and maintaining a forest is extremely hard work. I have about 4 acres of forest on my property and 3 years in I still haven't fully cleared all of the dead trees and branches. Granted it's not my full time job, but I would estimate that a single person is capable of maintaining tens to maybe hundreds of acres per year. That implies that preventing fires via full suppression + fuels reduction would require hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers to be effective.

mananaysiempre 5y ago
I’m aware that North American forests are absolutely immense compared to everything I’ve ever seen. And yes, forest-keeping is hard labor (duh). But there’s partly a question of involvement here: if you don’t meddle in the forest and don’t care to make it friendly to humans, it will (barring climate shifts that I’m in no way qualified to talk about) mostly take care of itself. It’s when you start allowing people inside and/or putting out small fires that you start having problems. So if you don’t have the necessary manpower, maybe don’t do that? Either take responsibility or leave it alone. You will still need firebreaks and people to walk them separating the two parts, though. (Although given how much forest there is in the US compared in Europe, it would be foolish to expect to get by with a comparable amount of people, and a hundred thousand rangers, while undeniably very expensive and a lot of effort, does not fundamentally look like an unreasonable figure.)
- pixl97 5y ago
  It's called the Wildland Urban Interface, and unfortunately we've already built millions of houses here. Now we are paying the true cost of our foolishness. Most houses will need 100 to 200 feet of cleared vegetation around them. Instead we love the look of large pine trees and brush right against our homes. The term is 'built to burn' https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/

mananaysiempre 5y ago

I’m aware that North American forests are absolutely immense compared to everything I’ve ever seen. And yes, forest-keeping is hard labor (duh). But there’s partly a question of involvement here: if you don’t meddle in the forest and don’t care to make it friendly to humans, it will (barring climate shifts that I’m in no way qualified to talk about) mostly take care of itself. It’s when you start allowing people inside and/or putting out small fires that you start having problems. So if you don’t have the necessary manpower, maybe don’t do that? Either take responsibility or leave it alone. You will still need firebreaks and people to walk them separating the two parts, though. (Although given how much forest there is in the US compared in Europe, it would be foolish to expect to get by with a comparable amount of people, and a hundred thousand rangers, while undeniably very expensive and a lot of effort, does not fundamentally look like an unreasonable figure.)

pixl97 5y ago
It's called the Wildland Urban Interface, and unfortunately we've already built millions of houses here. Now we are paying the true cost of our foolishness. Most houses will need 100 to 200 feet of cleared vegetation around them. Instead we love the look of large pine trees and brush right against our homes. The term is 'built to burn' https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/