Here is a down and dirty 2 minute reference to a successful VMP, on many fronts. Resource benefit, training and ultimately reduction of spread of potentially catastrophic fire. The spread model in the intro is an actual SIM for the incident ( w no suppression action),incident audio and video.
Short, sweet and valid.
Interesting opinion article
UCLA has conducted significant research on the effects of wildland fire smoke. A recent study published in the journal Science Advances found that inhaling fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from wildland fires led to between 52,500 and 55,700 deaths in California over an 11-year period from 2008 to 2018 101 102. This study also estimated the economic impact of these health effects to be between $432 billion and $456 billion 101 102.
The research highlights that long-term exposure to wildfire smoke is becoming an ongoing problem, contributing to chronic disease formation 101 10. The study’s lead author, Rachel Connolly, emphasized the need for investment in forest management and climate mitigation to reduce these health impacts 101 10."
It is irresponsible for someone to make a bold statement that a 50 acre burn of star thistle would have “curbed” the Park fire. There was a nearly 500 acre VMP done just below Cohasset last year… and that did not stop it.
In 2017 the Pawnee Fire in LNU burned 17,000 acres in June, two months later the River and Ranch Fire blew around it like it was not there.
Making a public statement like that is an overstatement of facts and at the time it was made firefighters were still struggling to contain a large and damaging fire and really overselling the results of a 50 acres star thistle burn…
Shameful.
I think you’re responding from a place of personal malice, here, and not fully informed to the particulars of this scenario.
This story you’re talking about got launched based on something I said on a livestream. I lamented the fact we hadn’t been able to burn a planned star thistle unit in Bidwell Park that could have made a difference in controlling the Park Fire on IA. My comment was sucked into national news department spin mode and got wings of its own. I have taken many measures to clarify my statement, and taken full public responsibility for any damage caused my loose tongue.
As to the particulars:
The Park Fire was 10s of thousands of acres when it hit the 500-acre Cave RX you mention. It was .5 acres when it hit the 50 acres (right across the road) that had been planned for burning. If you want to shame me in a public forum, bring the facts and do it in person.
The only reason I made the comment in the first place was to try to drive a conversation about prioritizing prevention work, and the costs of inaction. It was not my intention to throw shade on the City or Chico FD, and I was extremely dismayed to see my comment spun in a way that blamed the people (our partners) who are actually doing more than just about any other municipality in the State to use fire for good.
The learning curve has been steep.
The nature of fire season coverage by regional/national media (sleepy most of the year, punctuated by explosive—but very brief—interest) doesn’t help. The problems are stuffed into a July-to-September clickbait craze and the solutions, which need to be all year round, are ignored.
Keep the faith Brother. You are respected and a positive influence and positive contribution to the education to this site and also have feet on the ground; not only words but actions.
As someone who contributes so much as you do and have, please ignore, as best as you can, the negative (ignoret ?) responses.
keep the faith brother, you are doing good!!!
Thank you Zeke for your leadership, for your willingness to endure that steep learning curve that is often a cost of stepping forward. Thank you for being an example of continued learning, re-thinking, and for taking responsibility for overreach (however small and infrequent).
You are a gentleman and a scholar.
Thanks. I don’t write off criticism from someone like @norcal74 as ignorance, though. We just have super-different life experiences within fire. They have been on the hook for a lot of real-world operational consequences, and felt pressures from the job that I’ll never know.
I’m glad to have the freedom to be a radical voice, at times (radical means ‘roots’, BTW). We’ve got a lot of problems with fire in our communities that aren’t going to be solved by the thinking that caused them. Across my career, I’ve had long leashes and the luxury of noodling about the bigger picture of wildland fire management in the abstract, while not being bound by the constraints or realities of working for a public agency. I hope I can keep saying the things many of you think, but can’t say out loud.
This forum, and @norcal74 in particular has helped pull me back to reality, at times, for example, helping me tone down my cheerleading for managed wildfire in the parts of California that aren’t somewhere between Redding and Crescent City.
I changed the name of this thread, BTW.
Honestly finding this write-up a little confusing & non-helpfull in moving the bigger Fire conversation forward. Also, its not lost on me that in one (or more) sentences we kick the horse of scolding the FS while trying to make a point of showing who is burning while the fed’s are not - then, you wrap up by asking who’s gonna do the work?? After you just higlighted all the other players in the arena who are doing the work now!? Id like to have heard some discussion about building towards a model of intra-regional burning and force multiplying AKA prepositioning resources when/where the Rx conditions call for it. Like the suppression model only different for Rx. We must move past/suspend the suppression is to blame convo & Fire policy of 1910 convo - if you still want to take the coversation to those places you are not helping things imo… 2cents from a booger picker… Edit; this is the convo in my head after re-reading the link - the “you” that i mention is the folks being quoted… \m/
Halting burning now because resources are deployed elsewhere seems strange. Much of the USFS land in the Sierra got some rain last week, there are storms lined up across the Pacific, all but a few of the fires on the Inciweb map are 6 to 10 weeks old and have not grown for weeks. Plus regions with more fires showing have prescribed fires on the map.
For reasons of earning some credibility it would be good to post number when making statements like R5 has. Shading isn’t helpful, transparency is good…In my (maybe not so) humble opinion.
A local SoCal forest currently has 2 of 5 crews available and only 15 engines available day to day. 5 of those exist engines being out of region. That equals a local work force in the 50% range.
Not have the labor to perform the project is the #1 problem. With the #2 problem being how do you pay for the project when all you have available is 50% of your labor and the rest being VIPR contractors.
And, b4 i forget
Once “we the people” get congress to act on pay/benefits for the Fed’s - Can “we the people” get our national fire training program(s) to FINALY establish a better model to a Fuels career & real Apprenticeships (in Fuels & Rx Fire) that build capacity and talent beyond the Gs 4/5 senior FF / Lead in the federal system. Please let’s grow this conversation also bcuz by not having a fuels program of excellence “we” are missing out on hiring the best & brightest. The #Fire Industrial Complex is just that - so i don’t want to see a bunch of contract specialists in #Fuels jobs to manage NGO’s and all other non Fed resources. That isnt the capacity OR talent pool our future generations need! If you kno you know…
A lot of the VIPR contractors are unavailable right now, also.
For edification, for understory burns in the Northern Sierra, we usually like to see the 10hr fuel moisture at or above 6%, and RHs between 20 and 50%. Temps 50-85%. You can go higher on temp or lower on RH depending on how the Probability of Ignition works out. A common target prescription max is 70% POI. 80% POI can work if you want taller scorch heights or aren’t as worried about holding. For example, you could potentially burn on a 90 degree day if your fine dead fuel moisture was a 5 (RH over 36%).
It’s better to base your prescription on a metric like POI than on hard and fast limits on RH and temp, because you can still get the fire effects you want on a hot/moist day or a cold/dry one.
Happenings in Rx Fire…
