Remember in the last year or two we had several fires during offshore wind events. Some were caused by PG&E but one was caused by shoddy aerial premise wiring and one was caused by a tent peg/hammer interface.
For whatever reason the Department declined to prosecute those two.
I don’t know if they should have been prosecuted but ignitions are ignitions…
Good choice for when your bumper isn’t big enough for an actual, thoughtful, real solution.
It seems that a lot of people, including most politicians are making this a single threaded problem. PG&E management does rightfully deserve much criticism over their decisions to not properly maintain their clearance and infrastructure. However, I personally see this as a much larger multi-faceted issue. When I first started as seasonal in SCU, we used to conduct fuel reduction burns in the late fall consisting of several thousand acres. Those were highly effective in creating sustainable breaks in the fuel beds, providing better range land and maintaining the native vegetation. In today’s world, a few hundred acre burns are considered to be major success stories.
As time has progressed, people who have moved into the WUI, tend to provide less and less defensible space clearance, which does nothing to prevent a wildfire from damaging or destroying their home or possessions.
The political landscape is becoming or has become, such that fire is always seen as bad thing and the consequences of that belief system are becoming more and more evident with the amount of destruction these fires are having.
The real question for me, is how to get the political landscape to recognize that VMP or fuel reduction burns will begin to recreate the much needed buffer between the civilian population and a very destructive wildland fire.
ADD: One of the effects of wall to wall media coverage of major wildland fires is that the general public only sees the devastation created by these big fires. Nobody ever really gets to see that the Rx burns are extremely beneficial to the ecosystems in the area. Other than this forum, nobody really even knew about the Caples Rx burn until it escaped and became treated as a wildfire. The media tends to, perhaps unwittingly sometimes, only focus on the sensational news, which large fires tend to be.
This is one of those discussions that I’ve been dabbling in with friends and family and glad to see it here as well. I’m in a unique position to really see the fire side, the PGE side, and the affected citizen/community side.
We as a society have become so quick to blame, or demand blame (anywhere else but me right?) and then quickly raise the pitchforks. It’s in our political sphere, it’s in our personal sphere, it’s at work, it’s everywhere. Just like what our massive businesses have become, capitalizing on the gains and socialize the losses, we are demanding the benefits of being a stakeholder, but not committing to the cost and weight of being a stakeholder. We vehemently yell at the problem, but when it’s time to put up, we shut up.
We want a rural house with a view. We want property with no government fingers or regulations touching it. We want electricity and 5 bars of cell service to it. We want it all. But we don’t want to assume any risk for that. PGE better keep that 15mile rural line energized to my property so I can watch the game and keep my meat frozen. There wasn’t even any wind on my property!
Committing to being a stakeholder requires getting dirty, it requires some ugly questions. Questions not meant to place blame, but to get dialog started so we can grow and bypass the damn waste of time the blame game is. Are we all ready to admit that despite public opinion, PGE does in fact spend millions on maintaining their system? Can we also admit that, with hindsight, it certainly wasn’t enough, or timely enough, especially in the changing climate? Is that…neglect? 
Are we also adult enough to understand our climate is changing right here in our backyard with prolonged fire conditions and drier fuels; weather systems that seem to be shifting 10yr storms into 1yr storms, and 50-100yr storms into 5-10yr storms? Are we ready to admit that we still want 24/7 power, on lines traversing that drying tinderbox faster than PGE can/is hardening it? Are we ready to admit that many of us curse at the beautiful trees being cut down, at the PGE copters flying low over our backyards, or at the power bill rising to catch up with what it maybe should have been earlier?
Are we ready to admit we have a mess of captured regulatories with our CPUC, legislators, FCC etc so companies spend money on lobbyists to avoid improving any of these utilities beyond the minimal so that profits and bonuses can soar? Are we ready to admit we allowed the entire cellphone infrastructure to be built with zero fed or state regulation regarding backup power? Are we ready to admit we allowed the phone companies to transition their copper (regulated since early 1900’s) over to fiber (bypassing instead of transitioning those regulations) so they also don’t require backup power? Are we ready to vote appropriately to start cleaning this greedy mess up, from our local council on up to state and fed?
And the hardest question to ask for us in this group (hold on, putting my ARFF suit on for this one), did any of us on these fires make a decision that inadvertently allowed that fire to grow bigger?
Are we ready to admit that regulations citing better building codes, utility maintenance and hardening, logging practices that don’t cause crowning, etc should be looked at?
Our current practice of pointing a finger to persecute/prosecute the spark (or not, in the case of Tubbs, Ranch, and Carr fires) doesn’t take into consideration any of the ugly questions above. Is that spark beholden to all that above? Damned that spark occurred in Nov and not in January, that neighbor’s mess caused your house to burn, the trees are a decade into drought and beetle kill, that DIVS didn’t hold their ground when they could have, that wonk in a cubicle in the air pollution office 400 miles away said no to the VMP a year before that could have prevented this, that politician that took money for a vote, that CEO who should have spent 30% instead of 20% revenue on maintenance.
edit: sorry for wall of text - that added up quickly
Well that’s what I meant to say.
No more steel wheels on travel trailers, Plastic or composite? Carr fire…
Well said Norcal.
How do we get the politicians to log into this and, do they care about the facts?
Very well said
This (clearcuts worse than selective cuts) is not the case. Selective cuts leave more slash that is more difficult to clean up. And multiple entries cause far more disturbance to the soil, remaining trees, and just about everything else. Plus, multiple entries increases exposure of the woods to potential sources of ignition. And second growth, well - managed, is healthier, more resistant to disease and bugs – hence less prone to hot wildfires. Modern clearcutting, properly done, is far and away the better timber management model in the long run, unless some environmental factor militates against it.
I’d be OK with your post if you had just said "It depends’.
All of your statements can legitimately be debated. Location, economics, timing, fire regimes, past practices, land use objectives and projected changes in climate should dictate management strategies. Your prescription doesn’t leave much room for resilience. Telling is your use of the term ‘timber management model’. Even privately owned lands have more going on than wood growth. Patch size and deliberate monoculture have huge implications for future growth, fire effects, and fauna response, especially in the mixed-severity fire regime of the Klamath/Siskiyou region.
Don’t take me for a tree-hugger. I had a great career and pension greatly supported by BD (brush disposal collections from timber receipts on the 2 largest timber producing National Forests. I have also seen large investments in KV dollars (reforestation collections) pissed away in the Klamath because the little trees that were planted will never make it to rotation because of fire.
I’ll stand by my 25 years experience working in fire and fuels across the Western US. My comment about the flammability in clearcuts is specific to interior Northern California, especially since we stopped burning slash. I find most conversations about forestry are best had in the woods, and am happy to go on a hike with anyone who wants to talk about fire and fuels.
We could selective cut all the acres and masticate behind it all and make everything look like Central Park but the economics would not support it. This stuff has to be able to pay for itself and it used to do exactly this 50 years ago. Not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Clear cut patches may suffer unfortunate untimely combustion events but so will it if it is left to grow forever into dog hair and brush and it will be worse then.
I’ll take a hike with ya and stand next to you to support your comments. Well stated.
sign me up!!
Remember the 19th watchout situation is california firefighters because they want to their cell phones instead of the radio and want you to call them. Thats the stupidest thing ive heard someone say today. Just say you don’t have cell service.
So I agree to an extent. There are something that’s are better via phone such as 215 info, minor injuries that don’t require transport, driving directions etc. However, I absolutely agree that we are becoming too reliant on phones for communication on fires. My biggest issue being that it’s a two way conversation. When things are said on the radio, everyone can hear and it enhances everyone’s SA.
Not a new thing, though. Not much different from the ‘meet me for a face to face’, I think.
With these fires being so large it allows the face to face being done via phone and better optimizing the time of the divisions and branches staying in their respective areas.
Does state parks do everything over the radio?
That vast majority of state park staff communications isn’t allowed over the radio because it has to go through our dispatch centers at all times and they don’t want to hear maintenance talking about an overflowing septic tank or trash can when they have to listen to law enforcement dealing with drownings, traffic accidents, and idiots. We text or call each other. When it gets excessive I remind people that the department doesn’t pay for our phones.
Chuckling, I have that sticker in the back window of my pickup, the one we use to chase and service the water tender. It’s true, Log it, Graze it, or Watch It Burn. H.P.