5 ms·

Have we considered whether standard best-practice wilderness management, like controlled burns, can address issues like this, or is that still ignored/dismissed

Have we considered whether standard best-practice wilderness management, like controlled burns, can address issues like this, or is that still ignored/dismissed?

emodendroket 3y ago
One of the big fires last year I heard about was a controlled burn that turned into an uncontrolled burn so I guess it is not being totally ignored.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
twoodfin 3y ago
My understanding is that the current liability structure makes most potential controlled burns effectively impossible. I think you’d need an act of Congress to limit liability as long as certain easily justiciable standards were met.
mistrial9 3y ago
good topic but ugly truth behind it -- a US Interior agency near New Mexico had a scheduled controlled burn on the books.. apparently they can schedule things multiple years in advance.. but .. the drought got worse and covid hit. The department had personnel and morale problems.. lots of uncertainty.. they stalledxxxxx "waited patiently" for two more years as the drought got still worse but the documents describing physical risk were not updated. The Federal department executed the burn and it went wild, and is the largest fire in recorded history in that area now, taking out an entire town plus other structures and causing the evacuation of Los Alamos National Laboratories at the same time. you can find the details easily.. there is a 70 page "final report" from the agency perspective. This is reality.
- swalling 3y ago
  The simple reality is that not only does human incompetence get in the way of safety here, but burns probably just aren't a very viable option. Historical controlled burns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire_in_ecosystems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire_in...) worked because they happened frequently and kept fuel in check while encouraging trees that were resistant to or even dependent on low grade fires. Fuel loads are dramatically higher than historically however. Now we've also got massive areas of forest dieback due to climate-driven bark beetle outbreaks. Trees that do survive burns but are stressed by them are more vulnerable to pests, just like drought stress. https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/bark-beetles-and-climate-change-united-states https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/bark-beetles-and-climate... So controlled burns even done effectively may still result in unwanted tree dieback. A much safer potential cure here would be a massive increase in targeted grazing on federal land to reduce understory fuel loads, but this is also a nonstarter politically in many areas especially in National Parks. We are still maintaining this myth of virgin wilderness untouched by the hand of man. State and federal government simply isn't competent enough to handle this given the political realities in a democratic system. Basically what's going to happen is that the most vulnerable communities will get scorched out of existence, and we're just going to have to live with the impact of more wildfires until nature sorts itself out. Americans just can’t psychologically accept being told they don’t get to develop anywhere they want.
  - riversflow 3y ago
    > Fuel loads are dramatically higher than historically however. Yup! I live in the Sierras. Everyone in this thread talking about controlled burns needs to say "California has just spent a century pursuing a policy of fire suppression" a few times. The fuel loads are insane, these fires have been turning into giant firestorms with their own weather systems in a matter of 2 or 3 hours during the summer. I've watched it happen a few times, frightening. I suspect you can't solve this problem with fire because even if you are burning the brush wet there is still enough fuel to dry the forest out and burn it to ash. I personally think the state should tell insurers that they only have to provide insurance in wildlands if the home/property meets stringent fire safety rules around defensible space. My house isn't even in the coniferous forest (I live in the chaparral) and it has set backs, greenzones, the works. I get so frustrated when I'm watching news coverage of the fires and the house is surrounded in pine duff and has giant pine trees right next to it. > much safer potential cure here would be a massive increase in targeted grazing on federal land to reduce understory fuel loads Yeah, my dad, a California native, who studied forestry at Davis always says that the solution in millions of goats. Ironically this spring the local Sacramento news reported that there was a shortage of goats to clear brush and that was just for commercial landscaping in the greater metro area. So not only is not feasible because of green hand wringing but also because we just don't have adequate goats.
notatoad 3y ago
controlled burns require weather conditions that allow them to be done safely, as well as people knowledgeable enough to keep them controlled. and the amount of the time in the year when temperatures are cool enough and the ground is dry enough keeps shrinking. controlled burns are only really a solution for a very small percentage of a space as big as california if you want to do them safely. What they sometimes do up here in canada is just monitor and let the fires burn out of control as long as they're not moving towards a populated area, to reduce fuel in a large area. but you can only do that as long as the area is truly unpopulated, if one person builds a cabin in the woods you have to move to suppression. as i understand it, there's been a fair bit of progress in the last couple years regarding best practice for wildfire protection in populated areas. you can do a lot by removing underbrush and building firebreaks around a town, as well as relatively simple measures like disallowing cedar-shake roofs. there's probably a future where properties in towns that implement strong wildfire protection plans can continue to be insured, and towns that don't cease to exist. but that only solves the problem for towns, i don't see what can be done for properties in the woods outside a town's firebreak.
- lumost 3y ago
  I’d imagine that it is feasible to defend any area with greater than x people per square mile from fire, aye? At some point you could install multiple fire hoses per block, build river beds to create fire breaks, and clearcut the surrounding area, no?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Schiendelman 3y ago
    Sure, at far greater cost than the houses themselves. Who pays for that?
    - lumost 3y ago
      We wouldn’t debate fire risk with a city as dense as Manhattan. There is a cutoff where the population density and size makes fire prevention/risk management economical.
lazyasciiart 3y ago
Best practice wilderness management is to not allow people to build houses there.

Have we considered whether standard best-practice wilderness management, like controlled burns, can address issues like this, or is that still ignored/dismissed?

emodendroket 3y ago

One of the big fires last year I heard about was a controlled burn that turned into an uncontrolled burn so I guess it is not being totally ignored.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

twoodfin 3y ago

My understanding is that the current liability structure makes most potential controlled burns effectively impossible. I think you’d need an act of Congress to limit liability as long as certain easily justiciable standards were met.

mistrial9 3y ago

good topic but ugly truth behind it -- a US Interior agency near New Mexico had a scheduled controlled burn on the books.. apparently they can schedule things multiple years in advance.. but .. the drought got worse and covid hit. The department had personnel and morale problems.. lots of uncertainty.. they stalledxxxxx "waited patiently" for two more years as the drought got still worse but the documents describing physical risk were not updated. The Federal department executed the burn and it went wild, and is the largest fire in recorded history in that area now, taking out an entire town plus other structures and causing the evacuation of Los Alamos National Laboratories at the same time. you can find the details easily.. there is a 70 page "final report" from the agency perspective. This is reality.

swalling 3y ago
The simple reality is that not only does human incompetence get in the way of safety here, but burns probably just aren't a very viable option. Historical controlled burns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire_in_ecosystems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire_in...) worked because they happened frequently and kept fuel in check while encouraging trees that were resistant to or even dependent on low grade fires. Fuel loads are dramatically higher than historically however. Now we've also got massive areas of forest dieback due to climate-driven bark beetle outbreaks. Trees that do survive burns but are stressed by them are more vulnerable to pests, just like drought stress. https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/bark-beetles-and-climate-change-united-states https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/bark-beetles-and-climate... So controlled burns even done effectively may still result in unwanted tree dieback. A much safer potential cure here would be a massive increase in targeted grazing on federal land to reduce understory fuel loads, but this is also a nonstarter politically in many areas especially in National Parks. We are still maintaining this myth of virgin wilderness untouched by the hand of man. State and federal government simply isn't competent enough to handle this given the political realities in a democratic system. Basically what's going to happen is that the most vulnerable communities will get scorched out of existence, and we're just going to have to live with the impact of more wildfires until nature sorts itself out. Americans just can’t psychologically accept being told they don’t get to develop anywhere they want.
- riversflow 3y ago
  > Fuel loads are dramatically higher than historically however. Yup! I live in the Sierras. Everyone in this thread talking about controlled burns needs to say "California has just spent a century pursuing a policy of fire suppression" a few times. The fuel loads are insane, these fires have been turning into giant firestorms with their own weather systems in a matter of 2 or 3 hours during the summer. I've watched it happen a few times, frightening. I suspect you can't solve this problem with fire because even if you are burning the brush wet there is still enough fuel to dry the forest out and burn it to ash. I personally think the state should tell insurers that they only have to provide insurance in wildlands if the home/property meets stringent fire safety rules around defensible space. My house isn't even in the coniferous forest (I live in the chaparral) and it has set backs, greenzones, the works. I get so frustrated when I'm watching news coverage of the fires and the house is surrounded in pine duff and has giant pine trees right next to it. > much safer potential cure here would be a massive increase in targeted grazing on federal land to reduce understory fuel loads Yeah, my dad, a California native, who studied forestry at Davis always says that the solution in millions of goats. Ironically this spring the local Sacramento news reported that there was a shortage of goats to clear brush and that was just for commercial landscaping in the greater metro area. So not only is not feasible because of green hand wringing but also because we just don't have adequate goats.

notatoad 3y ago

controlled burns require weather conditions that allow them to be done safely, as well as people knowledgeable enough to keep them controlled. and the amount of the time in the year when temperatures are cool enough and the ground is dry enough keeps shrinking. controlled burns are only really a solution for a very small percentage of a space as big as california if you want to do them safely. What they sometimes do up here in canada is just monitor and let the fires burn out of control as long as they're not moving towards a populated area, to reduce fuel in a large area. but you can only do that as long as the area is truly unpopulated, if one person builds a cabin in the woods you have to move to suppression. as i understand it, there's been a fair bit of progress in the last couple years regarding best practice for wildfire protection in populated areas. you can do a lot by removing underbrush and building firebreaks around a town, as well as relatively simple measures like disallowing cedar-shake roofs. there's probably a future where properties in towns that implement strong wildfire protection plans can continue to be insured, and towns that don't cease to exist. but that only solves the problem for towns, i don't see what can be done for properties in the woods outside a town's firebreak.

lumost 3y ago
I’d imagine that it is feasible to defend any area with greater than x people per square mile from fire, aye? At some point you could install multiple fire hoses per block, build river beds to create fire breaks, and clearcut the surrounding area, no?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Schiendelman 3y ago
  Sure, at far greater cost than the houses themselves. Who pays for that?
  - lumost 3y ago
    We wouldn’t debate fire risk with a city as dense as Manhattan. There is a cutoff where the population density and size makes fire prevention/risk management economical.

lazyasciiart 3y ago

Best practice wilderness management is to not allow people to build houses there.