Elk IC reporting 4-5 acres. As anyone heard anything else ?
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Helicopter 205 from Vina is on scene.
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20 plus A out of happy camp
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Per inciweb 50 acres.
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The fire is cleaning up a snag patch, completely surrounded by the 2014 Frying Pan Fire. The trees that survived 2014 fires are not going to be killed by this fire, and if anything, this fire will kill a lot of the baby trees that came in after the last fire. Elsewhere in NorCal people are doing prescribed fires right now. Why? Because the conditions are perfect for good fire.
When we going to learn to just let the Klamath burn? All we are doing putting out shoulder-season fires is making the already-sick forests more overcrowded and out-of-wack. Would you rather let a fire burn thru the spring and clean up the woods, or go back there in August and watch helpless as the Slater Fire rips off tens of thousands of acres and countless homes.
The crews getting sent to put this fire out are now unavailable to do prescribed fire on their home units, this includes contractors. So not only are we putting out a fire that doesnât need suppression - we are also missing opportunities to get good fire on the ground elsewhere, or to train these firefighters in prescribed fire.
I know the USFS is just following policy and that they canât manage any fire that isnât a natural ignition, or they havenât got NEPA done for it, or they need to put their crews in training this week and donât have the resources to deal with it. But why staff it at all? How long can we keep blaming our failures on bad policy? I donât understand how we can be 20 years into the 21st century and still be so backwards with how we are dealing with fires in places like the Klamath.
Fire is two MODIS squares in center of this map. 2014 Frying Pan Fire in blue. Areas in light blue burned in 2006.
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100 percent agree. Why not let any type of start burn this time of the year? Wait, the FS is completely mis managed, and they would rather have large, resource damaging fires during the summer. Rather then manage the land, the just are looking for more money based upon the large fires they have. Donât understand why more people donât speak out about how the FS is no managing the lands for the tax payer.
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Talk to your politicians. Tell them they should let the fires burn. If they said so, the USFS would. But the public opinion isnât there yet to support that.
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An opinion I donât think you can prove.
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Do your research and see how the budget is dispersed. Youâll see that is not an opinion, it is fact. They get more preparedness/severity money based on fire activity and acres burned.
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Unfortunately that is not how it works. Our budgets are appropriated from congress and not based on acres burned.
Well, I suppose I was looking for a more rigorous definition of âproofâ, not one used by
too many conspiracy theorists these days.
Full disclosure, these funds support a fabulous retirement for me, so I am pretty familiar with how the budget is dispersed, as well as having some familarity with the ground where the fire is burning. My initial feeling is it is too bad this fire was in full suppression, but I am withholding full comdemnation since I have not seen the analysis. If only forest management was as simple as you think it is.
But the main point is in all my years I have never encountered anyone who believes
"they would rather have large, resource damaging fires during the summer. Rather then manage the land, the just are looking for more money based upon the large fires they have.â
That is a slur on many dedicated people.
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Well all I can say, from a in brief on a fire assignment in that area, the Forest Supervisor told us not to go direct and catch the fire. We had crews that said they could get it and we had the resources to do it, but the Forest Supervisor direction would not allow it. Next thing you know, the fire burned all summer and 5 teams assigned and burned over 100,000 acres. So you tell me then what is going on. Also the fire in question was only 5 acres when a team got ordered and showed up. You tell me why that is an acceptable practice.
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I mean there are practical answers to those questions. If youâre willing to listen, I will take the time to answer them.
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Which fire was that?
Lets step back and take a look at where we are in the fire season. Possible record setting drought for more then 2/3 of California. 100/1000 fuels setting new record lows. From someone who believes when appropriate there should be âManagedâ fire(Lightning, man caused ect.)on the landscape you have to look at the protentional conditions going forward. This is not a lightning start in late October a couple weeks from season ending eventâŚThis is a start at the beginning of what could be a long and devastating season for all of California. We should throw resources at a small fire to prevent it from coming a massive fire that will requires 1000âs of man/person hours of risk that could have been avoided. Look at what Red-Salmon turned into, do we think that was cost savings or risk adverse? Look at the first really big test of a let burn policy that Yellowstone conducted in 1988. Yes we have to look at new ways to bring natural or anthropogenic fire back on the landscape but this might not be the best year to test such a policy in California. And please do not confuse how Forest Service line officers impellent/develop policy with how FS/NPS/DOI/FWS and other federal firefighters feel or think about fire and its role in land management.
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You do realize this discussion involves a fire that occured over a month and a half ago? Conditions were more than appropriate for controlled burns at that time, IMO.
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Absolutely correct. Sadly though because each forest acts as an independant country of sorts, some District Ranger or Forest Supervisor who doesnât know a fire engine from a skateboard will make some irrational decision to appease the environmental extremists.
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