2021 summer fires

[bcp]

Tuesday morning. Looking better.

Bruce

 

[Larry Caldwell]

We got a little lightning last night, but nothing over me. I was sitting on the deck enjoying the evening and saw a couple flashes. The first one timed 75 seconds to the thunder, and the second one timed 95 seconds. The first was east of me, the second was NE. That put them in the Cascade foothills. Local news says they are doing air patrols to spot new fires, but I haven't heard of any yet.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

We're starting to get some smoke here, so I replaced the $2.30 furnace filters with the $20 electrostatic furnace filters. August and September are the traditional fire season here, so I think they will get a workout.

My wife has asthma, and smoke in the air is more than just a nuisance to her.

 

[cqaigy2]

Just a trace up here for part of the morning. Smelled kinda like incense and you could see it lowish to the ground.

 

[ponytug]

Somehow this smoke seems to really aggravate my body these days.

We have whole house AC, with a great electrostatic air filter. After a recent local and smokey fire, I broke down and bought five 20" MERV13 carbon impregnated air filters to add to a box fan for better smoke removal. I plan on duct taping it together until I see how it does at improving the indoor air quality.

It does make me wonder how the forest floor used to look with more frequent fires, and what that meant for air quality, if lightning caused fires were burning a large fraction of the forest floor every year. (20%, 50%?)

All the best,

Peter

 

[ericm979]

It does make me wonder how the forest floor used to look with more frequent fires, and what that meant for air quality, if lightning caused fires were burning a large fraction of the forest floor every year. (20%, 50%?)

I think that good low intensity fires that don't crown out put out a lot less smoke than a full on inferno that's torching the trees. There's just less stuff burning. (there's been a lot of footage on fire twitter lately of backfire operations on the big fires in CA, and those show what good fire looks like)

Historical fire frequency is not hard to find for a given area by looking at tree rings but it can be hard to interpret. One paper looking at fire frequency from 1600-2000 noted that climate didn't have much effect but the amount of burning changed significantly a number of times in that period (not just with our modern fire suppression), so they think it was humans, presumeably burning on purpose with lesser or greater frequency as peoples moved and practices changed.

I think 50% average would be high. Even 20% would mean an average fire frequency of 5 years, which is more like what you'd see in super flammable SoCal chaparral. It would only take a low intensity fire every 10-20 years to clear out a lot of the undergrowth in say a central Sierra forest.

 

[Jstpssng]

Somehow this smoke seems to really aggravate my body these days.

We have whole house AC, with a great electrostatic air filter. After a recent local and smokey fire, I broke down and bought five 20" MERV13 carbon impregnated air filters to add to a box fan for better smoke removal. I plan on duct taping it together until I see how it does at improving the indoor air quality.

It does make me wonder how the forest floor used to look with more frequent fires, and what that meant for air quality, if lightning caused fires were burning a large fraction of the forest floor every year. (20%, 50%?)

All the best,

Peter

They probably happened with more frequency and less intensity. We've been suppressing forest fires for decades; in regions where there isn't much timber harvesting, that amounts to a lot of built up fuel. It also was never as important back then, people didn't have multi million dollar properties at stake.

 

[bcp]

If you go here, to the GeoColor animation loop, you can see the flow direction of the clouds and smoke. If you choose the largest number for the loop size, it will be over 1/2 day long.

Sector Images: Pacific Northwest - NOAA / NESDIS / STAR

www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov

Bruce

 

[oosik]

So much for the good times. It's 96F and smoky here. Predicted to be 100+ later today.

 

[oosik]

At 4:30 I think we may have peaked - 103F.

 

[Hay Dude]

Here’s some pics from yesterday at Rocky Mountain National Park. Miles of forest and entire mountains cooked. What one of the knowledgeable locals told us was that in warmer cycles, the wood boring beetles have more time to breed and when more breed, more trees die from the beetles. This creates more dead, dry trees so when a camper does something stupid, or there’s a lightning strike, the results are more catastrophic

 

[Citydude]

Here’s some pics from yesterday at Rocky Mountain National Park. Miles of forest and entire mountains cooked. What one of the knowledgeable locals told us was that in warmer cycles, the wood boring beetles have more time to breed and when more breed, more trees die from the beetles. This creates more dead, dry trees so when a camper does something stupid, or there’s a lightning strike, the results are more catastrophic


View attachment 707789
View attachment 707790

The pine beetle can't survive a week straight of 20 below F. We haven't seen that in a few years. -40F was a common winter occurrence when I was a kid in the 50's. Haven't seen that in 30 years.

Ponderosa pine on my place fight hard when infected. They form pitch tubes sticking out a couple of inches trying to rid the beetle. They don't have a chance as the beetles swarm to a tree and overpower it.

Usually, they target stressed trees that are fighting for life in an overgrown environment. With that, it's survival of the fittest.

 

[Hay Dude]

The pine beetle can't survive a week straight of 20 below F. We haven't seen that in a few years. -40F was a common winter occurrence when I was a kid in the 50's. Haven't seen that in 30 years.

Ponderosa pine on my place fight hard when infected. They form pitch tubes sticking out a couple of inches trying to rid the beetle. They don't have a chance as the beetles swarm to a tree and overpower it.

Usually, they target stressed trees that are fighting for life in an overgrown environment. With that, it's survival of the fittest.

That’s what I heard, too. This year, there’s so many beetles, the trees can’t fight them off. I got up close to many dead lodge pole pines and they had thousands of holes drilled in the,

 

[Citydude]

That’s what I heard, too. This year, there’s so many beetles, the trees can’t fight them off. I got up close to many dead lodge pole pines and they had thousands of holes drilled in the,

It's nature at it's best. But, there needs to be some form of conservation. Humans need building materials.

 

[ericm979]

They probably happened with more frequency and less intensity. We've been suppressing forest fires for decades; in regions where there isn't much timber harvesting, that amounts to a lot of built up fuel. It also was never as important back then, people didn't have multi million dollar properties at stake.

Gifford Pinchot, 1st head of the USFS declared in 1911 that all fires must be put out. That was in response to a huge set of fires in 1910 that burned 3 million acres. It took a while for the FS to develop equipment and techniques to do that but by the '30s they were making good on it.

Logging by itself does not fix the fuels problem. If you clear cut and burn all the slash, a few years after the new trees are planted they become super flammable like a brush field because they're close together and low to the ground. Normally with a select cut the most valuable trees are the ones taken, but those are the large trees that survive fire the best. What's ideal from a fire standpoint is to remove the undergrowth and small trees but there's little commercial value in that. We're going to have to use practices specifically aimed at fire reduction.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

One practical means of fuel reduction is controlled burning. Sometimes that gets out of control.

Another practical means of fuel reduction is grazing.

Both techniques have vocal opponents.

 

[ranger danger]

1000 goats per 100 acres. Clean up the land, feed the goats, bears and cats all at the same time.

 

[bcp]

Forest service says there are about 30 million acres of forest in Oregon. That's a lot of goats.



Bruce

 

[ranger danger]

Ya but, there delicious with a good BBQ sauce

 

[Jstpssng]

Gifford Pinchot, 1st head of the USFS declared in 1911 that all fires must be put out. That was in response to a huge set of fires in 1910 that burned 3 million acres. It took a while for the FS to develop equipment and techniques to do that but by the '30s they were making good on it.

Logging by itself does not fix the fuels problem. If you clear cut and burn all the slash, a few years after the new trees are planted they become super flammable like a brush field because they're close together and low to the ground. Normally with a select cut the most valuable trees are the ones taken, but those are the large trees that survive fire the best. What's ideal from a fire standpoint is to remove the undergrowth and small trees but there's little commercial value in that. We're going to have to use practices specifically aimed at fire reduction.

That's another difference between the East and West coasts. The primary species on your side of the continent developed to thrive on fire... over here, not so much.