So Cal Wild Fires

[MossRoad]

The problem with environmentalists...

That's a blanket statement. The real problem with the wildfires in Calif is that people are in the path of nature. Living in areas that are dry means things will burn easily. The only way to eliminate the fire is to water the heck out of everything (but they don't have enough water for that) or eliminate the fuel. You can't eliminate the fuel without eliminating the habitat for the wildlife that lives in the fuel. You can build fire resistant houses and landscape with fire resistant plants, but in a firestorm as big as some of these, even that is tough. The real solution is to build in a place that has less of a propensity to burst into flames every couple of years. The place is overpopulated.

 

[riptides]

... or eliminate the fuel. You can't eliminate the fuel without eliminating the habitat for the wildlife that lives in the fuel....

A number of factors have come together for the Californian disaster, IMHO -

- Lack of smart growth plans
(communities on the fringes of infrastructure)
(zoning for said communities)
(infringement upon national forests)

- Climate
(drought conditions on a scale of which have no measurable data)
(building in high risk areas)


and ......

- People's propensity for risk
(it will never happen to me syndrome) -or-
(lack of community knowledge, i.e. they just don't know the past)

-Mike Z.

 

[the_sandman_454]

The fuel doesn't need to be completely eliminated, just reduced to a safe level. Controlled burns on occasion are much safer than letting things build up to the point where the fire will be completely uncontrollable. This is part of where we've gotten into trouble. Years of fire suppression with little thought of how it's making things worse by eliminating nature's ability to keep areas safe, activate heat activated seeds, and the like.

For example small controlled burns staggered between areas when the Santa Ana winds are not blowing to fan the flames, seems like a reasonable measure to take to protect both the environment and the homes rather than letting significant damage happen to both thanks to the current method.

Normal wildfires are actually helpful to the environment. What we're seeing in CA now don't really seem like normal wildfires, these seem like super wildfires in areas where flammables are allowed to build up to the point where it's going to be a catastrophic fire with soil damage, and other issues.

Notice, fires like this aren't only bad for the houses. It's bad for the soil, increases runoff nearly completely because the heat can form a layer of glass from my understanding, and bad for the critters whose habitat is now completely gone.

I could be considered an environmentalist, but I do not belong to any environmental organization. Many of these groups appear to exist only for the power and money they can derive from it. Many of these groups are not in favor of common sense approaches to problems. With many they don't even use valid scientific methods, studies and such to base their claims on. They don't understand how their actions impact the environment too.

There can be a balance between humans and nature, if it's allowed to happnen.

 

[ultrarunner]

Many parts of California, like mine, require a tree permit to remove ANY tree with a trunk larger than 6" at breast height... an exception is made for Eucalyptus.

The permit requires a $50 fee, a site visit and posting the neighborhood inviting public comment prior to a hearing. The entire process takes 6 weeks.

 

[3RRL]

I have to agree somewhat with the sandman. I see it first hand.
The environmentalist have not necessarily explored every avenue. Fires are part of Natures way of house cleaning. Many species require fire to set off seedling. Take the Giant Sequoias for example. They now use controlled burns to "clean house" and set off seedlings. This is way different than previous years. Some species have a natural resistance to fires and live through them. You can see it from the many scars on those 2000 year old trees.

My point is that there are other avenues/possible solutions that seem to be blocked in many cases. On the other hand, much of it is Nature's display of it's awesome power. Don't forget the possibility of arsonists either. That changes everything.

As far as CA being overpopulated, that's true, especially in specific areas. But there is a huge vast expanse of land that is not populated either. About 150 years ago CA was not over populated. Where did all these people (like me) come from? And why? It's because of the opportunities that out weighed the possible disasters, I guess. And a choice of living where you want sounds pretty good to me. I would hate to see that change.

I hope those families that suffered losses are OK. Anytime I see a disaster like that it makes me cringe ... regardless of the reason.

AlanB, interesting observation you made. My wife and I were thinking the same thing.

 

[RobertN]

I think one of the issues is this is desert scrub. It's all natural. There are no harvestable trees out there. It is sage brush and other small, dry, oily scrub. Even in the best of conditions, this stuff is volatile. It would be hard to get anyone to go "thin" it; there is no commercial value to it. This is compounded by the fact that there is millions of acres of it.

The other personal observation I have made, seeing pictures and video, is this is a urban/wildland interface. In the urban environment, you keep your property up, maintain it, maintain safety clearance. But, on the other side of you fence, who is responsable? This especially, where people have a tract home backing up to the wild-land. These are standard, smallish suburban lots, backed up to millions of acres of desert.

The majority of the LA and San Diego area is just that, desert. If you go in to the middle of the city of Los Angeles, you're still in the middle of desert; it has just been covered with concrete...

Thee are some area's, yes, where you get to forest. Lake Arrowhead. but the majority of SoCal is, desert.

The problem with environmentalists is they won't support anything other than absolute restriction in various areas. The answer is almost never black and white, it's a shade of gray someplace in the middle of the two extremes. They don't realize "hey in order to help species X, we need to make sure it won't go up in a super fire and kill them all anyway"...

 

[the_sandman_454]

I guess I'm being too general and not 100% familiar with the SoCal vegetation. Most of the specific stuff I"m talking about applies better to places with many trees and the like. Then again why not try to find some prevention methods. How about a burn on the scrub within a certain distance of homes/businesses in a season during which it isn't too horribly windy. There has to be something that can be done to prevent things from getting out of hand like it does without changing what happens naturally i.e. fires are still going to happen, let's try to control *when* they happen so they're easier to handle.

Management and proactive actions are much preferrable to me than being reactionary and putting the lives of the firefighters, pilots and so forth at risk.

 

[MikePA]

One of the participants in the current news conference indicated new neighborhoods that follow current building and design requirements are suffering much less than the older ones.

By and large, in the new ones, there was lots of fear, some shrubbery damaged, but that's it. In the older ones, there are much more dire consequences.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

It amazes me how many people have the answers to our problems and yet we still have all of our problems.

 

[RobertN]

I think what you would find, is there are thousands of miles of perimeter around all these cities, and subdivisions. The immensity of scale is incredibly massive in this case. If they were to go in and create a 300' fire break around all the subdivisions, it would take years, and cost billons of dollars.

In this case, they really put the cart in front of the horse.

I How about a burn on the scrub within a certain distance of homes/businesses in a season during which it isn't too horribly windy. There has to be something that can be done to prevent things from getting out of hand like it does without changing what happens naturally i.e. fires are still going to happen, let's try to control *when* they happen so they're easier to handle.