2021 summer fires

[Hay Dude]

And it starts all over again ...............

I heard there were some pretty big fires millions of years ago, long before man roamed these lands.

 

[bcp]

Friday morning smoke

Bruce

 

[Jstpssng]

This article historical use and the benefits fire on the east coast. https://northernlogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fire-Forests.pdf
But not when it's tinder dry like some of you are experiencing.

 

[ericm979]

Yea you have to do control burns when it's still wet. In the west that means spring time.

California has a new $500M program to do control burns and other fuel reduction programs. Finally. Closer to me, the local fire safe council got some grants for fuel reduction and will start next year. There's also programs at the federal level with the USFS to work with tribes that have a cultural knowledge of controlled burning to do more burns and teach people how to do them.

Earlier this year I sat in on a talk by a researcher who has put together programs for local landowners to do their own control burns with cooperatives formed for the purpose. Like barn raising, you need a bunch of people. They have done properties down to 5 ac. So it's happening, it's just really slow.

This morning at 8am it was 86 degrees. It's going to be hot for a few days.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

This article historical use and the benefits fire on the east coast. https://northernlogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fire-Forests.pdf
But not when it's tinder dry like some of you are experiencing.

People are part of the problem, and climate change is part of the problem. Prior to European settlement, the Indians set fires every year to clear areas for wildlife. When my ancestors showed up in Oregon in 1846, there were few fir trees at low elevations, and the dominant ecology was oak savannah. Fire suppression and yearning for greens has resulted in low altitude fir groves, and extreme fuel buildup in the mountains. Then, as now, riparian vegetation was alder, ash, black cottonwood, myrtle and willow.

Fire suppression on the dry side of the Cascades has led to an invasion of juniper, one of the most destructive tree species. Juniper is a water thief that kills off all competing vegetation. If land gets to an 80% juniper cover, it will never recover naturally even if you kill off the juniper. You can end up with thousands of acres where the only living plant species is juniper. Ranchers will hook a couple D8s to a big chain and drag it for miles to restore the land to production, both for grazing and wildlife.

Climate change has dried things. They are starting to switch from talking about drought to talking about aridification. There was a 5 million acre fire in the Siskiyou National Forest in 2010. The tree huggers blocked salvage logging because they thought "natural" recovery was superior, but the Siskiyou sprouted a century ago in a wetter climate. It's a decade after the fire, the forest is not recovering, and rotting standing snags make it too dangerous to send crews in now.

 

[bcp]

From a news article:

CHILOQUIN, Ore. — A fast-growing wildfire on national forestland in south-central Oregon has prompted mandatory evacuations as it threatened about 3,000 homes, authorities said.

Pushed by strong winds, the fire in Klamath County grew from about 26 square miles (65 square kilometers) Thursday to 61 square miles (158 square kilometers) Friday in the Fremont-Winema National Forest and on private land. There was no containment, according to the update posted on Facebook by the incident management team.


Friday afternoon smoke.

Bruce

 

[bcp]

Saturday morning smoke

Bruce

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Looks pretty thick over Sun Valley.

 

[bcp]

Animated view

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/sector_band.php?sat=G17&sector=pnw&band=GEOCOLOR&length=240

Bruce

 

[bcp]

Recent fire near Mt Shasta destroyed some of a steel bridge.

Union Pacific tracks heavily damaged in Lava Fire

SISKIYOU COUNTY, Calif. - The Lava Fire in Siskiyou County has caused 25,000 acres of destruction at the base of Mount Shasta. Timber, grass, brush, are just some of the burned vegetation in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. So far, vegetation is not the only property damaged by the fire. The high

www.klamathfallsnews.org

Bruce