Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

boulderbeat.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 241 posts

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#171

Post by putnambr »

BobbyJo wrote: post #15
njarboe wrote: post #13

One of the big problems is that controlled burns can and do become uncontrolled burns. The largest ever wildfire in New Mexico was started as a planned burn (more honest label) just last year. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/05/2...

I'd rather experience frequent uncontrolled burns in areas that do regular controlled burns than even a single uncontrolled burn in an area that doesn't.

Without prescribed burns it's only a matter of time until we experience another 'Big Blow Up' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#172

Post by pvaldes »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #161
pvaldes wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...then we would have a case of environmental terrorism. Terrorists like Gary Maynard, Alexandra Souverneva, Viola Liu... 800 wildfires in California in 2022 were arsons.

Terrorism is used to influence politics. This would be simply to achieve a practical result of a healthier forest, so it would not be terrorism.

First, why are you sure that this didn't influenced elections results?

100 people killed or still missing. Many killed only in one wildfire by the mud floods that came later. Helicopter pilots and firefighters killed. More than 13500 homes and human structures destroyed only in 2020 and 2021.

Not all fires were deliberated, but too much wildfires were deliberated to be statistically random. We'll never know how much of them were attacks. A few people managed to spread chaos in entire villages, forced the authorities to evacuate tens of thousands of people, nuked the local budgets, and introduced a lot of tension in the economy and society. And it cost them practically nothing.

And I'm not talking about the people killed and injured, or the natural resources lost (like millions of liters of freshwater stored in the area that were lost and have some, non negligible, economical value).

"Maynard's fires were placed in the perfect position to increase the risk of firefighters being trapped between fires" [1]

If this is not terrorism, nothing is. Don't fool yourself. The only difference between a "non cleaned" and a "cleaned" forest (whatever it means), is that the terrorist will carry its own can of gas.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/08/11/1026700103/former-college-pro...

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#173

Post by joe_the_user »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #151
joe_the_user wrote: post #145

The fundamental problem that controlled burns face today is that there has been a huge and irresponsible increase in development on "Urban-wildland border". Here in the California Sierras, you have a uniform peppering of (often luxury) houses outside of the various small urban areas. Those forests naturally burn on a regular basis but with this situation, any controlled burn is going to threaten some number of houses…

This is not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that fires were suppressed for nearly 200 years and now turn into raging infernos. Fires were suppressed first for economic reasons, and then later for misguided Environmental reasons Forest fires of a historically typical magnitude would pose much less Danger to communities adjacent to wildlands. This is further complicated by the fact that any of these…

It depends how you want to put. Fire suppression is indeed the fundamental cause and the shape of development is the barrier to fixing it.

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#174

Post by XorNot »

samtho wrote: post #115
wswope wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. I was 100% in the pro-controlled-burn camp until I happened to stumble upon the consequences of rubber hitting the road. A few months back I was visiting family in New Mexico and chatting with some locals. I asked offhandedly about if they did controlled burns out where we were… and boy did I immediately realize it was a sore subject. Last year, the US Forest Service set off the biggest wildfires in t…

This is not a good reason to be anti-controlled burn. You said yourself that this was due to negligence by the USFS. If anything this should highlight the importance of doing controlled burns so that there is minimal chance of these raging infernos cropping up. Rather than blaming the burn, maybe people need to be held responsible instead.

> Rather than blaming the burn, maybe people need to be held responsible instead.

Wherein you've created the same problem in the opposite direction. Who's going to volunteer to do controlled burns if they can be held personally liable for failures?

Starting from "prove you didn't cause the problem" with such a dynamic and hard to control activity is setting up the same issue.

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#175

Post by tristanbvk »

brodouevencode wrote: post #166
stcroixx wrote: post #12

The only federal regulation I saw referenced in the article were clean air regulations. Otherwise, it appears states and their residents are imposing additional barriers. And public opinion is a local issue of course as well. I don't know if it's really possible to change public ignorance, particularly if the strong opinions are political, so this might be a case where it makes sense for the federal government to ste…

At least with the states imposing regulations it's limited to that state. I don't see how Colorado effects neighboring states that presumably are doing what they are supposed to do. If Wyoming is running controlled burns but Colorado is not, then (admittedly in this very simple thought) the fires will be more easily contained because they have done their diligence. The citizens of that state should step in and make t…

Good state enjoyer. Thank you for acknowledging the role of the states over the feds.

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#176

Post by JumpCrisscross »

stcroixx wrote: post #12

The only federal regulation I saw referenced in the article were clean air regulations. Otherwise, it appears states and their residents are imposing additional barriers. And public opinion is a local issue of course as well. I don't know if it's really possible to change public ignorance, particularly if the strong opinions are political, so this might be a case where it makes sense for the federal government to ste…

> it appears states and their residents are imposing additional barriers

As long as the states imposing the barriers are bearing their own costs, I don't see reason for federal intervention. The situation gets complicated in the West, because a lot of the forest is federal.

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#177

Post by XorNot »

Filligree wrote: post #94
ROTMetro wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being the devil's advocate, when my mother was dying of cancer there were forest fires here. She had to leave the area and stay at a hotel far away at great cost/physical discomfort (at that point she had a hospital bed at home). There are people who physically can't handle the higher particulate amount, what do you propose we do with them? Let them suffer/die?

But the burn will happen anyway. It'll just happen at a different time, when it hasn't been prepared for, with less control and more particulates as well as destruction of communities.

No it won't. It might happen. Or it might go years before happening in that area. Or you might move away before it does.

But you don't get to use your perception of inevitability to cause harm and financial damage for someone else.

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#178

Post by joe_the_user »

runtime_blues wrote: post #154
joe_the_user wrote: post #145

The fundamental problem that controlled burns face today is that there has been a huge and irresponsible increase in development on "Urban-wildland border". Here in the California Sierras, you have a uniform peppering of (often luxury) houses outside of the various small urban areas. Those forests naturally burn on a regular basis but with this situation, any controlled burn is going to threaten some number of houses…

That's how development always happened in much of the US. Cities expanding into forestland or grassland. The problem isn't that the homes are all of sudden luxurious, or that we somehow do less planning than in the 1880s or 1960s. It's that a mix of well-intentioned environmental policies and activism mean there's no fuel reduction happening at all. Controlled burns are one way, but logging is another.

Yes but ultimately No and No. US cities have always expanded but the current level of "exurban" development is new - a continuation of the expansion trend no doubt but still more expansiveness, sufficient to be a barrier to fixing the problems created by fire suppression forestry.

And logging doesn't fix things the way natural fires fix things. Logging companies only want big trees and a sustainable forest has big trees that survive fires and little tree that are removed by modest fires. Clear cut areas tend to burn quite intensely because they're all small tree.

Re: Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

#179

Post by rgmerk »

anonporridge wrote: post #46
hcurtiss wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's it. I think it's more a consequence of democracy versus autocracy. An autocracy could make these trade-offs without political consequence. Of course, autocracies come with other profound challenges. Most I think agree that a benevolent dictator produces the best outcomes. The problem is that human benevolence is fickle, and subject to interpretation -- invariably leading to violence.

I think this does hit something. There's a reason by China is having no problem rolling out high speed rail across the entire country on the order of a decade while California can't even roll out a single line in the same time. China can just bulldoze entire villages while the little people have no recourse to resist. That power is incredibly useful for getting things done, but the big problem of succession makes tha…

California HSR is a dumb project, as are some of the more marginal Chinese HSR lines (and many of the HSR lines built in Europe, undoubtedly).

By the time California HSR runs from LA to SF electric short-haul airliners will make the environmental benefits moot.

Post reply on HN