7 ms·

> This week, the U.S. Forest Service directed its employees in California to stop prescribed burning “for the foreseeable future,” a directive that officials sa

> This week, the U.S. Forest Service directed its employees in California to stop prescribed burning “for the foreseeable future,” a directive that officials said is meant to preserve staff and equipment to fight wildfires if needed. It sounds like it's a resourcing issue, not a change in philosophy. It doesn't change the fact that it won't be happening though.

billjings 2y ago
The real philosophy is in the budget.
- culi 2y ago
  Bad philosophy. Less prescribed burns mean more uncontrollable wildfires which means in the long term costs are even higher. Prescribed burns are expensive now because we haven't done them for so long. California banned the indigenous practice of cultural burns before it was even a state! But the more we work on restoring this practice the cheaper it'll be for everyone in the long term
  - zo1 2y ago
    Enshittification strikes again. In this case, fees and costs go down by virtue of being pushed out into the future as even higher costs as a result of lack of fees being paid now. Someone should make an encyclopedia or reference doc detailing all the different and specific ways Enshittification manifests. Bonus points if they tie it into Socialism/Communism because I'd bet there is a high degree of overlap between the two in terms of failure modes.
    - mistrial9 2y ago
      amazing mental gymnastics, describing how western-markets-failure-mode is directly tied to fictional-enemy-politics . More seriously, maybe systems on a large scale are susceptible? we see evidence of this here?
      - deprecative 2y ago
        It's capitalism. This is not complicated. This is a direct result of starve the beast ideology depriving agencies of funding.
        tekknik 2y ago
        I slightly grow tired of saying this, but also not. It’s not capitalism, it’s focusing resources on the wrong projects. Homeless people have drugs, but half the state is on fire.
    - culi 2y ago
      This comment is particularly funny because the neologism "enshittification" was coined by an outspoken anti-capitalist AS a criticism of capitalism
      - tekknik 2y ago
        Yes, redirection is a thing. We’re all quite well aware of it.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  Trees and empty land cost nothing. But: CA Insurance Claims USFS Wildfire Year and Settlements Management Budget 2018 $13.6 billion $2.5 billion 2019 $2.8 billion $2.4 billion 2020 $3.5 billion $2.35 billion 2021 $4.75 billion $2.4 billion 2022 (unknown) $2.65 billion 2023 (unknown) $2.97 billion The expensive part of forest fires is paying back homeowners who lost their homes in places guaranteed to be lit on fire, at prices for homes as though the fires didn't exist. The way we chose to do this is by saying it was PG&E's fault, and in exchange, PG&E gets to recoup those payments via permanently higher rates. It is a little complicated, but it isn't that complicated. The simple question is, should the government pay a safe home's price for a burnt down home?
  - deepsun 2y ago
    No. Let owners exercise owner's responsibility (e.g. insurance, and if insurance is too expensive -- well, the risk is too high). PS: I heard the thing California does, however, is putting a cap on insurance premiums, so insurers just avoid some regions, and owners cannot find insurance to buy. It's kinda the same thing -- owner's responsibility.
    - xenadu02 2y ago
      AFAIK in CA insurance rates must be set based on historical trends not anticipated future losses or reinsurance prices. It is easy to imagine why - insurance companies love to play financial games when they can. Historical data is lagging by nature and the reinsurance market predicts large fires will continue thus the insurers get hit from both sides. Note that a lot of the property insurance regulation stems from a 1988 voter proposition. I suppose it has worked fine from then until now but the CA drought and greatly increased fire risk was an unexpected shock. FWIW I would guess that we won't see extreme fire events for some time going forward - probably not until a "big drought" comes back to CA 30-40 years from now. The reinsurance market will settle down and mutual insurance companies will end up issuing refunds eventually.
    - doctorpangloss 2y ago
toomuchtodo 2y ago
> It sounds like it's a resourcing issue, not a change in philosophy. Yes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41920127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41920127 ("HN: The Forest Service Is Losing 2,400 Jobs–Including Most of Its Trail Workers") Relevant comment by S201: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41922195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41922195 "The overall Forest Service budget has indeed been increasing, but it's nearly all going to wildfire fighting. I recently wrote about the state of forest road funding and went in depth on this here: https://ephemeral.cx/2024/09/losing-access-to-the-cascades https://ephemeral.cx/2024/09/losing-access-to-the-cascades > Overall, in 1995 16% of the Forest Service budget was dedicated to wildfires. By 2015 it was 52% and by 2025 it’s projected to be upwards of 67%. Without large amounts of additional funding it is virtually guaranteed that the Forest Service’s budget will continue to be siphoned away by firefighting needs."
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  Can the Forest Service make this up with use fees? Like, could California pay the Forest Service to take care of its land surrounded by California?
  - pkaye 2y ago
    They can use the lumber fees from the forests to pay for the cost.
    - m0llusk 2y ago
      That is much more complicated than it appears. Cutting and transporting trees is not easy or free, and there is already a huge glut of wood caused by the die off from phytophthera. Might still be worth looking into.
      - Teever 2y ago
        I'm not from the region so I'm wonder if this glut of wood translating into low prices for end consumers?
e40 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- stonogo 2y ago
  Apologies to your political bloodthirst, but it's a bipartisan issue. Texas, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Idaho are in the top ten, along with California, Colorado, Washington, Montana, and Oregon. It's a particularly irrelevant question for this specific article, given that it's about Federal land and it's been a persistent issue regardless of which party holds national power.
  - imoverclocked 2y ago
    > It's a particularly irrelevant question for this specific article, given that it's about Federal land and it's been a persistent issue regardless of which party holds national power. I tend to agree that it's a bipartisan issue. However, the solutions will tend to fray along party lines. Ultimately, politics comes into play regardless of how bipartisan a problem is. Famously, Donald Trump initially said "let it burn" when prompted for what to do about California wildfires. It was only after learning from his aides that there were more Republicans in California than many other red states combined that he reversed course. That alone makes for a pretty good reason for asking the original question.
  - e40 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - vel0city 2y ago
      > You made the assumptions and added the color. No, you literally added the color blue to the conversation. You could have just asked about rates of fires in other states and asked if it was a common problem.
      - 2y ago
gertlex 2y ago
I could see this being a super-short-term thing, because we've lately been having dry windy weather (bay area), aka Red Flag warnings. But sadly sounds like it's longer-term.
hagbard_c 2y ago
[flagged]
- imoverclocked 2y ago
  > ... to blame the conflagration on 'climate change' ... Climate change is a significant factor in wildfire statistics. So is forest management.
- defrost 2y ago
  Climate change absolutely increases the fire risk: Fire activity in Australia is strongly affected by high inter-annual climate variability and extremes. Through changes in the climate, anthropogenic climate change has the potential to alter fire dynamics. Here we compile satellite (19 and 32 years) and ground-based (90 years) burned area datasets, climate and weather observations, and simulated fuel loads for Australian forests. Burned area in Australia’s forests shows a linear positive annual trend but an exponential increase during autumn and winter. The mean number of years since the last fire has decreased consecutively in each of the past four decades, while the frequency of forest megafire years (>1 Mha burned) has markedly increased since 2000. The increase in forest burned area is consistent with increasingly more dangerous fire weather conditions, increased risk factors associated with pyroconvection, including fire-generated thunderstorms, and increased ignitions from dry lightning, all associated to varying degrees with anthropogenic climate change. The "usual suspects" here being the journal Nature publishing analysis of thirty-two years of satellite data and 90 years of ground-based datasets performed by Australia's national scientific body the CSIRO. Multi-decadal increase of forest burned area in Australia is linked to climate change, Nature, Nov 2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27225-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27225-4 https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2021/november/new-research-links-australias-forest-fires-to-climate-change https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2021/november/new-rese...
  - twelve40 2y ago
    This is a very convenient global scapegoat for those responsible for mismanaging the forests here and now. Nobody is disputing these studies. But then Newsom comes out and instead if saying "it's my fault for underinvesting in fire prevention, i will personally see that prevention (not just fighting) gets funded properly today", he says "too bad, it's all climate change's fault", how does that look?
nightpool 2y ago
Resourcing issues are changes to philosophy at some level or another
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Hilift 2y ago
The USFS (Department of Agriculture) never had enough resources. The amount of land is almost unprotectable: California: 20 million acres Idaho: 20 million Oregon: 16 million. Fighting fires really should be a state job. I think Idaho delivers much better results for resources spent, in areas that are more vulnerable. California is dysfunctional when it comes to multiple teams and agencies working together, and making decisions that could be controversial. I suspect USFS is relieved to interact less.
frmersdog 2y ago
"To preserve funds for flu treatment, we are hereby halting all vaccine-related activity."
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

billjings 2y ago

The real philosophy is in the budget.

culi 2y ago
Bad philosophy. Less prescribed burns mean more uncontrollable wildfires which means in the long term costs are even higher. Prescribed burns are expensive now because we haven't done them for so long. California banned the indigenous practice of cultural burns before it was even a state! But the more we work on restoring this practice the cheaper it'll be for everyone in the long term
- zo1 2y ago
  Enshittification strikes again. In this case, fees and costs go down by virtue of being pushed out into the future as even higher costs as a result of lack of fees being paid now. Someone should make an encyclopedia or reference doc detailing all the different and specific ways Enshittification manifests. Bonus points if they tie it into Socialism/Communism because I'd bet there is a high degree of overlap between the two in terms of failure modes.
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    amazing mental gymnastics, describing how western-markets-failure-mode is directly tied to fictional-enemy-politics . More seriously, maybe systems on a large scale are susceptible? we see evidence of this here?
    - deprecative 2y ago
      It's capitalism. This is not complicated. This is a direct result of starve the beast ideology depriving agencies of funding.
      - tekknik 2y ago
        I slightly grow tired of saying this, but also not. It’s not capitalism, it’s focusing resources on the wrong projects. Homeless people have drugs, but half the state is on fire.
  - culi 2y ago
    This comment is particularly funny because the neologism "enshittification" was coined by an outspoken anti-capitalist AS a criticism of capitalism
    - tekknik 2y ago
      Yes, redirection is a thing. We’re all quite well aware of it.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Trees and empty land cost nothing. But: CA Insurance Claims USFS Wildfire Year and Settlements Management Budget 2018 $13.6 billion $2.5 billion 2019 $2.8 billion $2.4 billion 2020 $3.5 billion $2.35 billion 2021 $4.75 billion $2.4 billion 2022 (unknown) $2.65 billion 2023 (unknown) $2.97 billion The expensive part of forest fires is paying back homeowners who lost their homes in places guaranteed to be lit on fire, at prices for homes as though the fires didn't exist. The way we chose to do this is by saying it was PG&E's fault, and in exchange, PG&E gets to recoup those payments via permanently higher rates. It is a little complicated, but it isn't that complicated. The simple question is, should the government pay a safe home's price for a burnt down home?
- deepsun 2y ago
  No. Let owners exercise owner's responsibility (e.g. insurance, and if insurance is too expensive -- well, the risk is too high). PS: I heard the thing California does, however, is putting a cap on insurance premiums, so insurers just avoid some regions, and owners cannot find insurance to buy. It's kinda the same thing -- owner's responsibility.
  - xenadu02 2y ago
    AFAIK in CA insurance rates must be set based on historical trends not anticipated future losses or reinsurance prices. It is easy to imagine why - insurance companies love to play financial games when they can. Historical data is lagging by nature and the reinsurance market predicts large fires will continue thus the insurers get hit from both sides. Note that a lot of the property insurance regulation stems from a 1988 voter proposition. I suppose it has worked fine from then until now but the CA drought and greatly increased fire risk was an unexpected shock. FWIW I would guess that we won't see extreme fire events for some time going forward - probably not until a "big drought" comes back to CA 30-40 years from now. The reinsurance market will settle down and mutual insurance companies will end up issuing refunds eventually.
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago

toomuchtodo 2y ago

> It sounds like it's a resourcing issue, not a change in philosophy. Yes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41920127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41920127 ("HN: The Forest Service Is Losing 2,400 Jobs–Including Most of Its Trail Workers") Relevant comment by S201: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41922195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41922195 "The overall Forest Service budget has indeed been increasing, but it's nearly all going to wildfire fighting. I recently wrote about the state of forest road funding and went in depth on this here: https://ephemeral.cx/2024/09/losing-access-to-the-cascades https://ephemeral.cx/2024/09/losing-access-to-the-cascades > Overall, in 1995 16% of the Forest Service budget was dedicated to wildfires. By 2015 it was 52% and by 2025 it’s projected to be upwards of 67%. Without large amounts of additional funding it is virtually guaranteed that the Forest Service’s budget will continue to be siphoned away by firefighting needs."

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Can the Forest Service make this up with use fees? Like, could California pay the Forest Service to take care of its land surrounded by California?
- pkaye 2y ago
  They can use the lumber fees from the forests to pay for the cost.
  - m0llusk 2y ago
    That is much more complicated than it appears. Cutting and transporting trees is not easy or free, and there is already a huge glut of wood caused by the die off from phytophthera. Might still be worth looking into.
    - Teever 2y ago
      I'm not from the region so I'm wonder if this glut of wood translating into low prices for end consumers?

e40 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
stonogo 2y ago
Apologies to your political bloodthirst, but it's a bipartisan issue. Texas, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Idaho are in the top ten, along with California, Colorado, Washington, Montana, and Oregon. It's a particularly irrelevant question for this specific article, given that it's about Federal land and it's been a persistent issue regardless of which party holds national power.
- imoverclocked 2y ago
  > It's a particularly irrelevant question for this specific article, given that it's about Federal land and it's been a persistent issue regardless of which party holds national power. I tend to agree that it's a bipartisan issue. However, the solutions will tend to fray along party lines. Ultimately, politics comes into play regardless of how bipartisan a problem is. Famously, Donald Trump initially said "let it burn" when prompted for what to do about California wildfires. It was only after learning from his aides that there were more Republicans in California than many other red states combined that he reversed course. That alone makes for a pretty good reason for asking the original question.
- e40 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > You made the assumptions and added the color. No, you literally added the color blue to the conversation. You could have just asked about rates of fires in other states and asked if it was a common problem.
    - 2y ago

gertlex 2y ago

I could see this being a super-short-term thing, because we've lately been having dry windy weather (bay area), aka Red Flag warnings. But sadly sounds like it's longer-term.

hagbard_c 2y ago

[flagged]

imoverclocked 2y ago
> ... to blame the conflagration on 'climate change' ... Climate change is a significant factor in wildfire statistics. So is forest management.
defrost 2y ago
Climate change absolutely increases the fire risk: Fire activity in Australia is strongly affected by high inter-annual climate variability and extremes. Through changes in the climate, anthropogenic climate change has the potential to alter fire dynamics. Here we compile satellite (19 and 32 years) and ground-based (90 years) burned area datasets, climate and weather observations, and simulated fuel loads for Australian forests. Burned area in Australia’s forests shows a linear positive annual trend but an exponential increase during autumn and winter. The mean number of years since the last fire has decreased consecutively in each of the past four decades, while the frequency of forest megafire years (>1 Mha burned) has markedly increased since 2000. The increase in forest burned area is consistent with increasingly more dangerous fire weather conditions, increased risk factors associated with pyroconvection, including fire-generated thunderstorms, and increased ignitions from dry lightning, all associated to varying degrees with anthropogenic climate change. The "usual suspects" here being the journal Nature publishing analysis of thirty-two years of satellite data and 90 years of ground-based datasets performed by Australia's national scientific body the CSIRO. Multi-decadal increase of forest burned area in Australia is linked to climate change, Nature, Nov 2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27225-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27225-4 https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2021/november/new-research-links-australias-forest-fires-to-climate-change https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2021/november/new-rese...
- twelve40 2y ago
  This is a very convenient global scapegoat for those responsible for mismanaging the forests here and now. Nobody is disputing these studies. But then Newsom comes out and instead if saying "it's my fault for underinvesting in fire prevention, i will personally see that prevention (not just fighting) gets funded properly today", he says "too bad, it's all climate change's fault", how does that look?

nightpool 2y ago

Resourcing issues are changes to philosophy at some level or another

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Hilift 2y ago

The USFS (Department of Agriculture) never had enough resources. The amount of land is almost unprotectable: California: 20 million acres Idaho: 20 million Oregon: 16 million. Fighting fires really should be a state job. I think Idaho delivers much better results for resources spent, in areas that are more vulnerable. California is dysfunctional when it comes to multiple teams and agencies working together, and making decisions that could be controversial. I suspect USFS is relieved to interact less.

frmersdog 2y ago

"To preserve funds for flu treatment, we are hereby halting all vaccine-related activity."

sieabahlpark 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]