California Fires

[Grammatron]

I was listening to radio and I heard this professor (Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen) interviewed about the current forest fires. He is a professor of forestry and he was talking about how because of the current environmental laws we have too many trees. If I remembered correctly, he said in this region there use to be 40-50 trees per acre and now they have 100. Also in national parks they don't pick up the dry branches, chestnuts, etc. because environmentalists complain it's not natural. I'm looking for a transcript of his interview as I only caught part of it. Perhaps someone with experience or knowledge of forestry can comment on this meanwhile?

Oh by the way he also has a book out, I included a link below.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471136220/qid=1067404370/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-0372326-4864106?v=glance&s=books

[Mr Manifesto]

Who the hell has time to pick up dry branches in 500000 acres of forest?

They use burn-offs in Australia, which causes some controversy with the environmentalists. I can't think of a better way to control the possibility of bushfires, but it does break my heart to see increasingly rare species being killed by the effects.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
Who the hell has time to pick up dry branches in 500000 acres of forest?

They use burn-offs in Australia, which causes some controversy with the environmentalists. I can't think of a better way to control the possibility of bushfires, but it does break my heart to see increasingly rare species being killed by the effects.

What about logging? You can remove certain amount of wood a year, it benefits the state and doesn't have the side-affects of burn-offs.

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by Grammatron


What about logging? You can remove certain amount of wood a year, it benefits the state and doesn't have the side-affects of burn-offs.

Logging is another very sticky issue. I would prefer tree plantations, but I type this sitting in my red cedar clad house. I suppose logging would be one way to fix the problem, but is there an economically viable (hmm... why do I suddenly think of a black dude with a placard outside of a bank? Must be time for my meds...) way to log bits of a forest without clearing huge tracts?

I suppose you guys have fire trails over there? Yeah... You'd have to...

Say, while we're on the subject, does anyone know if it's true that pine trees shoot up like rockets in really hot fires?

[peptoabysmal]

I was wondering why they don't at least bulldoze some fire-breaks? I don't ever recall seeing any fire-breaks in any of my visits to the area, nor when I used to live there. Fire-breaks have saved my rear many a time here. We always cut one large break around the perimeter and one around each of the buildings. So far it has only jumped the break on one occasion, but it slowed the fire down enough to allow fire crews to get here in plenty of time.

[a_unique_person]

Loggers are not after loose branches and other rubbish, IIRC they just want the good stuff. Even if, as in Australia, they only end up chipping most of it.

Besides that, IIRC, it is the planation forest that have the highest density.

California also has introduced the gum tree, which is great at surviving hot, dry conditions, but does burn well due to the eucalyptas oil in it.

The eucalytpas forests need controlled burning to keep them managed, the aboriginies, apparently, did this for thousands of years. The Australian bush and animals are adatped to surviving bush fires, and some plants even rely on them for breeding.

I did see a picture of one street, however, in which the eucalypts had survived the fire, but the houses hadn't. This implies that the houses really weren't set up for coping with a bush fire. If you are in California with gum trees everywhere, you ought to take that into account when building a home.

[SRW]

Pine trees to burn hot and fast. We recently had a large pine forest burn. It took out about 150 homes, and looked like a moon scape afterwords. But the fire released the pine seeds, and the trees grew back like grass.

My understanding is that the fires actually have a natural place in keeping forests rejuvenated. Some plants cannot grow until there is a fire, because they would not have sun under the canopy.

[evildave]

Who the heck cares of a million acres burns? That's just nature.

The problem is when they allow suburbs to sprawl out 100 miles in every direction into terrain that's covered with dead and flammable plants 11 months out of the year.

You get city denizens who move into housing that's a 'bargain' in the middle of sage brush and four foot grass (relatively few trees naturally occurring in San Bernardino, except on the mountains), and then they don't realize that you need to maintain a 30 foot *minimum* clearance between the weeds and your home.

Instead the counties just let the developers build homes on top of each other right up to the edge of the wilderness, in the middle of the wilderness, scattered through the wilderness and then the homeowners neglect the area around their homes. They leave the weeds on the hillside directly below their million dollar house and cry a river when the fire comes up and their homes burn down.

Boo-friggin'-hoo.

Urban and suburban sprawl is all that's making these fires news. Want to build a thousand home development out in the middle of a million acres of crispy dry and extremely flammable brush? Don't want to build a fire station so there's a fire truck within 45 minutes of those homes at the same time? NO PROBLEM! Why bother making people have anything but those decorative shake shingle rooves? Build new homes with them! Codes to prevent this sort of thing are just plain unpopular, so obviously we should all take it in the pants when we pay our insurance premiums because these bozos want to live closer to nature and have rustic-looking homes!

Fire is part of nature.

LIVE WITH IT!

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Loggers are not after loose branches and other rubbish, IIRC they just want the good stuff. Even if, as in Australia, they only end up chipping most of it.

Besides that, IIRC, it is the planation forest that have the highest density.

California also has introduced the gum tree, which is great at surviving hot, dry conditions, but does burn well due to the eucalyptas oil in it.

The eucalytpas forests need controlled burning to keep them managed, the aboriginies, apparently, did this for thousands of years. The Australian bush and animals are adatped to surviving bush fires, and some plants even rely on them for breeding.

I did see a picture of one street, however, in which the eucalypts had survived the fire, but the houses hadn't. This implies that the houses really weren't set up for coping with a bush fire. If you are in California with gum trees everywhere, you ought to take that into account when building a home.

I didn't say loggers will pick up lose branches. But if they are allowed to log the amount of trees that would remove by a controlled burn then it would be a good alternative since they replace those trees as well.

The problem is they over plant trees and don't allow logging and since we usually have a good control on fires they grow and grow and take up vast amount of space. And once in a while when it's hot, dry and you have a beetle infestation that kills trees (makes them dead dry trunks), a fire becomes a catastrophe it is today.

And it's not even that people are building in the middle of the forest. Most of the communities that burned down have been there for decades upon decades.

Oh and Manifesto, the pine trees if they are dry, like from the beetle infestations, explode in massive fires

[Ove]

I didn't say loggers will pick up lose branches. But if they are allowed to log the amount of trees that would remove by a controlled burn then it would be a good alternative since they replace those trees as well.

Problem is that many trees survive fires fine and most fires are in the loose branches.

The one culprit for your fires are ........: "Smokey the Bear". Small bushfires are natures way of getting rid of dead material, loose branches etc and they would have solved the probem if left alone. Problem is that Smokey has taught a couple of generations of American that ANY wildfire should be put out immidiadetly which now has resulted in some forests where the bottom are covered with a thick layer of dead material. All you need is a spark (or a emergency flare);)

There really is only one solution: You gotta start some controlled fires.

[SRW]

Originally posted by evildave
Who the heck cares of a million acres burns? That's just nature.

The problem is when they allow suburbs to sprawl out 100 miles in every direction into terrain that's covered with dead and flammable plants 11 months out of the year.


Fire is part of nature.

LIVE WITH IT!

Yeah and all the cry babies who live on the east coast that get whooped by hurricanes, and you people who live in the midwest with your tornado's Mobile homes? what are you people thinking, and you people in Hawaii with your volcano's, and the northeast with the drought and Alaska with the earthquakes, not to mention the people living in flood plains and forests, Damn it everyone move to Idaho, oh wait except you people of color, and non-christians, and well Ok so not Idaho...Luxemburg were all moving to Luxembourg.

[EvilYeti]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal
I was wondering why they don't at least bulldoze some fire-breaks? I don't ever recall seeing any fire-breaks in any of my visits to the area, nor when I used to live there. Fire-breaks have saved my rear many a time here. We always cut one large break around the perimeter and one around each of the buildings. So far it has only jumped the break on one occasion, but it slowed the fire down enough to allow fire crews to get here in plenty of time.

Firebreaks are not uncommon in the more rural parts of San Diego, around ranches and such. The problem is the suburban communities where the houses are clustered together and border large areas of government land. The home owners are not able to legally clear the brush or bulldoze fire breaks on property they don't own and the city doesn't bother.

Maybe that will change now, but I doubt it.

[Rocky]

The areas that are burning are mostly brush with very few trees. The fire breaks work unless there is a good wind blowing. The winds have been up to 60 Mph with 20 very common. Today was the first day since thursday that I saw any blue sky. Mostly the air has been so somkey that you could look directly at the sun (and see the sun spots!) with visibility under a mile even in the unaffected areas. Today the winds are down and the humidity is up both good things.

[shuize]

Although both points were touched on by evildave and Eil Yeti, I think the scale of this disaster is a combination of several factors.

Two of the biggest are, first, that people build in fire-prone areas. Second, they immediately put out every small fire which would otherwise act as a natural fire break in the future.

When conditions are at their worst, then, with low humidity and high winds, a fire that would otherwise not have amounted to much will burn out of control.

I don't criticize people for wanting to live in rural areas. Nor do I necessarily think they should be prevented from building there. But when people do move into those mountains and forests, it puts pressure on the fire fighters to put out every small fire which threatens their homes. Then the big one comes along and burns everyone out....

[Mr Manifesto]

Whereas in Australia we deliberately burn off. It's not a cure-all... We still look forward to massive conflagartions every year. And, environmentally speaking, it's a bummer. Might be interesting to look up how effective burn offs are.

[Mr Manifesto]

Interesting article on burn offs in Australia (http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/drawingboard/digest/0302/brandes.html)

[Rocky]

Burn-offs in brush and grass don't do that much since the brush grows back within a year. The problem will we less for a year or two but by 5 years you can't tell a difference, and the same place can burn again with in 12 months. The best thing people can do is make sure that they have cleared 30' - 100' feet away and have NO exposed wood on their house. No wood trim, no wood eves and most of all, no wood roofs.

[Silicon]

All of these wildfires could have been averted if they let the scrub-brush and weeds be harvested by the logging companies.

However, George Bush's "Healthy Scrublands" initiative was assailed by the environmentalists as being detrimental to the environmental balance of the scrub-brush and wild-weed environment of the hills of Southern California.

"If we only had cleared away some of the "old-growth" tumbleweeds, this tragedy wouldn't be taking place," said lumberweeder Paulo Bunano. "But it all became a public relations war between the forces of progress, and those weed-hugging fanatics."

But the environmental movement has long opposed Bush's "Healthy Scrublands" initiative, calling it a boondoggle, and a gift to the weeding industry.

Weed-sitter Sabrina LaPuka, who has been sitting in the same weed for the last 217 days, was forced to leave her weed due to the approaching flames. The weed, which she has named "Earth Spirit", succumbed to the flames at 7:30 am Tuesday, immolating in a spectacular tower of sparks at least 2 feet high.

"I will not forget you, Earth Spirit," LaPuka cried. "Our souls are entwined."

[a_unique_person]

I think I must have something wrong with my eyesight. Did someone say "wooden rooves"?

[Scott]

Originally posted by Rocky
The best thing people can do is make sure that they have cleared 30' - 100' feet away and have NO exposed wood on their house. No wood trim, no wood eves and most of all, no wood roofs. That's the key there, Rocky.

Also, I remember the Oakland conflaglaration from a few years ago. Some guy was pi$$ing and moaning about how the city made him use fire retardent shake shingles. He was pi$$ed because his roof didn't burn, the house burned down under it. The roof was layed down fairly nice and neat on the foundation.

"The city said I had to use fireproof shingles, but they didn't say anything about using fireproof siding." (paraphrasing)

Like Rocky said, keep them lots cleared at least 30-feet.

[evildave]

Originally posted by SRW


Yeah and all the cry babies who live on the east coast that get whooped by hurricanes, and you people who live in the midwest with your tornado's Mobile homes? what are you people thinking, and you people in Hawaii with your volcano's, and the northeast with the drought and Alaska with the earthquakes, not to mention the people living in flood plains and forests, Damn it everyone move to Idaho, oh wait except you people of color, and non-christians, and well Ok so not Idaho...Luxemburg were all moving to Luxembourg.

So, what? You're saying people should be insured when they wilfully build in flood plains? On coastlines that flood out practically every year? People should be insured when they build on a known volcano?

Sure, why not? Insure them for everything *but* a flood. Insure them for anything *but* earthquake/volcano damage. Insure them for anything *but* a brushfire.

After all, you and I are paying the difference to make that insurance coverage affordable. Fire insurance in those areas *should* be "outrageous".

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Period.

And now the state wants to spend 3 billion to "prevent" wildfires. That's TAX dollars. So, on top of subsidising people building in stupid places by making the insurance companies charge "reasonably" and federally backing insurance of this nature with tax dollars, the state's going to further subsidise rural sprawl by spending more money as the fires have damaged so far on "prevention" every single year.

I'm sure the real estate developers will be only too happy to build more scattered homes on hillsides, knowing their profits will be backed by state revenue.

[shuize]

You know, with as many houses destroyed as there are (2600 and counting), when the fires finally die down there's going to be a nice little construction boom (despite evildave's protestations to the contrary) as people move back and rebuild in the exact same places.

[SRW]

Originally posted by evildave


So, what? You're saying people should be insured when they wilfully build in flood plains? On coastlines that flood out practically every year? People should be insured when they build on a known volcano?

Sure, why not? Insure them for everything *but* a flood. Insure them for anything *but* earthquake/volcano damage. Insure them for anything *but* a brushfire.

After all, you and I are paying the difference to make that insurance coverage affordable. Fire insurance in those areas *should* be "outrageous".

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Period.

And now the state wants to spend 3 billion to "prevent" wildfires. That's TAX dollars. So, on top of subsidising people building in stupid places by making the insurance companies charge "reasonably" and federally backing insurance of this nature with tax dollars, the state's going to further subsidise rural sprawl by spending more money as the fires have damaged so far on "prevention" every single year.

I'm sure the real estate developers will be only too happy to build more scattered homes on hillsides, knowing their profits will be backed by state revenue.


So what is your solution, bar people from the Eastern Seaboard, the west coast is all earthquake country no one can live west of Nevada? The Midwest is likely to have twisters so that is also out.

Where are you going to and be absolutely sure that no disaster will happen. You cannot.

They may lose 20,000 homes but there will still be millions left in places that could burn... where should they go?

And by the way, if you do live in one of the higher risk areas you pay and extra premium on your taxes.

[Tmy]

Whats up with the fore death count??? Its not like a huge fire just creeps up on you??!?!! ARe these dead people just idiots who refused to evacuate. Shouldnt cause of death be "stupidity" instead of "fire".

[Rocky]

Can you beileve it, it's raining! For the first time in four months it started to rain. :clap:

The house where I grew up was in an area that could have had a very bad burn but we were lucky. Now the nearest burnable hillside is almost a mile away from that house. Many of the buildings that have burned are ranches, big and small. Not much you can do to save a ranch if the owner lers the brush get to close or too thick.

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Actually, the homes are NOT likely to be distroyed, they just have a higher chance of it; perhaps 1% higher than average. Remember that almost all of the houses in Southern California were in no danger and most of those that were in danger survived.

[SRW]

Originally posted by Rocky
Can you beileve it, it's raining! For the first time in four months it started to rain. :clap:

The house where I grew up was in an area that could have had a very bad burn but we were lucky. Now the nearest burnable hillside is almost a mile away from that house. Many of the buildings that have burned are ranches, big and small. Not much you can do to save a ranch if the owner lers the brush get to close or too thick.

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Actually, the homes are NOT likely to be distroyed, they just have a higher chance of it; perhaps 1% higher than average. Remember that almost all of the houses in Southern California were in no danger and most of those that were in danger survived.


Wow great news about the rain!!!!!

(quote evil Dave) Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Also, as far as developing, where do you set the borders. By definition, where the houses stop, the brush country starts. To stop something like this you would have to set up a do not cross line and pave it with a 1/4 mile stretch of concrete. Not very practical.

[evildave]

Ahh, but it's so much more economical to clear brush around a whole neighborhood. It's not so economical to do so when they build three houses on a hilltop, and three more homes on the next hill, dotting them along a ridgeline.

But I can see how some people would believe it's far more economical to build houses scattered as thinly as possible across the most territory, as opposed to clumping them together in communities that are easily defended against fire.

After all, the population density never quite gets high enough to require those extra fire houses.

[MoeFaux]

I'm in Vegas this week (I got my tonsils out), and on Tuesday you could smell the smoke from the CA fires. The air was thick with it and it was really smoggy. It was bad.
It's been really windy the past day, though, so I can't smell the smoke anymore. But, man, how serious is that that it's showing signs of it in Vegas?

[UnrepentantSinner]

Not to disrepect the loss of the dead and those who've had their houses burned... but the fires were clearly God punishing California for electing Arnold.