Is California on fire because of tree huggers???

[bassman]

I live in Saskatchewan, canada and we are not as populated as you guys there down in the US so we dont have alot of people saving stuff .
I was told that anytime anyone cuts a tree or better yet goes into the forest with a saw there is a huge turnout of people wanting to stop them at any cost.
then the forest gets overgrown and if a fire starts there is no way to stop it.
Is the true ???

shayne

 

[Old Monkey]

Southern California fires are sustained by grass and brush but the severity comes from the hot off shore breezes called Santa Anas. The brush down there is thick and very combustible. One plant called manzanita grows in excess of 15' high in some places, growing so thick you cannot walk through it. Trees are not as big factor in So Cal fires.

 

[bassman]

Is this not an easy fix with a big scale mower like a brush cutter ???
take out a few strips and then it can be contained.
or no ??

 

[blunt]

I heard a theory it was because the bush was alot thicker that usual due to better fire control. Double that with new dwellings now being built a lot closer to the edge of thick growth.

Good topic

 

[underwor]

Prior to settlement, fire came through most of those areas every one to two years. There was no chance for the chaparral to grow to the size it does now, hence cooler fires. Also combine the steep topography and the Santa Anna winds and you have the fixings for a real fire storm. Now put in a lot of houses up in the trees and brush on narrow winding roads that are hard to access and have only one access or egress besides and no fire fighter in his right mind wants to trap himself or equipment like that. It is a fire ecosystem and only one plant or animal has not adapted, Man.

Wait a couple months until the rains come, then it really gets interesting. If you can find a copy of "The Burning Season" that was put out by the Weather Channel a few years back, it gives a real good account of what the problems are.

 

[Old Monkey]

Is this not an easy fix with a big scale mower like a brush cutter ???
take out a few strips and then it can be contained.
or no ??

The terrain can be very steep and rocky. In most areas mechanical brush removal is not feasible. I fought wild fires for ten years in most of the western states. Southern California has the worst fire fighting conditions of anybody. It has burner before and it will burn again.

 

[cwelvy]

California, in the last couple years, increased the defensible space from 30 ft. to 100 ft. from forest to dwellings. Southern CA is the very hot chaparral-brush ecosystem which will unavoidably go through periodic high-intensity fires.

This is the "Halloween scary" public utilities commission for the state of CA. Pretty soon we are going to have to exhale in bags.

Three essential programmatic initiatives for the Commission and Investor owned utilities included:

* All new residential construction in California will be zero net energy by 2020;
* All new commercial construction in California will be zero net energy by 2030; and
* The Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) industry will be reshaped to ensure optimal equipment performance.
Where can I find a solar powered chainsaw?

 

[Al Smith]

It is a shame the amount of devistation those wild fires have caused .No doubt that perhaps mudslides could result from the vegatation being burned off at a later date.

California has for years had the most stringent anti- polution and energy usage related laws on the books.As far back as the 70's the big three had special engines that were destined for cars sold in Cal,.It seems however that what ever California does the rest of the country follows suite a few years later.

 

[buckwheat]

I think you'll see that the "experts" are taking a hard look at the policy of immediately extinguishing all brush fires in past years, rather than letting them burn a bit in order to remove a lot of the ground cover.

 

[drmiller100]

I think you'll see that the "experts" are taking a hard look at the policy of immediately extinguishing all brush fires in past years, rather than letting them burn a bit in order to remove a lot of the ground cover.

oh yeah, that works.

policy here is to let any fire burn 48 hours while the experts figure out what to do.

idaho burned a million acres this summer.

one.
million.
acres.

 

[bassman]

so it seems that this is a people building houses in bad places thing...
like those people that are flooded out every year and they rebuild in the same spot..
I have been in that area over the years and i am amazed how steep some of the drive ways are and how they build in any spot they can.
the weather is very nice all the time so i see why they like it there so i guess they should also understand that a fire may take them out from time to time.

shayne

 

[Old Monkey]

It is a shame the amount of devistation those wild fires have caused .No doubt that perhaps mudslides could result from the vegatation being burned off at a later date.

California has for years had the most stringent anti- polution and energy usage related laws on the books.As far back as the 70's the big three had special engines that were destined for cars sold in Cal,.It seems however that what ever California does the rest of the country follows suite a few years later.

When I was a kid we drove down to Los Angeles to compete in a track meet. The air was so foul, I did not think we could run without dying. The air in SoCal seems a lot cleaner to me as a result of a lot of the changes they have made. California has had no choice but to push for less emissions. Kids have to play inside a lot of days because smog alert days.

Control burns or "prescribed fire" as it called now, doesn't work as well in brushy conditions. If you wait for wetter, safer conditions, the brush doesn't burn thoroughly enough and no one wants to deliberately ignite it if it is hot and dry. I don't think that anyone has the testicular fortitude to light prescribed fires in the urban interface down there. In some places they have tried using goats to keep the brush down and have had good success with it. In other places they use inmate crews to clear brush around urban areas.

 

[hornett22]

the libs aren't known for t heir conservation efforts.

I live in Saskatchewan, canada and we are not as populated as you guys there down in the US so we dont have alot of people saving stuff .
I was told that anytime anyone cuts a tree or better yet goes into the forest with a saw there is a huge turnout of people wanting to stop them at any cost.
then the forest gets overgrown and if a fire starts there is no way to stop it.
Is the true ???

shayne

mostly smoke and mirrors along with feel good politics.i'd say they are mostly to blame.

 

[04superduty]

I think you'll see that the "experts" are taking a hard look at the policy of immediately extinguishing all brush fires in past years, rather than letting them burn a bit in order to remove a lot of the ground cover.

that has been the policy for alot of the US for a very long time, put out every fire. now there is a huge amount of stored up fuel just waiting for either a stupid human or mother nature to get it going. fires use to go through the forest without getting to the crowns of the trees, now they have that built up fuel that allows the fire to climp up and really get going. somewhere there is a video of a huge wild fire where the trees would literally explode becuase they would get so hot so fast.

 

[slowp]

I don't think the fires were any worse this year than they've been in the past.
Just more houses in the way now. I spent a Thanksgiving somewhere in Orange County on the lines and was amazed at the brush and what they gave us to cut line with...brush hooks. We whined and whined and finally got chainsaws and then made progress. The terrain is very steep and the brush is thick, doesn't bend, and is pokey. The only trees I saw were some pines down in the bottom of the canyons. Brush is what grows there, houses have been built in the way. Southern Collyfonia is a dangerous place to live.