Wouldn’t it have been better to allow logging and utilize some of that biomass? Second concern is air quality… wildland fire smoke is the biggest cause of air pollution on the West C
Depends on whether ya think biomass needs to be ‘utilized’. A forest is a functional thing in itself.
Meanwhile, summer smoke in the West Coast mountains is unfortunately, something people will need to adapt to. Sucks for the PCT hikers, Central Valley ag workers—we need to figure something out there—but the decades without smoke were probably the anomaly in the long term, not the recent years with it back. The more healthy burning that can be done in the other seasons with good conditions for ventilation, the better.
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You’re saying the entire population of the West, and occasionally the entire US should suffer and allow massive air pollution because the USFS cannot manage their land ? That’s insanity. Fire is a management tool and the USFS is misusing that tool… wildfire is not included in NEPA. Prescribed fire under defined weather and fuel conditions might be allowable…but you simply can’t burn your way to healthy forests.
I don’t think it’s a question of what we’ll ‘allow’, as many of the significant smoke-producing incidents have been essentially beyond our control and will continue to be without landscape-scale Rx burning. Rock and a hard place. That said, we’re getting off topic.
Looking better (more muted) on satellite IR than this time yesterday. Wonder if it’ll hold.
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This thread may not be the right place to have this discussion, if so I apologize.
There is reason to believe that air pollution from prescribed fires is considerably less dangerous than the pollution from massive wild fire. That reason is that it seems that the most dangerous pollutant is PM 2.5 (Particulate Matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers). PM 2.5 is hard on lungs but worse it gets into our blood stream and may even pass the blood/brain barrier. Little balls of weird carbon compounds are not good for any of our organs. We are not equipped to clean them out.
Big runs in heavy fuels result in a lot less complete combustion – thus a lot more PM 2.5 – then does a clean burn of the understory or piles of dead and downed.
The few studies that have been done seem to support this logic, but the answer is not fully locked down.
Our forest are a mess and we don’t fully understand how to clean them up or where the money to do it will come from.
It seems pretty clear that we need a multi-pronged approach and that we need to be careful to be skeptical of our own thinking so that we can learn as we go forward.
Thanks
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The reason they held off on tanker drops was because they were still getting civilians out of the area.
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Regardless of changing burn windows, in-season burning is still possible. We burned 150 acres today with Chico FD and a wide variety of NGO collaborators. At times, we could see smoke clouds from the Sites Fire.
LRA departments can do what they want with rx fire, regardess of burn restrictions on nearby SRA. Chico FD took some Facebook heat for burning during fire season, but the weather was in prescription and ample resources were available.
Conditions were very consistent today, with only minor changes in RH and temp between 8am and noon. High 70s, with RH 24-28%.
Here are some ramblings around the burn.
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#ScoopMissed = Yes!
Disappointed in Sac bee & others = Yes!
Surprised they missed the bigger points & context around this subject = Nope!
Can you watch & listen for yourself the youtube live stream where that exact comment came from and has since been thoroughly addressed by the owner = Yes!
2 cents here from a stakeholder - please no “cancel culture” or un-nicery! I hope Sacbee reads this too.
Choosing to narrow a readers view to a single comment as if “it” is a SCOOP du jour, at this point is dangerous and 100% mis-leading to the public. It’s 2024, Humans that live in/around fire ecosystems deserve more thoughtful/informative conversations & journalism WHENEVER land AND emergency management topic’s come up. Given the point of orgin of “the quote” - it’s beyond apparent that reporters (council members even?) are not well informed - at all perhaps - of the SOLID educational conversations, products, & community following the #lookout.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article290538999.html
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Zeke (in his livestream) and Quinn-Davidson’s (in the article) most interesting and salient point to me is the “power of small burns” stuff. A 50-acre burn in a local park might have prevented tens of millions in property and timber losses this year. Some relatively small projects saved a good chunk of Cohasset. Thinning along a single highway corridor seems to have preserved Butte Meadows. Etc.
The butterfly effect is real when it comes to fire on the landscape! I wish officials would see this and understand that when burns “don’t pencil out” on the local level it often ends up really not penciling out when it comes to blown-up Cal Fire/USFS emergency suppression budgets, hiked fire insurance rates, etc.
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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.
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Interesting opinion article
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The learning curve has been steep.
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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.
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