Wildfire ‘24

[evdog]

Re: discussion on fire roads in Socal:

Don't worry, there are more than enough fire roads left in Socal to access things like telecommunication towers, powerlines, trails, and other infrastructure. For obvious reasons these get maintained. Fire access is still a major reason as well and is why I always thought they were called fire roads. Truck trail is also common. Forest road is more often used on National Forest lands. Plenty of them are not maintained with cost being a big factor. Roads are expensive to maintain and if they can change the designation to non-motorized trail then they don't have to maintain it regularly. Lots of roads in the Angeles NF like Cucamonga and San Sevaine Truck Trails are a constant battle against mother nature with frequent rock fall and washouts. The roads can easily get wiped off the mountain if you get big storms following wildfires. Lots of them have been closed to motor vehicles as part of forest management travel plans. Thinking of Santa Anas in Cleveland National Forest, Harding Truck Trail is an example that is no longer open to vehicles and is generally not maintained. It goes back to singletrack if enough years pass between fires. Every time there is a fire though, it gets bladed back to drivable road, so there is still legitimate use for fire access.

Environmental groups also push to have roads shut down to vehicles. If they can get the designation changed from motorized to non-motorized they can call it a roadless area, and push for Wilderness designation. This is exactly what has been happening recently on BLM lands in Moab and San Rafael. First kick the OHVs off, then kick the mountain bikers off with a Wilderness designation. Land managers are too happy to go along with closures not just for cost savings but also because they don't want to deal with the headache that access creates, especially near populated areas. Just look at the account Maple Springs Can't Drive for some great examples. They are quick to close gates when a storm or Santa Ana event is coming, and they take their time to reopen them. At least we can often access them by bike, but the closures following wildfires keep getting longer and longer.

[bodywhomper]

I’ve seen where the county of LA wants to increase width of bladed roads/ridgelines and alter and reduce fuels adjacent to the ridge lines with thinning and using a crushing roller device. I can’t recall the frequency of maintenance crushing to maintain that fuels reduction or the overall costs.

[mcski]

In SoCal, I only ever heard them called fire roads.

On the water side, my maga friends are very riled up that there was an empty reservoir that was clearly Gavin Newsoms fault because it would have saved most of the houses if it was online. emojis aren’t working so add ffs here

[bodywhomper]

Forest health and 2020 Cameron Peak Fire in CO

https://www.fireforestphoto.com/film


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[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Huh... https://sjvwater.org/decision-to-dum...-mad-scramble/

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

People are so fukt

https://www.latimes.com/environment/...dams-opened-up

[MagnificentUnicorn]

A political stunt wasting water that has nothing to do with the fires in Southern California. What an idiot, embarrassing for everyone.


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[ticketchecker]

Just read that LA Times piece, the dumbest four years are underway


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[old goat]

The guys who did this knew better. Since it's the Army COE I guess they can't refuse or quit but still. People are so scared but if everyone stood up to him he would crumple.

[bodywhomper]

It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any fall out from it. It’ll adversely affect the business of some of the wealthiest republican landowners in the state.

[evdog]

Curious what you guys think of this proposed bill. Isn't this was the National Interagency Fire Center already does?

https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsr...igence-center/

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Trump will make it better

[MultiVerse]

Curious what you guys think of this proposed bill. Isn't this was the National Interagency Fire Center already does?

https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsr...igence-center/

This interview on How to Beat Megafires (And why we don't do it) discusses unifying federal efforts fighting wildfires:

"A big part of this challenge is going to be building capacity in these agencies and helping restore faith that they can spend it effectively".

"I think fundamentally you also have an issue where a lot of the Forest Service salary and line items go to the planning side, and we don't have enough people in the field actually implementing these projects. That's a really big long-term issue. We need people on the ground who can do this work"

He says currently something like 40-percent of federal forestry and land management resources goes towards the "permitting burden" all of which needs to become more streamlined.

There is a lot more in interview like headquartering the US Forest Service out West and more investment in fire mitigation and landscape management, etc.

[mcski]

And everytime we have a controlled burn in Tahoe, a ridiculous amount of people complain about the smoke in the air and spam every place imaginable asking about the fire

[Meadow Skipper]

Curious what you guys think of this proposed bill. Isn't this was the National Interagency Fire Center already does? https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsr...igence-center/

Um, that’s exactly what NIFC (and NICC - the National Interagency Coordination Center at NIFC) does. That is either so fucking ignorant as to be criminal, or it’s some sort of plan to further cut out govt staffing and replace it with private enterprise. I don’t get it - is it stoopid or nefarious?

And as usual, MV is worth ignoring with that google-based response.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

If Sheehy and Daines are involved, it's stupid.

[MultiVerse]

FWIW, fire policy adviser to CA's Dem congressional delegation says the federal government needs a unified response:

"But longer-term, there is an issue here where these agencies are bifurcated. There are multiple agencies in different silos, managing different landscapes in very different ways. There's no one entity at the federal level that is responsible for our overall risk reduction goals as a country."

Link to interview mentioned in the post above: https://www.statecraft.pub/p/how-to-beat-megafires

[MultiVerse]

Um, that’s exactly what NIFC (and NICC - the National Interagency Coordination Center at NIFC) does. That is either so fucking ignorant as to be criminal, or it’s some sort of plan to further cut out govt staffing and replace it with private enterprise. I don’t get it - is it stoopid or nefarious?

And as usual, MV is worth ignoring with that google-based response.

You should read or listen to the interview rather than engaging in yet another knee-jerk reaction, Because your problem is that for some reason even though you're retired you're heavily invested in the status quo. The status quo is what got us this:

"six of the seven most destructive fires in California in the last hundred years have happened since 2020"

Also, not a google response, like the interview itself I read it before evdog posted about a unified federal wildfire force

[MagnificentUnicorn]

You’re going to win people over by starting with “your problem is…”

[mcski]

When has he ever done that? lol

[Meadow Skipper]

You’re going to win people over by starting with “your problem is…”

He’s an idiot with no idea what he’s talking about.

[evdog]

So if it has been status quo for years/decades and "six of the seven most destructive fires in California in the last hundred years have happened since 2020" then it goes to reason that something has changed in recent years. Like increased extreme weather resulting from climate change perhaps?

[MultiVerse]

Well for you two, your greatest win is when you get the same wrong answer as a Jeopardy contestant

[MultiVerse]

So if it has been status quo for years/decades and "six of the seven most destructive fires in California in the last hundred years have happened since 2020" then it goes to reason that something has changed in recent years. Like increased extreme weather resulting from climate change perhaps?

Climate is part of it. The bigger issue is "years of mismanagement and poor community design creating a perfect storm ... For a long time, we got really good at suppressing fires. We took fire out of landscapes that needed to thrive. And what we're seeing is climate change and years of fire exclusion in these areas have made it so that we're pushing the bounds of what we're capable of suppressing here. It's overwhelming all of our systems."

[Meadow Skipper]

So if it has been status quo for years/decades and "six of the seven most destructive fires in California in the last hundred years have happened since 2020" then it goes to reason that something has changed in recent years. Like increased extreme weather resulting from climate change perhaps?

Ya think?