Wildfire 2021

[old goat]

So what are these scientists' who criticize Hanson end game? They want to come up with millions, if not billions, of dollars from the federal government to fund an endless operation of thinning and prescribed burns. The end result being forests devoid of all underbrush, similar to Bavaria. And like Bavaria, the natural biodiversity will plummet. And with our fire resistant, Bavarian-like forests, living in the forest will be even more heavily subsidized than it already is. Wildfire insurance premiums will plummet. Millions of Americans priced out of the city will flock to forested lands, the last remaining private developable land. The wildfire urban interface will swell even more dramatically than it already is.

Fast forward 100-1,000 years. There will millions of people living in the woods of California. Biodiversity will be non-existent. Once you loose biodiversity you lose the very planet we are living on. By far, the biggest threat to the forests and the wildlife in the forests isn't fire, it is human encroachment. Modern humans have repeatedly proven that they cannot co-exist with the natural environment. Our only hope for long term survival is to concentrate human habitat, and leave the rest of the world as natural as we possibly can. And everyone will look back and say, maybe we should have listened to that Hanson guy.

I don't know the forests of Washington, where you are, but I know that the forests of California are not Bavaria. The climax forests of the Sierra Nevada are widely spaced big trees with a shaded forest floor with little in the way of undergrowth--and what undergrowth there is burns off every 10-15 years. Most of the wildlife habitat is along rivers and streams and in meadows. There also used to be grasses that stayed green all summer--those were long ago replaced by grasses brought by white settlers which dry up and burn in the summer.

We have German friends--she is American married to a German, whose family has a house near us at Donner. The live in southern Germany, along the Rhine, and she advocates in her village for people to let their lawns turn back into native vegetation in order to support wildlife. Which is fine in southern Germany, but she refuses to allow proper defensible space work to be done on her family's property here--it's overgrown with brush and small skinny closely packed trees.

I think you know better, but I think you're starting to enjoy trolling.

[frorider]

From that sacbee article:

Knapp, a U.S. Forest Service research ecologist, is a co-author of several studies highlighting the benefits of more aggressive fire fuels management. “To me, it just really illustrates that if you change the fuels,” Knapp said, “you change the fire behavior.”

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...#storylink=cpy

My understanding is that fuels reduction is the objective to enable a relatively safe cycle of periodic underbrush growth and removal thru prescribed burn and inevitable lightning induced fire. Once you’ve entered that virtuous cycle, mechanical thinning becomes rare or unnecessary.

The reading I’ve done indicates studies either conclude a mild biodiversity benefit from entering this cycle, or no distinct benefit or disadvantage vs letting shit just grow down low.

[spanghew]

I don't know the forests of Washington, where you are, but I know that the forests of California are not Bavaria. The climax forests of the Sierra Nevada are widely spaced big trees with a shaded forest floor with little in the way of undergrowth--and what undergrowth there is burns off every 10-15 years. Most of the wildlife habitat is along rivers and streams and in meadows. There also used to be grasses that stayed green all summer--those were long ago replaced by grasses brought by white settlers which dry up and burn in the summer.

We have German friends--she is American married to a German, whose family has a house near us at Donner. The live in southern Germany, along the Rhine, and she advocates in her village for people to let their lawns turn back into native vegetation in order to support wildlife. Which is fine in southern Germany, but she refuses to allow proper defensible space work to be done on her family's property here--it's overgrown with brush and small skinny closely packed trees.

I think you know better, but I think you're starting to enjoy trolling.

It kind of depends on your forest, your elevation, the slope and aspect, and whether you're on the east side or the west side. And of course the history of fire and fire suppression for whatever forest you're in. It's as risky for you to judge California forests based on your back yard as it is for German woman to judge from Bavaria.

Someone posted above a photo of the post-fire ecosystem around Whiskeytown, showing all the burned-over Manzanitas. Having spent a month hiking all over that forest, bushwhacking through the dead manzanitas and comparing the state of the forest to its past 30 years (in terms of visibility of archaeological resources), it was quickly clear that the fire had done a great job of thinning undergrowth on a massive scale . . . but those manzanita were already sprouting and prospering and eager to replace the lost ones, in amongst the remaining big trees.

I've seen all kinds of efforts at stopping that cycle all over the western sierra, especially the early macerators which were just big lawnmower blades on the fronts of log skidders, and nothing I've seen has survived more than a few years before returning to the original state.

It seems to be like the cycle of fire brought on by the cheatgrass epidemic in Nevada and Colorado, where the fire that clears the fuel also reseeds it and makes it come back stronger before setting off another self-perpetuating fire.

Which is a long way to say experts who know more than most of us will continue to argue ideal scenarios far into the future as the forests continue to become what they will despite best and worst efforts on either side . . .

[Meadow Skipper]

altasnob is either so seriously challenged/ignorant about forest conditions and management that he should be ignored, or he’s trolling and should be ignored.

Thanks for that article link bodywhomper. Good stuff.

[old goat]

It kind of depends on your forest, your elevation, the slope and aspect, and whether you're on the east side or the west side. And of course the history of fire and fire suppression for whatever forest you're in. It's as risky for you to judge California forests based on your back yard as it is for German woman to judge from Bavaria.

Someone posted above a photo of the post-fire ecosystem around Whiskeytown, showing all the burned-over Manzanitas. Having spent a month hiking all over that forest, bushwhacking through the dead manzanitas and comparing the state of the forest to its past 30 years (in terms of visibility of archaeological resources), it was quickly clear that the fire had done a great job of thinning undergrowth on a massive scale . . . but those manzanita were already sprouting and prospering and eager to replace the lost ones, in amongst the remaining big trees.

I've seen all kinds of efforts at stopping that cycle all over the western sierra, especially the early macerators which were just big lawnmower blades on the fronts of log skidders, and nothing I've seen has survived more than a few years before returning to the original state.

It seems to be like the cycle of fire brought on by the cheatgrass epidemic in Nevada and Colorado, where the fire that clears the fuel also reseeds it and makes it come back stronger before setting off another self-perpetuating fire.

Which is a long way to say experts who know more than most of us will continue to argue ideal scenarios far into the future as the forests continue to become what they will despite best and worst efforts on either side . . .

It's pretty obvious that forest management for wildfire mitigation is not and never will be one and done. It will require repeated cycles of thinning and natural and prescribed burning, especially until the remaining trees have gotten big enough to withstand moderate intensity fire.
Given the long term effects of climate change I think it is quite likely that much of the forests destroyed by our recent high intensity fires will never be forest again.

[TBS]

On another note:
“I and my colleagues are getting really tired of the type of activism that pretends to be science and in fact is just self-serving garbage,” said Crystal Kolden, a professor of wildfire science at UC Merced and co-author of a journal article that rebutted Hanson’s arguments.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...#storylink=cpy

Thanks for posting that piece. And I agree that NEPA has been weaponized. No matter what is proposed for public lands, there’s always a group of PAVErs (People Against Virtually Everything) ready to block it. Lawsuits are cheap to file, suck up already-skinny BLM/USFS budgets and bring everything to a halt for years

The thing that struck me in that article was the enviro focus on spotted owl habitat. Northern spotted owl populations are declining as much due to barred owl predation and climate change as due to human influence. But the PAVErs are happy to trot out the threatened spotted owl when it suits their purpose.

And then while gumming the works, the land being fought over gets burned hard and habitat is gone anyway. Brilliant!

People would be wise to look at The Nature Conservancy’s stance IMO. They actually manage land for ecological benefit. They are pro restoration of forests to a natural fire regime and step one in that process is often some sort of mechanical fuels reduction so you can manage fire effects when you burn it.


Edit- what is Hanson even talking about?

“ Hanson argues that thinning removes a lot of thick, old-growth trees that are fairly resilient to fire. What’s left is small trees, saplings and seedlings that ignite like kindling.”

This is exactly opposite of what anyone involved in fire management thinks of when they use the word “thinning”. I’m

TBS - in that photo you posted of the stand that needs fire, I bet they would struggle to burn that without really high mortality in the ponderosa they want to retain. They will probably mechanically treat it before burning.

I know right? We always referred to it as “pre-commercial thinning” because the idea was to take the runts that were taking light from the bigger stems, and wouldn’t likely be worth it to take out of the woods when the stand was mature.

And agreed on the likely need for mechanical work before burning that stand.
Which as an aside there are places in the B&B Fire scar where the lodgepole is so thick you can’t walk thru it.

Tbs. will those recent burn sites get a big flower bloom in the next couple of springs?

Not much that I’ve seen. Not sure why, I know squat about wildflowers
It’s good mushroom hunting though. And fiddleheads for salads…

[altasnob]

So I am reading through that SacBee article and the linked studies, and UW ecologist Susan Prichard likens Hanson to a climate change denier. But then when you click on Prichard's own published study, she cites two Hanson studies in her paper.

One thing that article is correct on, everyone has an agenda. Oh, and besides Prichard, most of the other people who collaborated with her on the study are Forest Service employees, so it's not too surprising they don't have kind things to say about Hanson (who is suing them). The other UW scientist mentioned in that paper, Keala Hagmann, also works with Prichard (and the Forest Service).

If you are curious, the two Hanson studies Prichard cites are:

Baker, W. L., and C. T. Hanson. 2017. Improving the use of early timber inventories in reconstructing historical dry forests and fire in the western United States. Ecosphere 8:e01935

Hanson, C. T., and D. C. Odion. 2014. Is fire severity increasing in the Sierra Nevada, California, USA? International Journal of Wildland Fire 23:1–8.

[altasnob]

Good photo of Slate peak from 1934 and 2013. Slate peak is right on the crest in Northern Washington, outside of the Methow Valley. Highest road in the state. Photo shows what the forests looked like before fire suppression, and after fire suppression.

[neufox47]

I think it is safe to say the fire season in Northern California is over / about to be. We really dodged a bullet this year getting early rains and no really bad wind events.
“
Liquid precipitation estimates at this time for the period
12z Sat through 00z Tue equate to about 1 to 4 inches in the
Central Valley with 3 to 7 inches in the foothills and mountains.
Snow levels remain above pass levels over the weekend, lowering
to around 5000 to 6000 feet Mon/Tue. There is the potential for
several feet of snow over higher mountain terrain by early next
week. This has the potential for significant travel problems,
especially at Sierra pass levels.”


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[altasnob]

See How the Dixie Fire Created Its Own Weather
This year’s largest blaze generated powerful storm clouds. We show you in 3-D.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...s-weather.html

[Meadow Skipper]

https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...Fact+Sheet.pdf

Fuck yeah!

But I’ll be pretty surprised, make that stunned, if it happens.

[old goat]

I think it is safe to say the fire season in Northern California is over / about to be. We really dodged a bullet this year getting early rains and no really bad wind events.
“
Liquid precipitation estimates at this time for the period
12z Sat through 00z Tue equate to about 1 to 4 inches in the
Central Valley with 3 to 7 inches in the foothills and mountains.
Snow levels remain above pass levels over the weekend, lowering
to around 5000 to 6000 feet Mon/Tue. There is the potential for
several feet of snow over higher mountain terrain by early next
week. This has the potential for significant travel problems,
especially at Sierra pass levels.”


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

I don't think it's safe to say that at all, especially at lower elevations.

[donutlynx]

altasnob is either so seriously challenged/ignorant about forest conditions and management that he should be ignored, or he’s trolling and should be ignored.

Thanks for that article link bodywhomper. Good stuff.

Potentially both... it is painfully obvious - even when based solely upon the "experts" being used to support the narrative.

[old goat]

Hansen bashing has been heavy in the mainstream press lately. I just wish they wouldn't label him and his pals as "environmentalists".

[bodywhomper]

Hansen bashing has been heavy in the mainstream press lately. I just wish they wouldn't label him and his pals as "environmentalists".

I think they picked up on the bashing here . Seriously needs the mic taken away. I hope it works out that way.

[Meadow Skipper]

A really good, if long, article on some of the people on a federal hotshot crew. Glad I’m retired.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politic...ting-hotshots/

Let me know if it’s paywalled.

[climberevan]

That was a great article; thanks for posting it.

[John_B]

Yeah, thanks MS. I didn't quite realize what I was sitting down for when I glanced at my phone and started to read the first few paragraphs. It was well worth it.

[Meadow Skipper]

A great line from that article:

Arguably the worst part of the job for a firefighter is working in thick smoke for long stretches. "It's hard to see the long-term hazards," says Kathleen Navarro, a former hotshot and a research industrial hygienist for the CDC who has studied the effects of smoke inhalation on wildland firefighters, "when you're faced with things that are going to kill you immediately out on the fire line."

[old_newguy]

Game changing pay raise, wildland firefighter job classification and what looks like over $2 billion in fuels management and WUI money.

“ Now federal wildland firefighters will receive pay increases of $20,000 a year, or an amount equal to 50 percent of the base salary — the lesser of the two. For example, a GS-3 rookie firefighter that would make $28,078 if they were to work all year, will earn an additional $14,039 for a total of $42,117. A GS-9 making $54,433 will get an increase of $20,000 bringing the base salary to $74,433.”

https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/11/06...wildland-fire/

“$20M, Satellite fire detection
$10M, Radio interoperability
$30M, Reverse 911 systems
$50M, Slip-on firefighting modules for pickup trucks
$100M, Pre-fire planning, and training personnel for wildland firefighting and vegetation treatments
$20M, Data management for fuels projects and large fires
$20M, Joint Fire Science Program (research)
$100M, Planning & implementing projects under the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
$500M, Mechanical thinning, timber harvesting, pre-commercial thinning
$500M, Wildfire defense grants for at risk communities
$500M, Prescribed fires
$500M, Constructing fuelbreaks
$200M, Remove fuels, produce biochar and other innovative wood products
$200M, Post-fire restoration
$8M, Firewood banks
$10M, Wildfire detection and real-time monitoring equipment“

[whipski]

recently renewed my friendship with one my old paramedic buddies. he's now retired firemedic but does crew boss on the wildfire line. has some interesting action adventure tales. here he is getting in a bucket list hike after the bomb cyclone closed down the fire line. he also administers the ALS/paramedic program at A-Basin and is great guy.

[old goat]

An op-ed piece from a firefighter in norcal who is not pleased with the USFS.
I am posting without an opinion yea or nay.
https://www.moonshineink.com/opinion...ce-ineptitude/

[SumJongGuy]

Of all the natural disasters that could strike.. a wildfire is probably the one that terrifies me most. A flood you might be able to swim.. Tornado you can at least try to shelter low and strongest part of your place.. A fire you're just totally screwed. Best I can hope for is to suffocate before I burn.

Don't know shit about the particulars. But I do have a cousin in northern cal who's a fire fighter rotating in and out of crews there when shit gets real.. His immediate family spends a lot of time worrying and the remainder praising his bravery and selfless sacrifice to protect the communities where he gets sent. Big props to those crews..

[old_newguy]

An op-ed piece from a firefighter in norcal who is not pleased with the USFS.
I am posting without an opinion yea or nay.
https://www.moonshineink.com/opinion...ce-ineptitude/

Reminds me of the letters to the editor by the local looney tunes, anti-government crazies we would see. Didn’t matter what was actually happen, they always had the inside scoop and knew the “truth”.

I’d at least maybe think harder about whether any of it was real or not if this “firefighter” actually used their name or presented something resembling a factual account.

[Meadow Skipper]

An op-ed piece from a firefighter in norcal who is not pleased with the USFS.
I am posting without an opinion yea or nay.
https://www.moonshineink.com/opinion...ce-ineptitude/

Many, many municipal firefighters, and for that matter a certain amount of CalFire people, simply do not understand or comprehend federal land management agencies, or wildland ecology for that matter.