It is worth mentioning that many states do significant amounts of controlled burns as a routine thing. Growing up in the Midwest, it was just a common thing, nothing out of the ordinary. I think in the southeast, it's even more common. It really helps limit the damage when an uncontrolled fire does start
For some reason out here in the West Coast, there's an aversion to doing enough controlled burns. I'm not sure why, though someone pointed out a federal vs state thing to me once.
dragonwriter 2 hours ago [-]
Is the federal vs. state thing “the federal government controls most of the land at issue in the west and decides policies, not the states”.
Though I don't know the exact details on that w.r.t. controlled burns, because parts of the federal government are definitely very on board with controlled burns (like say the US Forest Service). I dunno what's going on there.
adelie 31 minutes ago [-]
i believe one of the issues with controlled burns is that there are specific conditions necessary for them to be controllable - and with the current state of the california fire season, it's actually really difficult to set them up.
The obvious follow up to that is why don't the feds do controlled burns?
sfink 2 hours ago [-]
I largely agree with the thrust of the article, but wow is it one-sided. Which is fine, I'd just like to read another article that discusses some of the issues as well. Like air quality—the mention of smoke being thick enough to drop stream temperatures by 2.5°F didn't seem quite as wonderful to me as the article implied. (Then again, that seems like an extreme case, and one where you're burning a lot of wet stuff. Well, or oily stuff like scotch broom; that smoke can be black.) Obviously it's still a lot better than an out of control wildfire, but still not something to just ignore.
The one thing they did mention is fires that escape. It's a risk when doing traditional burns in highly non-traditional settings: lots more dead vegetation in the surrounding area, invasives (like scotch broom or eucalyptus) that burn hotter and can shoot out streams of fire, drier conditions overall, etc.
That said, continuing the trend of constructing buildings in the midst of forests where you're allowing fuel to just pile up over time, in drought conditions no less, is stupid. I'd rather try to manage and mitigate the risk over time with controlled burns than keep allowing it to build up while we're all busy wringing our hands over it.
This episode is great for anyone interested in the problem. At the end of the day most places in the US have been 'designed' over the last 50,000 to 100,000 years to burn, and to burn at pretty regular intervals. We've interrupted that burn cycle, and we've increased temperatures so we're well into megafire territory now. Even worse is we're building houses in places that must burn at a regular basis with houses themselves that are built-to-burn.
mistrial9 2 hours ago [-]
this is a "feel good" article for public outreach (and votes) in California. In the last ten years, forest bureaucracies here had to do a 180 degree turnaround from the Federal arrogance and helpless wishful thinking on the ground that ruled previously.
A combination of forest stress via drought and a hundred years of ignorant executive management resulted in multiple catastrophic fires and ruined lives, with more on the way.
mistrial9 5 hours ago [-]
the recent Handbook for California firefighting with tribal involvement is one thousand five hundred pages .. with Hollywood-caliber graphics and more than a hundred authors.
Anyone in forestry has known for decades 'smoky the bear' is killin our forests.
though each forest it different and California forests need very different treatment from most.
LargeWu 3 hours ago [-]
I think the point of Smoky Bear is to prevent accidental fires through carelessness, from somebody not extinguishing their campfire or a discarded lit cigarette, by the general public. Managing wildfire risk with intentional, controlled burns is something else entirely.
bluGill 2 hours ago [-]
Two problems, first everyone went too far and put out all fires. Second if we let those careless fires burn they would stay small as nature was already doing the job.
P1000874751 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
Rendered at 18:22:38 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
For some reason out here in the West Coast, there's an aversion to doing enough controlled burns. I'm not sure why, though someone pointed out a federal vs state thing to me once.
Because that's actually the situation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands#/media/File%3A...
Though I don't know the exact details on that w.r.t. controlled burns, because parts of the federal government are definitely very on board with controlled burns (like say the US Forest Service). I dunno what's going on there.
here's a study on how climate change is reducing the window for prescribed burns: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00993-1
The one thing they did mention is fires that escape. It's a risk when doing traditional burns in highly non-traditional settings: lots more dead vegetation in the surrounding area, invasives (like scotch broom or eucalyptus) that burn hotter and can shoot out streams of fire, drier conditions overall, etc.
That said, continuing the trend of constructing buildings in the midst of forests where you're allowing fuel to just pile up over time, in drought conditions no less, is stupid. I'd rather try to manage and mitigate the risk over time with controlled burns than keep allowing it to build up while we're all busy wringing our hands over it.
This episode is great for anyone interested in the problem. At the end of the day most places in the US have been 'designed' over the last 50,000 to 100,000 years to burn, and to burn at pretty regular intervals. We've interrupted that burn cycle, and we've increased temperatures so we're well into megafire territory now. Even worse is we're building houses in places that must burn at a regular basis with houses themselves that are built-to-burn.
A combination of forest stress via drought and a hundred years of ignorant executive management resulted in multiple catastrophic fires and ruined lives, with more on the way.
some google scholar links https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=good...
https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/08/20/...
Weird
though each forest it different and California forests need very different treatment from most.