I totally understand what you’re saying and i appreciate your words!
For most of my life & career i would have argued the exact same thing. Now, given what i know, what ive experienced & continue to see and learn - my views have changed somewhat.
Some thoughts below after sitting a while & thinking about your reply. Apologies up front if they don’t make sense. I don’t mean to sidetrack this thread, hopefully the mod’s will allow it - if not i understand.
IMO..
@pyrogeography took the 1st thought i had and put it into words better than i could. The IA leadership probably didn’t show up thinking that. My thought = it was probably the fire behavior characteristics at the time that drove strategy & tactics during IA & extended attack, and it’s been a try and catch-up game since then. For sure they were keenly aware of how the Madre et al behaved.
These are the thoughts - in no special order - that i continue to have after sitting with your reply..
We’ve #wui, #firesafed & #Rx’ed our communities & wildlands into these dilemmas partly because we don’t treat for the =>80th percentile fires. Even though we’re having more and more of them.
We’ve legislated and governed ourselves smack dab into the issues we have now - proving (among other things) that nature holds the trump cards & the jokers regardless of how well thought out, planned or legislated we think we are.
We’ve protected and suppressed ourselves & wildlands into deep trouble - all while becoming experts at stoping most fires when they are small.
We continue to situate ourselves & belongings in the dangerous places - places where there are way more threats than just wildfires AND those fires that look far away from homes/people really arent. And, MANY of the places that aren’t wui now will become wui sooner than later.
We continue to build our dwellings out of flimsy weak materials despite using passive & active suppression systems and fancy resistant materials that will still combust - even on the heels of #Palisades type conflagrations.
We keep showing up to the same control lines & fire scars and increasingly we watch new fires burn right past & thru them. Sometime we get lucky and they dont. Luck doesn’t last forever.
We keep expecting responders to show up repeatedly to the same sacred ground where people have died fighting fires expecting zero bad outcomes & zero flammable structures to burn down even when surrounded by flammable vegetation.
We continue to see acres burned increasing even when/if occurrence is lower. And, we are still loosing or hurting responders for all the above / same reasons.
Given all that - i feel it’s safe to assert that “we the people” continue to expect to be saved & protected no mater what is changing (or not) in the environment and/or in the neighborhoods and places we live, play & work. Its staggering to think about - i’m confident we cant keep doing all the same things and expect better outcomes. All the flammable places will burn at some point - for one reason or another - so we have to continue to evolve our mindsets & practices to have the best chance for positive outcomes. To me that evolution has to include our emergency & land management models & midsets - all of them. Thats not to say throw baby out with bathwater BUT it does include entertaining alternative scenarios from what those who fought fire & managed the land before us though about - even if its in a wilderness area in dirty aug on the west coast.
I once heard a story regarding Einstein’s understudy - perhaps you’ve heard it?
At the beginning of each school year Einstein would give a test to his understudy. Year after year for many years the understudy took the test and after a couple seasons was successful in passing it with an A++. Then one year he took that same test before another new school year and failed it horribly. When he asked why he failed he was told that although the questions remain the same the answers have changed. The answers changed in part because of evolution and advancement in thought, sciences, human needs etc. I needed to hear that story - It resonated deeply with me & its one i still reflect on to this day. Don’t mean to be so long winded - i was conditioned (by uncle sam) to talk, think & write in run-on sentences.. End of report.
