What a week. Rough for all Californians. Exhausting for the firefighters on the front lines. Heart-shattering for those who lost homes and loved ones. But a special “Truman Show” kind of hell for the cadre of men and women who’ve not just watched California burn, fire ax in hand, for the past two or three or five decades, but who’ve also fully understood the fire policy that created the landscape that is now up in flames.
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-WiscoDave
You'll notice logging and thinning are never mentioned as another possible solution to the problem.
ReplyDeleteLogging and thinning are at best a partial solution. Unless you drag out all of the brush and spoil associated with the logging, you are contributing to the fuel surplus.
DeleteYou still need fire to clear that out. Doing it any other way makes the logging uneconomical.
Personally I think thinning rather then full clear cut, followed by a burn before the scrap wood gets too dry it probably the best approach to keep the forests healthy.
Earl.
Earl - Back in the days when there were lots of sawmills in California many of them had adjoining cogen plants. On almost all the log jobs I worked (I ran a processor) I was set up alongside a chipper. All the tops and slash were chipped and sent to the mill to make electricity. When we were done with a job it looked like a park.
DeleteOn a job we did up by Truckee the locals weren't very happy when we first arrived to log in their back yard. When we were done they loved us, partly because the woods looked great but mainly because they knew their homes were that much safer from wildfire.
In other words, the way that Cali used to do it before the ECO nuts took over.
DeleteListen, suggesting something based solely on the fact that it is the way they used to do it and it worked is just White Patriarchal Attitude! So stop it!
/sarc
I stand corrected, thanks - Earl.
DeleteThe biggest fuel source for fire is Dead and down timber followed by undergrowth. There are between 129 and 149 million dead trees in California alone. If these tress an the undergrowth was cleared out the fire danger would be cut way down. Here in Montana we have a similar insect problem 2.7 million acres of beetle killed trees and all it takes is a few lightning strikes and wind. Until the dead trees and undergrowth are cleared out these fires are going to continue to get worse all over the west
DeleteThen all ya'll who live there need to begin burning it all down. Then replant when in time.
DeleteInformative, well-written and then burned by the "Oh, and, you know, climate change" ending.
ReplyDeleteLa la la la. Fucking california! In Nevada we have been sucking down the end product of their bullshit policies; non stop ash for the last 3 weeks. It is so bad my check engine light came on. Changed the air filter and bingo it went off. For now. Motherfuckers! I can't help but believe that the pimp govenor newsome is hoping the ill effects of the smoke & ash will drive up covid 19 deaths. I wasn't nuts before all this shit started but I am now. Sons of asshole bitch democrats. I really hate em. Truely, I hate em. Fucking parasites.
ReplyDeleteTrump, when he first took office asked California to strategically clear their forests to prevent megafires, but that was rejected as "not natural."
ReplyDeleteAccording to foresters I've spoken to, 40 to 50 stems per acre is sustainable; currently, in Northern Ca., where I live, we average 4-5 HUNDRED.
ReplyDelete50 healthy, well-spaced, well-rooted, well-sized, hydrated trees, are a far more valuable asset, than 500 overcrowded, scraggly, stressed, under-sized, under-nourished, & under-watered trees.
We could probably reduce the California canopy by 50-75%, and
the forest health here would be drastically improved.
But,since policy here is set by
city people who know nothing but
eco-communist propaganda, our forests remain sad, stunted, & stressed.
Don't leave the central planners at the USDA/Forest Service in Washington D.C. out of this equation. Their specialty is Paralysis by Analysis.
DeleteIn '92-'93 I did a salvage job on the Cleveland Burn near Placerville. It was 50/50 private/Forest Service ground. We were logging the Michigan California Lumber Co. ground two weeks after the fire was out, in mid October. The Forest Service never moved a stick until the following July. By then Mich-Cal had already logged and replanted half their 12,000 acres of burned ground.
Hit the hell no button on the climate change comment. Starts out smart(prehistoric burn estimates) then is too dense to make the connection and drops the AGW turd in the punchbowl...
ReplyDeleteAll of these enviro wackos want things back the way they were before humans were on this planet and unless we leave*, it is just not going to happen (unless they continue to obtain positions in authority) and they simply refuse to face that reality just like many other positions they hold.
ReplyDeleteAnd they NEVER mention the impact to the environment or humans from having millions of acres burn every year.
* there are plenty of people, many in higher places, that truly believe we should somehow remove several million, if not billions, of people from this planet. They deride the medical breakthroughs and other accomplishments that save lives and lead to longer life expectancy.
You do realize that their goal *is* to have humans leave, right? The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement isn't going to stay "voluntary" forever...
DeleteNow, hold on!
ReplyDeletea)
Did somebody legitimately suggest removing underbrush and deadwood?
Nope.
That would turn any living forest into the Sahara desert in <decades.
Mountain soil is notoriously poor because rain washes away anything resembling topsoil because of the steep slopes.
Steep slopes is the reason it is a 'mountain'.
All soil is automatically ammended with decaying dead material such as fallen limbs and trees.
Removing the decaying material is the equivalent of never feeding your garden, never giving it compost and rotted manure.
Do that, and you can watch your garden turn into a sterile dead parking-lot.
The first good breeze moves it to the next county.
Without shrubs/underbrush, the soil washes downhill faster than creeks and streams can flush it.
Mud results, all the life depending on clear water chokes.
Formerly rapid running clear-water, the accumulated silt turns that stream into a marshy meadow.
b)
How many bugs live in decaying material?
How many birds and snakes and mammals depend on the food chain resulting from downed materials?
In their turn, their decaying corpses feed the soil.
c)
Humans must allow fires to burn just like fires burned for millions of years.
Ash is an effective fertilizer to stimulate new growth.
None of the well-intentioned interventions are successful, that is merely smoke-n-mirrors so marxists feel good about 'doing something!'.
d)
Every forest is transitional.
For a few thousand years, it might be softwood, fir or pine.
As the soil changes from decaying material, the forest may change to maple and hickory for a few thousand years.
A volcano eruption changing the weather may evolve that hardwood forest to grasslands.
Any human attempt at modifying these events is insignificant... and doomed to fail.
.
.
I'm nowhere near a goody two-shoes environment-whacko trees-over-humans nut-job.
I merely look... and see.
We exist for a blink-of-an-eye as a tiny part of a cycle of cycles.
All our attempts at influencing our surroundings, all of them, are laughably inept.
*****
Epstein wasn't a suicide.
George Floyd was.
Both of them, toss 'em into the compost pile.