U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
jillhubley.com
U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
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Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#2This is a huge amount of data, and an interesting way to visualize. An incredible number of these appear to be started by lightning.
A set of filtering tools would be nice - to sort by year and type.
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#3This is a very cool visualization. Weirdly, though, the visually apparent proportion of natural vs. human causes seems to change depending on my zoom level.
Plotting this much data presents several challenges. I recently discovered a good guide on the subject of "Plotting Pitfalls" from the Bokeh project:
https://bokeh.github.io/datashader-docs/user_guide/1_Plottin...
I think this visualization suffers a bit from "overplotting".
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#4This is very interesting but I think there is a bigger context too. My understanding (though I'm not an expert) is that wildfires are a normal, regular, naturally-occurring phenomenon. When humans artificially prevent forest fires from taking their natural course, this causes dead wood to continue building up significantly more, which causes the fires to be much more destructive when they do happen.
So if these fires are essentially inevitable, maybe there should be less emphasis on the thing that happened to kick it off and more on preventing the conditions for it to become huge and destructive.
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#5This is very interesting but I think there is a bigger context too. My understanding (though I'm not an expert) is that wildfires are a normal, regular, naturally-occurring phenomenon. When humans artificially prevent forest fires from taking their natural course, this causes dead wood to continue building up significantly more, which causes the fires to be much more destructive when they do happen. So if these fires…
This. There are studies supporting this conclusion [0]: "Without adequate prevention measures, forest debris can build up, fueling a bigger, more devastating fire the next time around."
And this [1]: "This leaves authorities with a difficult problem. After decades of successful wildfire suppression, we can now expect fires to be far worse when they finally happen."
[0] http://news.mit.edu/2013/forest-fire-management-1120
[1] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160722-why-we-should-let-ra...
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#6almost all of the land in the Western US that has been encouraged to overgrow is held by a government.
the fires on the coast will be nothing compared to the soon-inevitable mega-fire that will reset the Federal land holdings in the Sierra range
if more of the Sierra range had been allocated for productive use, we probably would not be in this situation. the Federal government is an absentee landlord
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#7This is very interesting but I think there is a bigger context too. My understanding (though I'm not an expert) is that wildfires are a normal, regular, naturally-occurring phenomenon. When humans artificially prevent forest fires from taking their natural course, this causes dead wood to continue building up significantly more, which causes the fires to be much more destructive when they do happen. So if these fires…
This. There are studies supporting this conclusion [0]: "Without adequate prevention measures, forest debris can build up, fueling a bigger, more devastating fire the next time around." And this [1]: "This leaves authorities with a difficult problem. After decades of successful wildfire suppression, we can now expect fires to be far worse when they finally happen." [0] http://news.mit.edu/2013/forest-fire-management-…
Some articles worth reading if you're interested in this topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14318646
https://priceonomics.com/does-using-airplanes-to-put-out-for...
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#8almost all of the land in the Western US that has been encouraged to overgrow is held by a government. the fires on the coast will be nothing compared to the soon-inevitable mega-fire that will reset the Federal land holdings in the Sierra range if more of the Sierra range had been allocated for productive use, we probably would not be in this situation. the Federal government is an absentee landlord
Where I live in Colorado, we see active preventive measures on pubic, government owned lands as opposed to very little mitigation on large swaths of private lands.
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#9This is a huge amount of data, and an interesting way to visualize. An incredible number of these appear to be started by lightning. A set of filtering tools would be nice - to sort by year and type.
Before humans, lightning was THE primary way to start fire on Earth.
Re: U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016
#10almost all of the land in the Western US that has been encouraged to overgrow is held by a government. the fires on the coast will be nothing compared to the soon-inevitable mega-fire that will reset the Federal land holdings in the Sierra range if more of the Sierra range had been allocated for productive use, we probably would not be in this situation. the Federal government is an absentee landlord
I would say I don't know why you are downvoted but I do know why. Environmentalists overwhelm the Forest Service to the point where they don't even salvage log mega fires anymore due to a guarantee of being sued (and if they do it's safety salvage along roads). They also prevent timber sales of trees over a certain diameter, etc, etc. There is no balance anymore to timber sales or industry use, or they have become non existant on the west coast. Environmentalists & government have largely created unintended consequences in the last 50 years leading to mega fires that scorch the ground underneath the forest. What good is protecting an endangered owl if they eventually get scorched to death? (See Canyon Creek complex in Malhuer, King Fire in El Dorado, etc, etc the list never ends). The national forest is called "Land of Many Uses" for a reason. Despite what you hear, we can successfully log, cattle graze, hike, jeep, hunt and camp in our forests with balance.