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Forest Service officials close all California national forests

latimes.com

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Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#191

Post by dmckeon »

nradov wrote: post #112
ch4s3 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably more effective to mandate less flammable construction, and stop forcing insurance companies to cover homes that have burned multiple times.

California also has government sponsored fire insurance for property owners that can't obtain commercial insurance. While this is good for individual property owners it's not really fair that taxpayers have to subsidize them. We're not allowing the free market to efficiently price in risks. https://www.cfpnet.com/

Subsidized, but not fully sponsored. I live about a mile outside the edge of the 2021 CZU fire, and our insurance costs about tripled, even with the CA FAIR plan. We’ve followed the CalFire “defensible space” guidelines and covered vents with fine screen, but improving survivability for that existing house from there would mean reroofing with metal or tile, removing or replacing all wooden decking, and covering T-111 siding with stucco or stone. Not cheap. Also effectively a different house. Multiplied by all the homes in woodlands, still not cheap. For anyone who has always wanted to live in the woods, consider living near the woods instead.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#192

Post by MichaelApproved »

olivermarks wrote: post #170
MichaelApproved wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a media company promotes anti-vaccine and QAnon conspiracies, as the Epoch Times does, I will refuse to look at anything they produce. Those are my basic standards for how trustworthy a media company is. You’re free to choose your own.

I happen to know fire personnel in California and also people working as docents in redwood forests. If you choose to have your information laundered through your preferred political channels good luck with that. I think most of us can read or watch perspectives on RT, the BBC etc and know what their perspective is likely to be without being seduced or tainted by it. That video is very close to what I've been hearing…

Yes, I’d trust my “laundered” sources over some random person’s second hand anecdotal information from unnamed “fire personnel”.

You might be fine with anti-science anti-vaccine conspiracy spreading media sources trying to influence you with their lies but I’ll pass.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#193

Post by subsubzero »

gorwell wrote: post #111

Can anyone explain this? "So early on, Newsom identified some key wildfire prevention projects, and that includes things like forest thinning and prescribed burns, and they were meant to protect some of the most vulnerable communities in California. And he claimed 90,000 acres were treated, but we found that's not true. The state's own data shows that, in reality, it was less than 12,000 acres, so just a fraction of…

Its basically all Newsoms fault these fires are raging out of control(recently) My family and myself have lived in California my entire life and I have never seen the state in such a state of dysfunction(from environment, to social collapse etc), heres an article that puts the blame solely in his lap:

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/06/23/newsom-misled-t...

Newsom tried to lie his way out by blaming climate change which is laughable, here is a 40 year usgs scientist roundly refuting that lie:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/04...

Here is an article talking about why 2020 was so bad in california for wildfires: https://www.insider.com/california-facing-a-shortage-of-inma...

And things are looking worse as Newsom is closing the prison inmate fire training programs which help train firefighters: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/desperate-need-these-pr...

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#194

Post by dwaltrip »

olivermarks wrote: post #170
MichaelApproved wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a media company promotes anti-vaccine and QAnon conspiracies, as the Epoch Times does, I will refuse to look at anything they produce. Those are my basic standards for how trustworthy a media company is. You’re free to choose your own.

I happen to know fire personnel in California and also people working as docents in redwood forests. If you choose to have your information laundered through your preferred political channels good luck with that. I think most of us can read or watch perspectives on RT, the BBC etc and know what their perspective is likely to be without being seduced or tainted by it. That video is very close to what I've been hearing…

Perhaps you can find a less tainted source to share with us?

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#195

Post by greendave »

ip26 wrote: post #188
OneEyedRobot wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't hold me to it, but I seem to remember seeing a study showing that prehistoric California had roughly 10x the current burn acreage.

Probably, but megafires sterilize the soil. Low intensity fires recover much more quickly. Ideally we'd be able to gradually reduce the burn backlog without letting it all go in a few really, really big years.

Yes, there’s an assumption by lots of folks that things will ‘recover’ and return to a similar state as the past, but that’s not what usually happens with megafires, especially with a warmer, drier climate.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#197

Post by charles_f »

bamboozled wrote: post #65
charles_f wrote: post #49

Sad but probably efficient. I'm in bc where we've been devastated by forest fires, with cities burning and thousands evacuated. And yet, every other time I get out into the forest I see idiots smoking their freaking joints. The soil is half buried in super dry pine needles, but people still want their kick.

Do you think that smokin' a joint is really enough to set off something like this? Because it's clearly a combination of things that are required to create a fire of this magnitude. Sure a joint could "start a fire" but a lot of other things could too. Maybe we just don't like to admit it but climate change is here and it's here for real.

> Do you think that smokin' a joint is really enough to set off something like this?

Yes[^1].

> Sure a joint could "start a fire" but a lot of other things could too.

This is whataboutism[^2]. The fact that other things can start a fire doesn't make starting it with a joint or cigarette less of a possibility

> a combination of things that are required to create a fire

Like hot weather and dry vegetation?

> Maybe we just don't like to admit it but climate change is here

And so we should stop smoking joints in the forest when it's hot and dry to prevent starting fires?

[^1]: https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=327 [^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#198

Post by anigbrowl »

gorwell wrote: post #111

Can anyone explain this? "So early on, Newsom identified some key wildfire prevention projects, and that includes things like forest thinning and prescribed burns, and they were meant to protect some of the most vulnerable communities in California. And he claimed 90,000 acres were treated, but we found that's not true. The state's own data shows that, in reality, it was less than 12,000 acres, so just a fraction of…

Explain what part of it? In that article, the California fire chief took responsibility for communicating the wrong information to the governor's office. I'm gonna guess the pandemic had something to do with last year's shortfall, but this really needs more indepth research that can dig through a few years' worth of records.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#199

Post by anigbrowl »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #113
dav wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moat won’t work as well as you probably think. A lot of the problem comes from the sky raining down embers on flammable roofs and such...

A moat is not a horrid idea. When Paradise was burning I was thinking if I lived in a fire prone envionment; I would have sprinklers on roof of my home. It would be a simple 1/2" copper pipe feeding a few sprinkler heads on the roof. Maybe a few mercury switches placed around the property, or remotely controlled through the phone line, wifi, or sat phone enabled? Nothing too elaborate. It wouldn't protect everyone. I…

While these are earnest and constructive suggestions that would work in some contexts, I'm not sure you're taking the drought conditions into account. The basic problem we have in California is that water levels are hitting historic lows while forests are bone dry and so are the winds that fan fires.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#200

Post by akira2501 »

giantrobot wrote: post #17
akira2501 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This always comes off as buck-shifting to me. Newsom is the governor of the 5th largest economy in the world, I'm sure there are many unconventional mechanisms available to him to get action on these things.

National Forests are federal land owned and managed by the federal government. Why would you think the governor of any state would seize those forests? Even if California decided to force those forests to be open...they're being closed because of the extreme fire danger in many parks. Why in the world would the state want to open them up? Fires don't care about property lines. A fire that starts in a National Forest…

> Why would you think the governor of any state would seize those forests?

Why would you come to that conclusion? He's a politician, I would assume he'd use _political_ pressure to get action.

> Fires don't care about property lines.

Precisely. If the land is being managed in a way that is raising risk and danger to surrounding land, why would you stand idly by and defer to Washington D.C?

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