That’s what controlled burns are for. During controlled times of the season. During non drought years. On our terms. Are we still beating this horse?
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Saw this on another site. Pretty interesting reading from “olgist’s” and scientists.
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Mod Note: Everyone: We cannot allow our emotions to take control of our posts or responses. We are the professionals, we have a responsibility to ourselves and the public and media who read our posts to act in the professional manner that we all are capable of. We have had a very difficult past few weeks with a whole lot of lives and businesses destroyed. Having emotional outbursts are a part of all of that and how we all deal with things. If you reach that point, please, take a breather before you respond back on something which causes you angst. Even the Mods have to do that at times, myself included.
I am going to be taking these past few posts out, not because I am censoring anyone or any information but because these posts are no longer relevant to the Let it Burn discussion
Let’s please past this and proceed forward in the professional manner that we all very capable of.
Lastly, as always, if you have questions or concerns, please feel free to PM me.
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I think it’s good that the politicians see all this talk. They need to see that politics need to be taken out of the fire fight! This shouldn’t be political. I think we all (as firefighters) have the same goal when we go to a fire. We all hate seeing houses, communities, towns, and cities burn. We hate seeing people lose everything. We hate seeing our forests burn where we take our family camping… We are there to try and prevent that. It’s the political BS that affects the firefight. The forest service has this goal…. Cal fire has this goal…. Politics is driving the fight between red and green. There shouldn’t be a fight there!!! It’s complete BS for the people on the ground putting in the work when the work they are doing is not even supported because it was never even part of the “big plan” or “the big box”. There has been a lot of good, hard work done for nothing and that needs to stop. We are ALL, already stretched thin, fires are burning bigger, faster and hotter than ever before and are only controllable when the weather dictates and/if/or when we can plan further ahead and prep a line, support it, and fire it before the main fire front gets there and spots all across the line. We need to stop putting people in harms way if what they are doing is not even going to be supported and not part of the overall plan. The firefight is hard enough, we shouldn’t have to fight politics at the same time…
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And summertime in California is no time to “manage” or “monitor” a fire. Times have changed.
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A quote I heard today.
“This is the largest, multi agency Division/Group I’ve ever been apart of that BOTH agencies have been working together, lending and leasing equipment to each other for the common good”
It all starts at the grass roots. Treat your contemporary as you wish to be treated. If your contemporary is an “Alpha Henry” take the high road, and make it work.
This is long season, and it’s only Aug 11. Time to check our egos and DO WORK.
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We have all seen time and time again the devastating results of allowing fires to burn uncontrolled in California. There is a huge ecological difference between a fire that burns in the fall/spring and one that burnings in the middle of summer.
For a state as big and as populated as California the problem is much larger and more complex then simply saying we have to stop doing fire suppression and allow natural fire to burn.
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We go around and around on this topic every year. It’s not always possible for us to judge right away what is or is not a ‘devastating result’. The 2012 Reading Fire was a big black eye for managed fire, but 9 years later, it might keep the Dixie Fire from burning all the way to Shasta Lake.
Here are a few images on that topic, rendered into Twitter-sized morsels.
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Maximize our similarities and minimize our differences…
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Preaching it Chief
I learned “A thing or 3” all those years ago in Bat 15 12/73/84.
Had some GREAT mentors. Even the “Evil Reverend” taught me things I use to this day.
So thankful for the people named Clayton, Winder, Walker, Herzog, Weiser, King, Downey, Eaves, Sigsbee, Hutchinson, Etc
You know who I’m talking about. Thank you and the rest for all you taught.
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That’s not what happened with the lava incident.
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Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. You said something that is simply not supported by the facts on the ground.
Media coverage: When Lava Fire flared back up, questions started about Forest Service's firefighting strategy
Firefighters took off their gloves about 24 hours after lightning set fire to a stand of conifers in a jagged lava field on Mount Shasta’s northwestern flank late last month. The crew touched rocks and soil to test for heat — they all felt cold. They thought they were done.
But about an hour later, the fire’s glow lit up the sky again. U.S. Forest Service officials speculate the blaze crept, undetected, along parched root systems that web underneath rocky fields and through lava tubes, remnants of volcanic eruptions tens of thousands of years ago.
Mack said crews tracked the blaze in Siskiyou County Thursday after detecting lightning strikes and then navigated rugged, rocky terrain from the lava flows cascading down Mount Shasta on Friday morning.
But when the crews believed the ¼-acre fire was extinguished around 4 p.m. Friday they left the site, Shasta Trinity National Forest spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman said. They planned to watch it from afar and return at 6 the following morning for further monitoring.
Officials explained they also dumped more than 7,000 gallons of water and heat was not detected.
Details matter. No one ‘put eyes on’ and ‘determined it p[o]sed no threat.’ If you choose to be angry, be angry if you wish. But use care in what you say and how you say it. I flat guarantee that no one feels worse about this outcome than the firefighters who took their gloves off and put their hands on rocks and soil.
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