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Fire suppression is not the answer, though. North American ecosystems depend on regular fire to function. The increase in out-of-control wild fires on the west

Fire suppression is not the answer, though. North American ecosystems depend on regular fire to function. The increase in out-of-control wild fires on the west coast is a function of the coincidence of two trends: drought and a century of fire suppression and accumulating fuels.

julienchastang 4y ago
Exactly. Fire suppression leads to even bigger fires down the road. Yet controlled burns are getting increasingly problematic. The New Mexico fires we had earlier this year were initially controlled burns that became dormant and spun out of control later. The yearly controlled burn time window is shrinking by one day a year because of climate change [0]. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/forest-service-to-halt-prescribed-burns-after-destructive-new-mexico-wildfire-11653081275 https://www.wsj.com/articles/forest-service-to-halt-prescrib...
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  It's very easy to forget how long a big log can burn
coding123 4y ago
So basically no data to back this up.
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  No data to back what up.
- nomel 4y ago
  There’s massive amounts of data, which is what drove the recent legislation to help with some of the hurdles that were preventing controlled burns: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-signs-fire-law-paving-way-for-more-prescribed-burns https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-s... As evidence of the smoke filled past, some of our plants even require fire to germinate! https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/8657/live_w_fire.pdf https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/8657/live_w_fire.pdf
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
Well to be honest when you start to build houses in the forest voters want fire to be suppressed.
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  Yes, it's true.
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  Yeah, low-density luxury development in rural areas creates horrible effects.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    how about low-density destination recreation on USFS lands run by politically connected ? look on the maps for the last fifty years. Its contentious and they do it anyway.
Siddarth1977 4y ago
No it's not a function of those two things, that's bullshit talking points from fossil fuel interests to deny climate change as being the dominant factor. The value in regular small fires was understood science 80 years ago and has been a part of forest management for decades. Only in very limited places, generally wooded suburbs, has accumulation of fuels been a meaningful factor. Talking about fire suppression in the current context is absurd. It's pointing the finger at the 0.01% cause and ignoring the 99.9% cause, which is climate change due to carbon emissions.
- simonsarris 4y ago
  Climate change is not the dominant factor. Pre-1800, about 1.8 million hectare burned each year in CA: https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/FireForestEcology/FireScienceResearch/FireHistory/FireHistory-Stephens07.pdf https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/Fi... > The idea that US wildfire area of approximately two million ha annually is extreme is certainly a 20th or 21st century perspective. Skies were likely smoky much of the summer and fall in California during the prehistoric period. And from: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2015.0345#d3e1427 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201... > Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. We have simply been lucky, so far, that mass settlement in an area of the US that experiences very regular fires and 200-year droughts has happened to affect us so little. In the past other civilizations have had to leave the area completely.
  - julienchastang 4y ago
    You basically have three components to the present wildfire situation: 1. climate change / mega-droughts, 2. fire suppression especially in contrast to Indigenous Peoples of the past who would burn forests according to agricultural practices, 3. land use change, i.e., much greater amount of urban / wild land mingling. (Edited: grammar / clarification).

julienchastang 4y ago

Exactly. Fire suppression leads to even bigger fires down the road. Yet controlled burns are getting increasingly problematic. The New Mexico fires we had earlier this year were initially controlled burns that became dormant and spun out of control later. The yearly controlled burn time window is shrinking by one day a year because of climate change [0]. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/forest-service-to-halt-prescribed-burns-after-destructive-new-mexico-wildfire-11653081275 https://www.wsj.com/articles/forest-service-to-halt-prescrib...

jonnycomputer 4y ago
It's very easy to forget how long a big log can burn

coding123 4y ago

So basically no data to back this up.

jonnycomputer 4y ago
No data to back what up.
nomel 4y ago
There’s massive amounts of data, which is what drove the recent legislation to help with some of the hurdles that were preventing controlled burns: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-signs-fire-law-paving-way-for-more-prescribed-burns https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-07/newsom-s... As evidence of the smoke filled past, some of our plants even require fire to germinate! https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/8657/live_w_fire.pdf https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/8657/live_w_fire.pdf

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

Well to be honest when you start to build houses in the forest voters want fire to be suppressed.

jonnycomputer 4y ago
Yes, it's true.
joe_the_user 4y ago
Yeah, low-density luxury development in rural areas creates horrible effects.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  how about low-density destination recreation on USFS lands run by politically connected ? look on the maps for the last fifty years. Its contentious and they do it anyway.

Siddarth1977 4y ago

No it's not a function of those two things, that's bullshit talking points from fossil fuel interests to deny climate change as being the dominant factor. The value in regular small fires was understood science 80 years ago and has been a part of forest management for decades. Only in very limited places, generally wooded suburbs, has accumulation of fuels been a meaningful factor. Talking about fire suppression in the current context is absurd. It's pointing the finger at the 0.01% cause and ignoring the 99.9% cause, which is climate change due to carbon emissions.

simonsarris 4y ago
Climate change is not the dominant factor. Pre-1800, about 1.8 million hectare burned each year in CA: https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/FireForestEcology/FireScienceResearch/FireHistory/FireHistory-Stephens07.pdf https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/Fi... > The idea that US wildfire area of approximately two million ha annually is extreme is certainly a 20th or 21st century perspective. Skies were likely smoky much of the summer and fall in California during the prehistoric period. And from: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2015.0345#d3e1427 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201... > Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. We have simply been lucky, so far, that mass settlement in an area of the US that experiences very regular fires and 200-year droughts has happened to affect us so little. In the past other civilizations have had to leave the area completely.
- julienchastang 4y ago
  You basically have three components to the present wildfire situation: 1. climate change / mega-droughts, 2. fire suppression especially in contrast to Indigenous Peoples of the past who would burn forests according to agricultural practices, 3. land use change, i.e., much greater amount of urban / wild land mingling. (Edited: grammar / clarification).