7 ms·

> but the number one reason is build up of vegetation on the forest floor that contributes to a ladder effect moving the fire from a ground fire to a canopy fir

by Izkata 3y ago

> but the number one reason is build up of vegetation on the forest floor that contributes to a ladder effect moving the fire from a ground fire to a canopy fire. So to go off on a bit of a tangent, in a fantasy book from 1998* there was a fire mage who had been preventing wildfires for decades. When green mage (plants/trees/etc) finds out about this she chews him out about the dangerous conditions he's creating by not letting the buildup on the ground burn away. By the end of the book the wildfires have reached the forest and the fire mage dies trying to stop the resulting firestorm. Now yes it's fantasy but the way ambient magic works in this series plus the way the whole situation was presented I just kinda figured this risk was well-enough known, so it's been weird to me over the past decade or so how it keeps coming up. * Circle of Magic #3, Daja's Book

throwup238 3y ago
> Now yes it's fantasy but the way ambient magic works in this series plus the way the whole situation was presented I just kinda figured this risk was well-enough known, so it's been weird to me over the past decade or so how it keeps coming up. It's been a well known risk for at least a century. Aldo Leopold began popularizing the idea of using prescribed burns to manage forests in the 1920s and by mid-20th century it was officially part of US Forest Service management practices. The problem has always been the people who live in and around fire prone areas. They've used public pressure, bureaucracy, and litigation to prevent State and Federal agencies from properly managing the forests since the post-war boom. In California, for example, permits are managed by 35 different "Air Districts" created in 1947 each with their own local leadership that are easily lobbied. Residents can trivially grind any project to a halt because controlled burns are practically impossible, given California's pollution standards, without these permits and exceptions from the state Air Resources Board. It's coming up now because the situation is so dire we need a concerted effort to sway public opinion towards the realistic solution. Now that insurance companies are giving up on these fire prone markets, the residents have no choice but to get with the program.
- fakedang 3y ago
  >It's been a well known risk for at least a century. Aldo Leopold began popularizing the idea of using prescribed burns to manage forests in the 1920s and by mid-20th century it was officially part of US Forest Service management practices. Actually, the Native Americans historically started the practice.
  - throwup238 3y ago
    That's why I said "at least." Those practices inspired Aldo Leopold (among others) but he was the one to do most of the work to convince US government agencies of their merit.
- DiscourseFan 3y ago
  Is there a way to build permanent housing in parts of California that are prone to fires even with controlled burns? Even controlled fires pose a risk to habitation; if you were a semi-nomadic tribe (like the former residents before Americans brought western "Reason" and domestication to the west coast), you could move everyone out of the area to be burned, and then come back X many months/years later when wildlife and vegetation returned. If, on the other hand, the area to be burned has "invested capital" and houses and land on it--essentially, private property, which has this strange quality of fixity even in the face of something as destructive as the earth (which never fails to dissolve it), how would you guarantee, without incredibly high insurance premiums, that people's houses wouldn't burn down. And even if people are willing to pay the premiums, they would do so knowing that the government might decide, almost randomly (to them), to burn a chunk of forest right next to their house. They'd get fair warning, sure, but who wants to own a house that might burn down in 10 years because the state decides that its too much of a risk to have that patch of land burn naturally?
  - Arrath 3y ago
    > Is there a way to build permanent housing in parts of California that are prone to fires even with controlled burns? Absolutely. A good starting point is to look to Australia's regulations for construction materials, methods, water storage and setback/firebreak requirements, etc. for fire safety in bushfire prone areas. While it may be picturesque to have your house or cabin nestled in amongst the forest, your fire survivability is Zero.
    - taneq 3y ago
      Even so, we lose plenty of houses because people want to live ‘out in the bush’ but don’t want to do all of these things.
      - Arrath 3y ago
        Oh its certainly not foolproof, but better than what we usually do here in the states.
- lr1970 3y ago
  >Residents can trivially grind any project to a halt because controlled burns are practically impossible, given California's pollution standards, without these permits and exceptions from the state Air Resources Board. Do they realize how much pollution is produced in the California's uncontrolled forest fires? Laws should not be that stupid.
Bjartr 3y ago
I loved that book series. It's about time I reread it I think.
- Izkata 3y ago
  I also recommend most of the sequels: The Circle Opens, another quartet where each of the four takes on their first students; The Will of the Empress, what happens after they return from their travels in the second quartet; and Battle Magic, which follows Briar's group on the return trip before The Will of the Empress, when they got caught up in a war. I wasn't really a fan of Melting Stones, which mainly focuses on Briar's student and takes place at the same time as The Will of the Empress. If I remember right that book was also an experiment, written as an audiobook first then later released as a regular book, so that may explain why it doesn't feel as good to me. The author has had another in mind for years too, a continuation of the problems Tris had been having from The Circle Opens onwards: she can't figure out how to make a living with her magic, because she refuses to use it as a weapon. Unfortunately, the author doesn't actually have the rights to this universe, so she has to wait for Scholastic to want another book.

by Izkata 3y ago

throwup238 3y ago

> Now yes it's fantasy but the way ambient magic works in this series plus the way the whole situation was presented I just kinda figured this risk was well-enough known, so it's been weird to me over the past decade or so how it keeps coming up. It's been a well known risk for at least a century. Aldo Leopold began popularizing the idea of using prescribed burns to manage forests in the 1920s and by mid-20th century it was officially part of US Forest Service management practices. The problem has always been the people who live in and around fire prone areas. They've used public pressure, bureaucracy, and litigation to prevent State and Federal agencies from properly managing the forests since the post-war boom. In California, for example, permits are managed by 35 different "Air Districts" created in 1947 each with their own local leadership that are easily lobbied. Residents can trivially grind any project to a halt because controlled burns are practically impossible, given California's pollution standards, without these permits and exceptions from the state Air Resources Board. It's coming up now because the situation is so dire we need a concerted effort to sway public opinion towards the realistic solution. Now that insurance companies are giving up on these fire prone markets, the residents have no choice but to get with the program.

fakedang 3y ago
>It's been a well known risk for at least a century. Aldo Leopold began popularizing the idea of using prescribed burns to manage forests in the 1920s and by mid-20th century it was officially part of US Forest Service management practices. Actually, the Native Americans historically started the practice.
- throwup238 3y ago
  That's why I said "at least." Those practices inspired Aldo Leopold (among others) but he was the one to do most of the work to convince US government agencies of their merit.
DiscourseFan 3y ago
Is there a way to build permanent housing in parts of California that are prone to fires even with controlled burns? Even controlled fires pose a risk to habitation; if you were a semi-nomadic tribe (like the former residents before Americans brought western "Reason" and domestication to the west coast), you could move everyone out of the area to be burned, and then come back X many months/years later when wildlife and vegetation returned. If, on the other hand, the area to be burned has "invested capital" and houses and land on it--essentially, private property, which has this strange quality of fixity even in the face of something as destructive as the earth (which never fails to dissolve it), how would you guarantee, without incredibly high insurance premiums, that people's houses wouldn't burn down. And even if people are willing to pay the premiums, they would do so knowing that the government might decide, almost randomly (to them), to burn a chunk of forest right next to their house. They'd get fair warning, sure, but who wants to own a house that might burn down in 10 years because the state decides that its too much of a risk to have that patch of land burn naturally?
- Arrath 3y ago
  > Is there a way to build permanent housing in parts of California that are prone to fires even with controlled burns? Absolutely. A good starting point is to look to Australia's regulations for construction materials, methods, water storage and setback/firebreak requirements, etc. for fire safety in bushfire prone areas. While it may be picturesque to have your house or cabin nestled in amongst the forest, your fire survivability is Zero.
  - taneq 3y ago
    Even so, we lose plenty of houses because people want to live ‘out in the bush’ but don’t want to do all of these things.
    - Arrath 3y ago
      Oh its certainly not foolproof, but better than what we usually do here in the states.
lr1970 3y ago
>Residents can trivially grind any project to a halt because controlled burns are practically impossible, given California's pollution standards, without these permits and exceptions from the state Air Resources Board. Do they realize how much pollution is produced in the California's uncontrolled forest fires? Laws should not be that stupid.

Bjartr 3y ago

I loved that book series. It's about time I reread it I think.

Izkata 3y ago
I also recommend most of the sequels: The Circle Opens, another quartet where each of the four takes on their first students; The Will of the Empress, what happens after they return from their travels in the second quartet; and Battle Magic, which follows Briar's group on the return trip before The Will of the Empress, when they got caught up in a war. I wasn't really a fan of Melting Stones, which mainly focuses on Briar's student and takes place at the same time as The Will of the Empress. If I remember right that book was also an experiment, written as an audiobook first then later released as a regular book, so that may explain why it doesn't feel as good to me. The author has had another in mind for years too, a continuation of the problems Tris had been having from The Circle Opens onwards: she can't figure out how to make a living with her magic, because she refuses to use it as a weapon. Unfortunately, the author doesn't actually have the rights to this universe, so she has to wait for Scholastic to want another book.