Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Fri 03/29/2024 View Thu 03/28/2024 View Wed 03/27/2024 View Tue 03/26/2024 View Mon 03/25/2024 View Sun 03/24/2024 View Sat 03/23/2024
2020-09-13 Science & Technology
They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won't Anybody Listen?
ProPublica via Instapundit
...The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result, wildland fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier. Then, boom: the inevitable. The wind blows down a power line, or lightning strikes dry grass, and an inferno ensues. This week we’ve seen both the second- and third-largest fires in California history. "The fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic," Ingalsbee said. There’s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. "We need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load."

Yes, there’s been talk across the U.S. Forest Service and California state agencies about doing more prescribed burns and managed burns. The point of that "good fire" would be to create a black-and-green checkerboard across the state. The black burned parcels would then provide a series of dampers and dead ends to keep the fire intensity lower when flames spark in hot, dry conditions, as they did this past week. But we’ve had far too little "good fire," as the Cassandras call it. Too little purposeful, healthy fire. Too few acres intentionally burned or corralled by certified "burn bosses" (yes, that’s the official term in the California Resources Code) to keep communities safe in weeks like this.

Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres. The state passed a few new laws in 2018 designed to facilitate more intentional burning. But few are optimistic this, alone, will lead to significant change. We live with a deathly backlog. In February 2020, Nature Sustainability published this terrifying conclusion: California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-09-13 05:34|| || Front Page|| [2 views ]  Top

#1 Why:

Are cars still easy to steal?

Identity theft is easy?

Credit card theft is easy?

And on and on.

Why?

Because there's money in it for the banks, car manufacturers, insurance companies and so on. If it cost them money, it would dry up in a second. Because they have all shifted the cost to you and me, it will never go away...
Posted by M. Murcek 2020-09-13 08:06||   2020-09-13 08:06|| Front Page Top

#2 /\ much like the "war on drugs". Remember the slap on the wrist Wachovia (Wells Fargo) got for laundering money for drug lords about ten years ago.
Posted by Clem 2020-09-13 08:49||   2020-09-13 08:49|| Front Page Top

#3 A comment really isn't necessary.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-09-13 08:56||   2020-09-13 08:56|| Front Page Top

#4 #3 great post says it all. I would suspect these areas are managed by Democrats and of course poorly done.
Posted by Dale 2020-09-13 09:29||   2020-09-13 09:29|| Front Page Top

#5 Because liberals have opinions but no clue?

Because they want to save money so they can use it on illegals?
Posted by gorb 2020-09-13 11:09||   2020-09-13 11:09|| Front Page Top

#6 Maybe someone should tell them they are killing spotted owls and smelt by the millions?
Posted by gorb 2020-09-13 13:25||   2020-09-13 13:25|| Front Page Top

#7 In this new age, we need to turn an old saw on its head and say:

"Never attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by malice."

If they know how to prevent megafires, but fail to do so, it's because they don't want to.

Posted by charger 2020-09-13 14:25||   2020-09-13 14:25|| Front Page Top

#8 "good fire" is actually what firefighters who in fire prevention mode call "controlled burn".

The one thing missing is the old and now abandoned concept of forest towers:



Manned by people who report the slightest smoke seen in the region and that is immediately extinguished by the fire department in the area. These are manned during dry periods and were very, very effective.
Posted by Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 2020-09-13 16:44||   2020-09-13 16:44|| Front Page Top

#9 My grandfather manned the tower in Lawrenceville, GA For the GA forestry service
Posted by Beavis 2020-09-13 17:04||   2020-09-13 17:04|| Front Page Top










Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com