12 ms·

I've currently got a big wildfire within walking distance from me. I moved to the community where I live less than a decade ago and there were never any serious

I've currently got a big wildfire within walking distance from me. I moved to the community where I live less than a decade ago and there were never any serious wildfires, now we have a major one every year and it looks like there won't be much unburnt forest left after the next decade is out. And if it isn't the fire that kills the forest, the heat will. We've started to see a lot of trees dying off in local populations during the past 2 years. Can't find a spot of forest without a bunch of fresh snags mixed in anymore. I almost got caught in a fire a few years ago and thought it was a freak event but it's really just a new normal. I'll be moving soon, not sure where, but I'm fed up. /rant

asynchronous 3y ago
Forest fires are a great example of direct result ecological policy. We are at the point we’re at precisely because of bad public policy surrounding forest fires.
- incoherentmess 3y ago
  Partly yes, but 10 years ago, or even 5, were not even 1% as bad as they are now. Forest litter, undergrowth and logging practices didn't really change in that time, but the heat did. Drought cycles have happened periodically, but the fires didn't get anywhere like this. I think we've pushed the limits of a complex system and we're seeing the beginnings of a sudden and dramatic shift. Look at wildfires probably anywhere on the planet. The trend is the same, independent of policy.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    If you don't do occasional controlled burns, when you leave it several years the next fire will be a huge one.
    - n3rv 3y ago
      yeah no joke. But that's not what were looking at here on a global scale...
zpeti 3y ago
Unfortunately despite the media coverage, most of these fires have nothing to do with climate change [1], and in fact in europe for example this year we had less fires by area than in the last 10 years [2]. I'm all for sustainable living, and looking after our planet, but the hysteria that media is riding now is absolutely ridiculous. I suggest following Bjorn Lomborg [3] for more rational coverage of climate issues. [1] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/35/13/JCLI-D-21-0754.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/35/13/JCLI-D... [2] https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1688536889974816768 https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1688536889974816768 [3] https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg
- defrost 3y ago
  > we had less fires by area than in the last 10 years The nature of wildfire is changing - a massive reduction in open grassland, savannah, managed area fires does nothing to offset the fact that old growth forests and long standanding thick woolands are being burnt to the ground. Part of of climate change is a change in distribution of humidity - rain forests drying ut and burning is no light matter to be dismissed with a vapid "yes, but..." I'm not hysterical,as you so condescendingly put it, I'm pragmatic about the real nature of actual data - comes from decades in global scale exploration geophysics and earth mapping. Your Bjorn Lomborg is just doing the conservative misdirect tango.
  - zpeti 3y ago
    Please point me to the data then. How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years?
    - defrost 3y ago
      Sure. First point though, you bought up "but actually .. fires are decreasing". As a STEM educator used to talking to students my first question to you is, why aren't you already across the primary data yourself? Do you not care? Is this no more than a talking point for you like a meaningless afternoon tennis match? So .. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-long-term-record-of-fire https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-l... “There are really two separate trends,” said Randerson. “Even as the global burned area number has declined because of what is happening in savannas, we are seeing a significant increase in the intensity and reach of fires in the western United States because of climate change.” https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natural-hazards/wildfires https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natur... The number, severity, and overall size of wildfires has increased, FIRMS: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map See also: recent Australian Bushfires, Canadian Bushfires > How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years? I'm going to assume that as you're on HN you're more than bright enough to understand the difference between 3D volume and 2D area .. correct? That you understand a wide open grassland is different to a dense tall forest in terms of fuel volume?
mcpackieh 3y ago
It may very well be the case that your region is experiencing unusual fires, but citing a decade of experience with that land to make that point is pretty ridiculous. A decade is nothing, even a century of consideration is just the bare minimum. Ideally you should be able to look at records going back hundreds if not thousands of years and when those records are lacking (the case in much of the New World), geological evidence is important. People thinking one lifetime of experience is significant is how you get people living in the PNW who think wildfires are a new aberration in the past 10 years because 15 to 50 years ago there was relatively little smoke.. but if you read accounts from people 150 years ago they all say the summers were insufferably very smokey. In Europe and Asia communities have much longer memories for these sort of things, for instance warnings about droughts and tsunamis hundreds of years ago. But in America people think 10 years is an eternity. The old joke has a lot of truth; in America people think 100 years is a long time, while in Europe people think 100 miles is a long distance.
- Kalkaline 3y ago
  Geological data like ice cores? https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    Ice cores are good for global climate trends, not so much for local wildfire trends. However the later can be revealed by examining char layers in the soil. I sense a combative attitude coming from your comment so let me be clear about this: Man-made climate change is real. And simultaneously, drawing conclusions about a specific region's propensity to burn from only 10 years of personal experience is farcical.

asynchronous 3y ago

Forest fires are a great example of direct result ecological policy. We are at the point we’re at precisely because of bad public policy surrounding forest fires.

incoherentmess 3y ago
Partly yes, but 10 years ago, or even 5, were not even 1% as bad as they are now. Forest litter, undergrowth and logging practices didn't really change in that time, but the heat did. Drought cycles have happened periodically, but the fires didn't get anywhere like this. I think we've pushed the limits of a complex system and we're seeing the beginnings of a sudden and dramatic shift. Look at wildfires probably anywhere on the planet. The trend is the same, independent of policy.
- verisimi 3y ago
  If you don't do occasional controlled burns, when you leave it several years the next fire will be a huge one.
  - n3rv 3y ago
    yeah no joke. But that's not what were looking at here on a global scale...

zpeti 3y ago

Unfortunately despite the media coverage, most of these fires have nothing to do with climate change [1], and in fact in europe for example this year we had less fires by area than in the last 10 years [2]. I'm all for sustainable living, and looking after our planet, but the hysteria that media is riding now is absolutely ridiculous. I suggest following Bjorn Lomborg [3] for more rational coverage of climate issues. [1] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/35/13/JCLI-D-21-0754.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/35/13/JCLI-D... [2] https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1688536889974816768 https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1688536889974816768 [3] https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg

defrost 3y ago
> we had less fires by area than in the last 10 years The nature of wildfire is changing - a massive reduction in open grassland, savannah, managed area fires does nothing to offset the fact that old growth forests and long standanding thick woolands are being burnt to the ground. Part of of climate change is a change in distribution of humidity - rain forests drying ut and burning is no light matter to be dismissed with a vapid "yes, but..." I'm not hysterical,as you so condescendingly put it, I'm pragmatic about the real nature of actual data - comes from decades in global scale exploration geophysics and earth mapping. Your Bjorn Lomborg is just doing the conservative misdirect tango.
- zpeti 3y ago
  Please point me to the data then. How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years?
  - defrost 3y ago
    Sure. First point though, you bought up "but actually .. fires are decreasing". As a STEM educator used to talking to students my first question to you is, why aren't you already across the primary data yourself? Do you not care? Is this no more than a talking point for you like a meaningless afternoon tennis match? So .. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-long-term-record-of-fire https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-l... “There are really two separate trends,” said Randerson. “Even as the global burned area number has declined because of what is happening in savannas, we are seeing a significant increase in the intensity and reach of fires in the western United States because of climate change.” https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natural-hazards/wildfires https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/topics/human-dimensions/natur... The number, severity, and overall size of wildfires has increased, FIRMS: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map See also: recent Australian Bushfires, Canadian Bushfires > How are these fires worse than before, if acres burned are the lowest in 10 years? I'm going to assume that as you're on HN you're more than bright enough to understand the difference between 3D volume and 2D area .. correct? That you understand a wide open grassland is different to a dense tall forest in terms of fuel volume?

mcpackieh 3y ago

It may very well be the case that your region is experiencing unusual fires, but citing a decade of experience with that land to make that point is pretty ridiculous. A decade is nothing, even a century of consideration is just the bare minimum. Ideally you should be able to look at records going back hundreds if not thousands of years and when those records are lacking (the case in much of the New World), geological evidence is important. People thinking one lifetime of experience is significant is how you get people living in the PNW who think wildfires are a new aberration in the past 10 years because 15 to 50 years ago there was relatively little smoke.. but if you read accounts from people 150 years ago they all say the summers were insufferably very smokey. In Europe and Asia communities have much longer memories for these sort of things, for instance warnings about droughts and tsunamis hundreds of years ago. But in America people think 10 years is an eternity. The old joke has a lot of truth; in America people think 100 years is a long time, while in Europe people think 100 miles is a long distance.

Kalkaline 3y ago
Geological data like ice cores? https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Ice cores are good for global climate trends, not so much for local wildfire trends. However the later can be revealed by examining char layers in the soil. I sense a combative attitude coming from your comment so let me be clear about this: Man-made climate change is real. And simultaneously, drawing conclusions about a specific region's propensity to burn from only 10 years of personal experience is farcical.