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French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

france24.com

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Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#271

Post by Arodex »

yoghurtwere wrote: post #170
reco98gg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be absolutely right about the OP, I cannot know. Still, I believe it is important to highlight the elephant in the room first. For example to your point: "I still found it interesting to kmow why this fire seems so bad compared to [...] before", I think it is important to state: "because global warming is getting worse over time". Not because pine trees, which have been around for a long time, and have never…

> Not because pine trees, which have been around for a long time, and have never burned so badly. Are you sure? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Landes_forest_fire

You know this was once, 77 years ago?

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#272

Post by bluebarbet »

mctaylor wrote: post #227
tirant wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from the Mediterranean region and locally we know many explanations for that. Many of those pine forests are relatively new. Pine trees burn frequently, around every 20-30 years. In the past they used to be mixed with many other original trees, but during the recent century reforestation, pines were planted as the single tree species, making fires more prone to happen and more easily to spread. In the past, wa…

I love how four comments down there is someone posting: "You’re both right. However OPs post is more useful than yours. By now, everyone knows about climate change. But I assume most didn’t know the fact about the pine trees in this area. Nowadays it’s much more about how we deal with climate change and not so much about the fact that there is human made climate change" Thank you for proving that there are, in fact,…

These factual corrections are warranted. But IMO the accusations of dog-whistling and wrongthink are unnecessary and counterproductive. Again: I agree with you on the substance! And this probably is a climate denier. But (1) that's not very interesting in itself, and (2) by adopting an accusatory tone we're just going to push them and their sympathizers into a posture of defensiveness and victimhood which will only worsen the polarization and make the whole problem even harder to solve than it already is. IMO, on this issue it's best just to stick doggedly to factual correction and avoid the temptation to police people's inner minds.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#273

Post by howlden »

reco98gg wrote: post #140
Dibby053 wrote: post #57

For context on why this region is burning so easily: the Landes and Médoc are huge, artificial pine forests created in the 19th century under Napoleon III to drain and reclaim what was considered an inhospitable wetland, where shepherds famously walked around on stilts. Pine resin and needle litter makes it exceptionally flammable, and being an uninterrupted monoculture on flat land it lacks natural barriers to stop…

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

Can confirm from my own experience that Fontainebleau forest is partly pine forests (40% according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_of_Fontainebleau#Fauna,...).

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#274

Post by belorn »

ludston wrote: post #108
derrida wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is there to discuss? The governance crisis: how can we follow science on so many things, how can countries completely change on short order, but not for this...

Governments have been working on this for more then 20 years now. 40 maybe. As long as I've been alive at least. It's just that all of the actions to try and deal with this have been continuously undermined by fossil fuel industries and right-wing politics.

There is a national election in Sweden this year. Which parties or blocks are against construction of thermal power plants, and which are against it? Thermal power plants are primarily fueled by oil or natural gas. Party platforms are public and posted on their websites.

A few years ago EU voted to define two technologies as green. One was natural gas, and the other was nuclear. Which parties voted for natural gas, and which parties voted for nuclear?

There is a EU decision to phase out ICE in cars. A good continuation would be to issue a similar decision to phase out ICE in the energy grid. It would be nice if both sides could just join together on such decision.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#275

Post by evomassiny »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #260
reco98gg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be absolutely right about the OP, I cannot know. Still, I believe it is important to highlight the elephant in the room first. For example to your point: "I still found it interesting to kmow why this fire seems so bad compared to [...] before", I think it is important to state: "because global warming is getting worse over time". Not because pine trees, which have been around for a long time, and have never…

The elephant in the room is that many of those fires are criminal and that the French government has arbitrated budget restrictions against investing in fire-fighting equipment, especially planes. It so happens that the current fire near Bordeaux is roughy in the same area as the historic fire of 1949 in which 82 people died (and currently still smaller, hopefully it will stay that way) [1], as someone else already m…

About a third of those fires are criminal [0], yes that's a lot, but the majority are still accidental or natural.

Even the criminal ones are only enabled because of the dry vegetation, caused by the recent heat waves. IMO focusing on what caused the spark is missing the root cause: global warming.

And yes you can argue that such fires existed previously, but what's concerning is that the frequency on which they are happening is increasing rapidly

[0]https://observatoire.foret.gouv.fr/themes/les-causes-des-inc...

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#276

Post by Arodex »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #260
reco98gg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be absolutely right about the OP, I cannot know. Still, I believe it is important to highlight the elephant in the room first. For example to your point: "I still found it interesting to kmow why this fire seems so bad compared to [...] before", I think it is important to state: "because global warming is getting worse over time". Not because pine trees, which have been around for a long time, and have never…

The elephant in the room is that many of those fires are criminal and that the French government has arbitrated budget restrictions against investing in fire-fighting equipment, especially planes. It so happens that the current fire near Bordeaux is roughy in the same area as the historic fire of 1949 in which 82 people died (and currently still smaller, hopefully it will stay that way) [1], as someone else already m…

>warming trends do not help

Understatement of the year, here, after the third heatwave of the year with a fourth on the way and record after record being shattered.

>(hence need to invest in equipment)

Easy.

>fabricated drama and lack of perspective

The one with a lack of perspective is not the ones you think.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#277

Post by yubblegum »

madaxe_again wrote: post #202
jcattle wrote: post #196

Just an aside: I'm a researcher trying to classify forest disturbance types from satellite imagery. The Landes Forest which is currently burning is really interesting in that you have all 4 of the major European disturbance types there: Human clear cuts, storm damage, large scale insect infestation and fire. Most other forested areas in Europe only have two or three of these. For example most of the Mediterranean doe…

The Landes Forest is a human disturbance. The whole damned thing was planted in the 1850s as an enormous pine plantation. Same thing as drives wildfires in Portugal - maritime pine (and in Portugal’s case eucalyptus). Vast, dense, barely managed pyrophytic monocultures. The problem isn’t poorly managed forest, it’s the forest, period - it shouldn’t be there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landes_forest

As an aside, N. III's reign seems to have been overall something of a disaster for the French.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#278

Post by Arodex »

howlden wrote: post #273
reco98gg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

Can confirm from my own experience that Fontainebleau forest is partly pine forests (40% according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_of_Fontainebleau#Fauna,... ).

And it does burn, but here are the history of fire:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendies_en_for%C3%AAt_de_Fon...

Notice how the last was worse by one or two orders of magnitude.

You can handwave all you want the this and the southwest forests are particularly flammable, but what you are pointing out are only "canaries in the coal mines": they are the first to burn, but other forests will follow suit if global warming continues.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#279

Post by hahahaa »

c7b wrote: post #126
hahahaa wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest an adjusted value taking burn into account. E.g. you use 20% or whatever of the value. Theory: it ain't 0 if you plant a tree and it is not the whole tree. There has to be a % that represents on average the effectiveness of the plant over 200 years say. This also addresses the tree death issue.

So 20% of the trees get planted later or maybe never? How is that better?

If you want a credit you need to plant 5x the trees under this system.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#280

Post by sandos »

jimnotgym wrote: post #257
mahkeiro wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are firebreaks everywhere in this forest, you can see them from satellite images, but the fire can jump, and it's mainly used as a defense line by firefighters. I was in this forest 2 weeks ago and the ground which is layered with pine needles was so dry that it was just a question of time.

Do you not just make them much wider?

Embers can jump kilometers when its windy. At some point it gets kind of silly, no?

Here in Sweden we had a large fire that jumped a lake.

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