Those are in Yosemite, sequoia, and kings canyon.
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Allow me to get on my soap box
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This problem is not 30, 40, or 50 years old. It started in 1910 after the Big Blow Up and the 10am rule. Over the last 110+ years bad decisions upon bad decisions, upon political decisions have been made. Thinking $500 million is going to solve this problem just compounds the problem.
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That problem I just referenced is a lack of Historical Knowledge, perspective and the political will to be honest with the public and not try to use KNOWLEDGE & POWER as a political weapon. Example 1 is Covid-19. Iâll rest my case
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NONE of us participating in this discussion is doing it with a Modem, Dial Up internet, a corded phone, or even a flip phone. We are doing it, in some cases with more technology power, in the plam of our hands than used to land Neil Armstrong on the Moon.
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Gone are the days of âIt takes time to gain experienceâ while that statement is still true. Who here still has a current set of Encyclopedia Britannica and uses it for research? No we use Google, Bing, Duck Duck GO for INSTANT information. We have taught our children this. I have seen preschoolers with Iphones get more information(GOOD & BAD) than their 30-40 something parents can get. Keep in mind the Smart phone is 15yr old. This problem started over 100yr ago and in the last 15yr society has actually gotten dumber and lazier.
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âDonât come to me with problems, come to me with solutionsâ I repeat that quote to my FF everywhere. Hopefully they are learning something.
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âif you want to solve the problem, throwing grenades from the outside will get you nothingâ Letâs face it, how many of us want to promote, do what it takes to promote? Too promote you have to drink some of the Kool aid. Itâs easier to sit behind a keyboard and Pontificate and complain. Instead of dedication, time, and sacrifice of oneâs personal life to see something through.
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Restating the obvious âHindsight is ALWAYS 20/20â a decision was made on July 4th about the priority of the fire. Want to learn how to âRob Peter to pay Paulâ go work in a dispatch center with a heavy call load. Dispatch a 2 alarm fire, then get 3-4 911 Medical aids and strip the fire dispatch for the medical aids. See how long it takes to replace those resources on the original dispatch THAT IS A CONFIRMED FIRE.
Ever heard the phrase âYou go to war with the Army you got, not the Army you wantâ. This problem didnât start overnight, nor will it.be fixed in the last 15yr of my career. However, I will take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for my actions. Sadly in America, in 2021 personal responsibility is an ENDANGERED SPECIES.
Stepping off my soap box.
Have a great weekend, Stay Safe, Maintain your SA, the weather is about to âget sportyâ in California and itâs not even August. Do what you can, with what you have, and make sure you take care of yourself and your crews. You havenât experienced âOh Crapâ till you have your own personal 100 acre lighting fire, in a lighting complex and dispatch says âNo Resources are available. Do the best you canâ
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If you donât have good evidence to support your statement please donât make it, I have friends who were there and tried to save the resort and cabins but that fire crowned as it was heading for those buildings.
I had friends on the fire that were turned away the first day right after reported. And Air units waved off. And FFâS commenting later that dozers went unused, areas that should have been protected better werenât . etc.
These were green boots. And some retired red ones.
Be Safe, SA.
Thanks for all you do.
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The dozers could have been used around Dardanelle and they had good air for helicopter use which would have helped alot but instead opted to rely ground crews which trying to clear what they could around structures. They opted to let the fire come to them and it came to them on its own terms unfortunately and put them at risk.
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Regarding CA-KNP-Lost, per Inciweb:
This is a full-suppression fire⌠fire personnel are utilizing a confine and contain strategy while also looking for opportunities for both direct and indirect containment actions
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âDonât understand how resource sharing worksââŚ
Thatâs why during one of the driest years on record in California, letting a fire burn shows a complete lack of foresight. What do we do for resources now that the tamarack fire is totally out of control and threatening towns? What about the resources needed for life safety now that could be used elsewhere?
The good news is that very soon there wonât be any forest left and wild land fires will be a thing of the past.
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âRisking the health of underpaid forestry technicians ââŚ
How would you rate the risk now, with a fast moving, intense heat, pyrocumulus/collapsing pyrocumulus beast, vs. 1/4 acre low intensity surrounded by granite, yada, yada, yada hike into or chopper in fire?
Every fire has the potential to destroy and take human life. This particular (tamarack fire) has thousandfold the potential harm to the health of underpaid forestry technicians than it did two days ago.
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Good evidence of this is taking a look at SPI land. One can drive through the forest and know exactly where private timber land begins and ends. These areas also do not experience the high intensity when fire starts, or burns into them.
Yes, âweâ made an uninformed mistake many years ago. The solution, however, is not to just let fire return unfettered into the ecosystem. âWeâ modified the ecosystem to a point where fire is way to dangerous and destructive. Until the forest is manually returned to pre-suppression condition, incidents like this will continue to occur. The high fuel loading and extremely hot fires do not leave a viable environment for regrowth, only thicker, more volatile brush species that will reburn every couple years.
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Sorry, but thatâs not true at all.
SPI lost 40,000 acres of their prime timberlands around Feather Falls in one afternoon last fall.
They lost thousands of acres in the 2014 King Fire.
They lost thousands of acres in the 2018 Camp, Carr, and Hirz Fires.
And at least 15% of the clearcuts they have done in the past 20 years have had to be replanted because of destruction by wildfire.
As far as manually returning the forests to a pre-suppression condition, good luck with that.
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No one said it wonât burn pyro, but it doesnât burn like the fed. Plain and simple facts from boots on the actual ground
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But additionally, when the SPI does burn, they actually go back and reforest it. The fed doesnât do that either so nothing but grease fuel grows back for the next time. Like I said before, everyone sees whats going on and the public is over it. No matter what the feds tell themselves it doesnât change reality
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Facts are what they are, show me your data, name the divisions and fires you are talking about.
The extreme flammability of many of Califorinaâs private timberlands is one of the reasons we canât actually manage fires on public land. Our biggest fires past few years are equal-opportunity destroyers, but slash-filled tree farms burn like the sun.
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Thanks Pyro. I find you to be a constant voice of reason. If I remember correctly, didnât we have a similar controversial fire move through the Woodfords area in the late 1980âs. I drove over Hwy. 4 on 7/7/21 and there was no smoke to be seen. This is tough country.
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Well I guess if I worked for the feds we could all be on the same team in the same bliss together
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I think what I have learned my my career is that the condition of our woods (public and private) is messed up way beyond our ability to fix it. The longer we pretend this isnât the case, the worse-off things get. Itâs like Tumbleweedâs post - we need to tell people the truth - that we canât begin to fix the problem, and that wildfires are going to do the heavy lifting of re-designing the landscape to a more âclimate-appropriateâ type of land cover.
The Forest Service has been so beaten down with lawsuits, leadership changes, and changes in what the public demands from them, they canât manage the forests they have, even before they burn, so expecting them to replant, thin, and keep fire from burning new tree farms just isnât going to happen. And even if we had the capacity to log, thin, burn, and replant at the scale we need to - tens of millions of acre - who is going to actually do the labor and pay for it? And who is going to build the new mills to handle all those logs. Itâs just not happening.
Like it or not, fire is the only tool that is up to the scale of the job of preparing our forests for the future.
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Quit charging the loggers for the timber and have them do it as part of the contract. They charge so much right now that the logging turns into a slash and grab just to pay the bills and get out
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Vs 100âs of thousands of acres of public land.
SPI owns almost all of the mills in NorCal. That is the last thing they want - it would destroy the market for the logs they cut on their own ground. The big timber owners absolutely do NOT want the Feds to start cranking out a ton of logs - right now they are making BANK off the fact they control most of the supply.
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Itâs a good conversation to have backed up with solid information. This stuff is not too hard to get the numbers on. Easy to get derailed into politics when you have these arguments in a data-free environment.
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