6 ms·

The US National Forrest and Calfire have been on the losing side of this fire so far. All the technology that produces memes that spread across the globe in sec

The US National Forrest and Calfire have been on the losing side of this fire so far. All the technology that produces memes that spread across the globe in seconds and launches and lands orbital rockets flawlessly cannot stop this fire. This has been a dry summer which can be attributed to global warming. I for one am not a defeatist that will let global warming beat me. We need to think of solutions to fires like this. 1. We need to apply Phos-Chek from ground based units. 2. Building codes need to be updated to only allow fire resistant structures in wildfire prone areas. 3. Inhabited locations in fire prone areas need need active fire suppression infrastructure around them (agricultural level irrigation at the ready). 4. Forest management around inhabited areas need to reduce forest fire fuel.

markdown 5y ago
> global warming Calling it that can be a trap. Stick to climate change.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  No, we need to stick with global warming. Overwhelmingly the direction is warming.
  - wyre 5y ago
    I’ll stick with ‘impending climate disaster’ as winters are getting colder and more intense and infrastructure is more likely to fail in cold than heat.
    - BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
      What does impending mean to you?
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    Except that the actual global atmospheric warming is minimal, 0.14 C/decade. [0] The actual problem is climate change in the western part of the United States, coupled with higher population density, poor forest management, and poor power line maintenance. [0] https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/08/uah-global-temperature-update-for-july-2021-0-20-deg-c/ https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/08/uah-global-temperature-...
    - amluto 5y ago
      The California problems may well be more due to forest mismanagement and PG&E issues than global warming. But 0.14C/decade is not “minimal” in any useful sense — it’s severely problematic.
      - wrycoder 5y ago
        That’s 1.5 C per century. Where I sit, there was ice a mile thick 15,000 years ago. We are still coming out of the last ice age. Besides that, we have just come out of the so-called Little Ice Age, at the height of which people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ice in New York Harbor. 1.5 C per century is inconsequential. Not only that, but I predict that humans will stop emitting CO2 in a few decades, in any case.
        cartoonworld 5y ago
        You are mentioning these geological time scales such as 15,000 years ago, but those figures representing delta are derived from a 42 year period. What is the delta if you account for the temperatures relating to any significant change in human consumption as opposed to this period which is the only one that coincides with fuel efficiency standards and increased environmental enforcement? Selecting a very small time period that does not include the industrial revolution, large scale construction (New deal public works, highways) operations, world wars, nuclear energy, adoption of mechanized logistics & transportation, any time at all with unrestricted emissions, etc is nearly useless for analysis. Why should the delta during 1979-2021 be representative of the overall climatology when the dataset appears to be barely large enough to even begin making any analysis?
        wrycoder 5y ago
        That is the length of the satellite record.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Where I sit, there was ice a mile thick 15,000 years ago. Besides that, we have just come out of the so-called Little Ice Age, at the height of which people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ice in New York Harbor. At the last glacial maximum, global temperature was about 7°C cooler than today; the “Little Ice Age” wasn't a particular period of global cooling, but a set of unsynchronized localized phenomenon featuring typical less than 1°C of large-area cooling. > 1.5 C per century is inconsequential. 1.5°C/century of global change is gigantic compared to either of the phenomena you raise to try to minimize it. > Not only that, but I predict that humans will stop emitting CO2 in a few decades, in any case. Based on...what?
  - mym1990 5y ago
    It’s good to keep in mind that heat won’t be the only fallout of global warming though, it will be more extremes of everything
- w-j-w 5y ago
  People crying out "bUt iT wAs cOlD yEsTeRdAy" to global warming hardly counts as a trap. The way that the climate is changing is that it is getting warmer.
- xwdv 5y ago
  The winters are not getting any colder.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  It doesn't matter what you call it, people won't change their feeling about it whether you call it Global Warming or Climate Change - it's kind of like the people who said they were waiting for FDA approval before they'd take the vaccine. Now that it's been approved, many are still saying "Well, it was rushed, I still want to wait", or "it was a political approval, not based on science".
prawn 5y ago
Would fire retardant applied as required from static base units help in any way? Imagine a chain of them launching or exploding to release product as required. Then re-stocked after the event.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Suppression eventually becomes the problem. And then there's the scale of what you propose.
burlesona 5y ago
As a thought experiment, I wonder what it would cost to build a European village scale town for 22k people (the population of SLT) and then literally build a moat around it as a firebreak.
- HoraceSchemer 5y ago
  A moat won't protect from flying embers.
- dav 5y ago
  The moat won’t work as well as you probably think. A lot of the problem comes from the sky raining down embers on flammable roofs and such...
  - nradov 5y ago
    This is why the building code in high risk areas should require Class A fire resistant roofs. This won't protect homes from huge firestorms but they're effective against falling embers. https://www.thisoldhouse.com/roofing/21018219/fire-resistant-roofing-and-siding https://www.thisoldhouse.com/roofing/21018219/fire-resistant...
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    A moat is not a horrid idea. When Paradise was burning I was thinking if I lived in a fire prone envionment; I would have sprinklers on roof of my home. It would be a simple 1/2" copper pipe feeding a few sprinkler heads on the roof. Maybe a few mercury switches placed around the property, or remotely controlled through the phone line, wifi, or sat phone enabled? Nothing too elaborate. It wouldn't protect everyone. It might save a few house fires that were started with embers though? I know there one company selling roof fire sprinklers. I know of one small city who's experimenting right now with roof sprinklers. Hell, I wouldn't mind firing a bunch of Firefighters, and seeing that money go to Roof Sprinklers. (I haven't quite figured out exactly what Firefights do all day, with the hard exception of Paramedics. Buildings in cities don't burn like they used too. Wood stick homes in the country are another story.) I heard one guy say that there wouldn't be enough water pressure if everyones roof was on, but that doesn't make sence either. Not everyone's roof sprinklers would be going off simultaneously if properly implemented, and designed. Firehouses could be in charge of which houses sprinklers go off? Right now in CA, if you live in a fire prone area, Insurance (Property) is not suspose to be higher. As much as I despise Insurance companies--this provision needs to be nixed. (I don't think it will happen because Insurance companies use it to raise our city insurance rates, and politicians have northern cabins.
Johnny555 5y ago
We need to apply Phos-Chek from ground based units Phos Chek is not great for the environment, especially to aquatic life. So ideally there'd be some solution that doesn't use more of it. agricultural level irrigation at the ready The fires are exacerbated by California's long term drought, if there's large quanties of water laying around, then they probably wouldn't have such a bad fire season. Inhabited locations in fire prone areas I think there should be a re-evaluation of whether or not to let people build or rebuild in especially fire-prone areas.
- fasteddie31003 5y ago
  1. Phos Chek is probably better than the long term effects from a wildfire. I would recommend looking more into consiquentalists ethics. 2. The mountains have excesses of water in the spring which could easily be sequestered for wildfire season. 3. I own land and live in a wildfire prone area. I will not be moving out to live in a human shit ridden city. I am prefer nature over close human habitation.
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    So you're more of a "Let's sacrifice the fish before I'll sacrifice my lifestyle" person?
    - fasteddie31003 5y ago
      Yes, I would sacrifice the Sacramento River Smelt for more water for agriculture and humans. Again, I'm more of a consequentialist. I'm for forest management, which means cutting down some trees. Many modern environmentalist deontologists will call me a racist for suggesting we need to cut down some trees for the greater good.
      - bronson 5y ago
        Your last sentence appears incoherent. Got links? Are you willing to move out of fire country for the greater good?
LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> I for one am not a defeatist that will let global warming beat me. Thinking about it in terms of victory and defeat isn't very helpful IMO. The reality is pretty clear: humans need to adapt to climate change. We are already past the point of no return, and in places like California the effects of climate change are mounting at a faster rate than we can realistically mitigate them. > We need to think of solutions to fires like this. 1. We need to apply Phos-Chek from ground based units. 2. Building codes need to be updated to only allow fire resistant structures in wildfire prone areas. 3. Inhabited locations in fire prone areas need need active fire suppression infrastructure around them (agricultural level irrigation at the ready). 4. Forest management around inhabited areas need to reduce forest fire fuel. I'm an advisor and investor in a company that serves this market and while all of the things that you mention can help, they are not "solutions" per se. For example: 1. "Fire resistant" structures are not fire proof. Many rural homeowners in the most vulnerable areas don't have the income to make significant upgrades to their homes. A lot more funding for retrofit subsidies would be required and then you need adequate man power to run inspections and perform upgrades. 2. California already has water problems. "Agricultural level irrigation" in every rural community simply isn't realistic. 2. Forest management could definitely be improved, but it's costly and labor intensive. Where are you going to get the labor? The sad truth is that a lot of places in California (and the Western US in general) are becoming uninhabitable. Lots of people will need to relocate, or they'll eventually be forced to.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Climate Change is only a small contributor of forest fires in California, there was a pretty lengthy discussion on HN last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122867 Direct source: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/09/how-wildfire-restored-a-yosemite-watershed/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/09/how-wildfire-restored-a...
  - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
    > I think climate change is no more than 20 to 25% responsible for our current fire problems in the state... A few percent is "small". Even if you agree with the claim, 20-25% would make climate change a significant contributor.
nradov 5y ago
We also need more large firefighting aircraft. There is a perpetual shortage because the state and federal governments typically only hire them on annual contacts. So the operating companies can't afford to invest in more aircraft. If governments put out 10 year contracts that would give them enough stability to expand the fleet. https://slate.com/business/2021/08/california-wildfires-airplanes-dc10-shortage.html https://slate.com/business/2021/08/california-wildfires-airp...
- olivermarks 5y ago
  Annoyingly the biggest plane was taken out of service this spring, partially because of liability issues after a retardent drop killed a firefighter and mostly because it was more lucrative to move freight. https://fireaviation.com/2021/04/23/the-747-supertanker-is-ceasing-operations/ https://fireaviation.com/2021/04/23/the-747-supertanker-is-c... We badly need more of this size carrier base don what my fire fighter friends tell me, although removing fuel in winter months would solve the problem at its core
beambot 5y ago
Since you brought it up, it seems fair game to ask: do you work on climate solutions? I always find it odd & off-putting when people demean or pass judgement on others' professions -- eg social apps & rocket ships -- especially if they ironically work in similarly "mundane" fields themselves. It just doesn't seem very constructive. (Also: not sure I'd agree with the equivalence of the two examples, but that's another topic.)

markdown 5y ago

> global warming Calling it that can be a trap. Stick to climate change.

thehappypm 5y ago
No, we need to stick with global warming. Overwhelmingly the direction is warming.
- wyre 5y ago
  I’ll stick with ‘impending climate disaster’ as winters are getting colder and more intense and infrastructure is more likely to fail in cold than heat.
  - BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
    What does impending mean to you?
- wrycoder 5y ago
  Except that the actual global atmospheric warming is minimal, 0.14 C/decade. [0] The actual problem is climate change in the western part of the United States, coupled with higher population density, poor forest management, and poor power line maintenance. [0] https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/08/uah-global-temperature-update-for-july-2021-0-20-deg-c/ https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/08/uah-global-temperature-...
  - amluto 5y ago
    The California problems may well be more due to forest mismanagement and PG&E issues than global warming. But 0.14C/decade is not “minimal” in any useful sense — it’s severely problematic.
    - wrycoder 5y ago
      That’s 1.5 C per century. Where I sit, there was ice a mile thick 15,000 years ago. We are still coming out of the last ice age. Besides that, we have just come out of the so-called Little Ice Age, at the height of which people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ice in New York Harbor. 1.5 C per century is inconsequential. Not only that, but I predict that humans will stop emitting CO2 in a few decades, in any case.
      - cartoonworld 5y ago
        You are mentioning these geological time scales such as 15,000 years ago, but those figures representing delta are derived from a 42 year period. What is the delta if you account for the temperatures relating to any significant change in human consumption as opposed to this period which is the only one that coincides with fuel efficiency standards and increased environmental enforcement? Selecting a very small time period that does not include the industrial revolution, large scale construction (New deal public works, highways) operations, world wars, nuclear energy, adoption of mechanized logistics & transportation, any time at all with unrestricted emissions, etc is nearly useless for analysis. Why should the delta during 1979-2021 be representative of the overall climatology when the dataset appears to be barely large enough to even begin making any analysis?
        wrycoder 5y ago
        That is the length of the satellite record.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Where I sit, there was ice a mile thick 15,000 years ago. Besides that, we have just come out of the so-called Little Ice Age, at the height of which people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ice in New York Harbor. At the last glacial maximum, global temperature was about 7°C cooler than today; the “Little Ice Age” wasn't a particular period of global cooling, but a set of unsynchronized localized phenomenon featuring typical less than 1°C of large-area cooling. > 1.5 C per century is inconsequential. 1.5°C/century of global change is gigantic compared to either of the phenomena you raise to try to minimize it. > Not only that, but I predict that humans will stop emitting CO2 in a few decades, in any case. Based on...what?
- mym1990 5y ago
  It’s good to keep in mind that heat won’t be the only fallout of global warming though, it will be more extremes of everything
w-j-w 5y ago
People crying out "bUt iT wAs cOlD yEsTeRdAy" to global warming hardly counts as a trap. The way that the climate is changing is that it is getting warmer.
xwdv 5y ago
The winters are not getting any colder.
Johnny555 5y ago
It doesn't matter what you call it, people won't change their feeling about it whether you call it Global Warming or Climate Change - it's kind of like the people who said they were waiting for FDA approval before they'd take the vaccine. Now that it's been approved, many are still saying "Well, it was rushed, I still want to wait", or "it was a political approval, not based on science".

prawn 5y ago

Would fire retardant applied as required from static base units help in any way? Imagine a chain of them launching or exploding to release product as required. Then re-stocked after the event.

maxerickson 5y ago
Suppression eventually becomes the problem. And then there's the scale of what you propose.

burlesona 5y ago

As a thought experiment, I wonder what it would cost to build a European village scale town for 22k people (the population of SLT) and then literally build a moat around it as a firebreak.

HoraceSchemer 5y ago
A moat won't protect from flying embers.
dav 5y ago
The moat won’t work as well as you probably think. A lot of the problem comes from the sky raining down embers on flammable roofs and such...
- nradov 5y ago
  This is why the building code in high risk areas should require Class A fire resistant roofs. This won't protect homes from huge firestorms but they're effective against falling embers. https://www.thisoldhouse.com/roofing/21018219/fire-resistant-roofing-and-siding https://www.thisoldhouse.com/roofing/21018219/fire-resistant...
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  A moat is not a horrid idea. When Paradise was burning I was thinking if I lived in a fire prone envionment; I would have sprinklers on roof of my home. It would be a simple 1/2" copper pipe feeding a few sprinkler heads on the roof. Maybe a few mercury switches placed around the property, or remotely controlled through the phone line, wifi, or sat phone enabled? Nothing too elaborate. It wouldn't protect everyone. It might save a few house fires that were started with embers though? I know there one company selling roof fire sprinklers. I know of one small city who's experimenting right now with roof sprinklers. Hell, I wouldn't mind firing a bunch of Firefighters, and seeing that money go to Roof Sprinklers. (I haven't quite figured out exactly what Firefights do all day, with the hard exception of Paramedics. Buildings in cities don't burn like they used too. Wood stick homes in the country are another story.) I heard one guy say that there wouldn't be enough water pressure if everyones roof was on, but that doesn't make sence either. Not everyone's roof sprinklers would be going off simultaneously if properly implemented, and designed. Firehouses could be in charge of which houses sprinklers go off? Right now in CA, if you live in a fire prone area, Insurance (Property) is not suspose to be higher. As much as I despise Insurance companies--this provision needs to be nixed. (I don't think it will happen because Insurance companies use it to raise our city insurance rates, and politicians have northern cabins.

Johnny555 5y ago

We need to apply Phos-Chek from ground based units Phos Chek is not great for the environment, especially to aquatic life. So ideally there'd be some solution that doesn't use more of it. agricultural level irrigation at the ready The fires are exacerbated by California's long term drought, if there's large quanties of water laying around, then they probably wouldn't have such a bad fire season. Inhabited locations in fire prone areas I think there should be a re-evaluation of whether or not to let people build or rebuild in especially fire-prone areas.

fasteddie31003 5y ago
1. Phos Chek is probably better than the long term effects from a wildfire. I would recommend looking more into consiquentalists ethics. 2. The mountains have excesses of water in the spring which could easily be sequestered for wildfire season. 3. I own land and live in a wildfire prone area. I will not be moving out to live in a human shit ridden city. I am prefer nature over close human habitation.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  So you're more of a "Let's sacrifice the fish before I'll sacrifice my lifestyle" person?
  - fasteddie31003 5y ago
    Yes, I would sacrifice the Sacramento River Smelt for more water for agriculture and humans. Again, I'm more of a consequentialist. I'm for forest management, which means cutting down some trees. Many modern environmentalist deontologists will call me a racist for suggesting we need to cut down some trees for the greater good.
    - bronson 5y ago
      Your last sentence appears incoherent. Got links? Are you willing to move out of fire country for the greater good?

LurkingPenguin 5y ago

> I for one am not a defeatist that will let global warming beat me. Thinking about it in terms of victory and defeat isn't very helpful IMO. The reality is pretty clear: humans need to adapt to climate change. We are already past the point of no return, and in places like California the effects of climate change are mounting at a faster rate than we can realistically mitigate them. > We need to think of solutions to fires like this. 1. We need to apply Phos-Chek from ground based units. 2. Building codes need to be updated to only allow fire resistant structures in wildfire prone areas. 3. Inhabited locations in fire prone areas need need active fire suppression infrastructure around them (agricultural level irrigation at the ready). 4. Forest management around inhabited areas need to reduce forest fire fuel. I'm an advisor and investor in a company that serves this market and while all of the things that you mention can help, they are not "solutions" per se. For example: 1. "Fire resistant" structures are not fire proof. Many rural homeowners in the most vulnerable areas don't have the income to make significant upgrades to their homes. A lot more funding for retrofit subsidies would be required and then you need adequate man power to run inspections and perform upgrades. 2. California already has water problems. "Agricultural level irrigation" in every rural community simply isn't realistic. 2. Forest management could definitely be improved, but it's costly and labor intensive. Where are you going to get the labor? The sad truth is that a lot of places in California (and the Western US in general) are becoming uninhabitable. Lots of people will need to relocate, or they'll eventually be forced to.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Climate Change is only a small contributor of forest fires in California, there was a pretty lengthy discussion on HN last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122867 Direct source: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/09/how-wildfire-restored-a-yosemite-watershed/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/09/how-wildfire-restored-a...
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > I think climate change is no more than 20 to 25% responsible for our current fire problems in the state... A few percent is "small". Even if you agree with the claim, 20-25% would make climate change a significant contributor.

nradov 5y ago

We also need more large firefighting aircraft. There is a perpetual shortage because the state and federal governments typically only hire them on annual contacts. So the operating companies can't afford to invest in more aircraft. If governments put out 10 year contracts that would give them enough stability to expand the fleet. https://slate.com/business/2021/08/california-wildfires-airplanes-dc10-shortage.html https://slate.com/business/2021/08/california-wildfires-airp...

olivermarks 5y ago
Annoyingly the biggest plane was taken out of service this spring, partially because of liability issues after a retardent drop killed a firefighter and mostly because it was more lucrative to move freight. https://fireaviation.com/2021/04/23/the-747-supertanker-is-ceasing-operations/ https://fireaviation.com/2021/04/23/the-747-supertanker-is-c... We badly need more of this size carrier base don what my fire fighter friends tell me, although removing fuel in winter months would solve the problem at its core

beambot 5y ago

Since you brought it up, it seems fair game to ask: do you work on climate solutions? I always find it odd & off-putting when people demean or pass judgement on others' professions -- eg social apps & rocket ships -- especially if they ironically work in similarly "mundane" fields themselves. It just doesn't seem very constructive. (Also: not sure I'd agree with the equivalence of the two examples, but that's another topic.)