Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management • Hacker News Board

Re: Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management

#21

Post by davidw » Fri, May 03, 2024, 8:49 PM UTC

arminiusreturns wrote: post #20

dmoy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I think that's it Though I don't know the exact details on that w.r.t. controlled burns, because parts of the federal government are definitely very on board with controlled burns (like say the US Forest Service). I dunno what's going on there.

Grew up in national forest, and my grandfather was a logger in the 70s. I remember him and the other old timers complaining the newer PhD's the forest service was bringing in were making dumb excuses for not doing control burn. I'll never forget my thoughts at the time: "Those PhD's are so smart, surely they are right and these old-timers are just being curmudgeonly"... then years later the forest went up and over 45…

For a while, the plan really was, as the article states, suppression. My grandfather (and great grandfather) worked for the FS and it was only later in his career that they started doing controlled burns again.

Where I live in Oregon, part of "why don't they do more?" is that there simply wasn't the money to do it, from what I understand, along with some of the other technical reasons mentioned in other comments.

Re: Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management

#22

Post by davidw » Fri, May 03, 2024, 8:57 PM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #13

dragonwriter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the federal vs. state thing “the federal government controls most of the land at issue in the west and decides policies, not the states”. Because that's actually the situation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands#/media/File%3A...

The obvious follow up to that is why don't the feds do controlled burns?

See my comment elsewhere: money.

Also, they need to be careful. There was a controlled burn in New Mexico that got out of control and caused a lot of damage.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/05/2...

Re: Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management

#23

Post by pneumatic1 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 8:57 PM UTC

I used to be a wildland firefighter for the USFS and was stationed on a forest where two districts were split in half by a reservation where the land was managed by the BIA.

Driving from one district to the other you could see the health of the forest change almost immediately when you crossed a border.

BIA land had lots of healthy and appropriately spaced trees, wildlife, tall grasses. USFS land had dead grass and trees packed together, 10 snags for every healthy one.

Re: Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management

#24

Post by mistrial9 » Sat, May 04, 2024, 2:22 AM UTC

arminiusreturns wrote: post #20

dmoy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I think that's it Though I don't know the exact details on that w.r.t. controlled burns, because parts of the federal government are definitely very on board with controlled burns (like say the US Forest Service). I dunno what's going on there.

Grew up in national forest, and my grandfather was a logger in the 70s. I remember him and the other old timers complaining the newer PhD's the forest service was bringing in were making dumb excuses for not doing control burn. I'll never forget my thoughts at the time: "Those PhD's are so smart, surely they are right and these old-timers are just being curmudgeonly"... then years later the forest went up and over 45…

well, there may be layers to this.. those PhDs are on the front line to make statements, but the driving force was policy. And that policy was in the original bargain of USA forest lands, and that is that forests are primarily for timber harvesting, and also bring other benefits.

You can see this for yourself by reading the laws and policy discussions that created the US National Forest system.

Re: Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management

#25

Post by devilbunny » Sat, May 04, 2024, 4:22 PM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #7

It is worth mentioning that many states do significant amounts of controlled burns as a routine thing. Growing up in the Midwest, it was just a common thing, nothing out of the ordinary. I think in the southeast, it's even more common. It really helps limit the damage when an uncontrolled fire does start For some reason out here in the West Coast, there's an aversion to doing enough controlled burns. I'm not sure why…

The difference is, of course, rain. The entire Southeast is wet, wet, wet, and most of the Midwest isn't much drier. The idea that you might go a whole year without suitable conditions for controlled burns is, well, essentially implausible. A summer, maybe once a decade. But starting around Thanksgiving and running into May or even early June, it rains and rains and rains. At some point during winter, you will be able to burn.

The federal-state coordination, the federal interagency coordination, the CARB hold over things... trying to do that stuff out West is far more difficult.

Re: Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management

#26

Post by jerlam » Sat, May 04, 2024, 6:36 PM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #13

dragonwriter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the federal vs. state thing “the federal government controls most of the land at issue in the west and decides policies, not the states”. Because that's actually the situation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands#/media/File%3A...

The obvious follow up to that is why don't the feds do controlled burns?

Local authorities can be very distrustful of government types. Here's a situation where a Forest Service employee was arrested and indicted after a prescribed burn went slightly awry:

https://wildfiretoday.com/2024/04/01/93539/

Re: Fire for Water: A tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management

#27

Post by kaikai » Sat, May 04, 2024, 9:12 PM UTC

nanomonkey wrote: post #18

If we're going to burn the dead standing wood and other organic matter, why not produce biochar and syngas from it? Companies such as All Power Labs (allpowerlabs.com) produce pallet size devices that can be taken to the source of the wood and convert them there. The biochar produced can be introduced back into the ground, or used on farmland, and is essentially carbon negative. The syngas can be used to produce elec…

Much of Northern California and Oregon are fire adapted ecosystems, meaning that fire is a natural part of the landscape. There are plants that require smoke and fire for their seeds to germinate, for example. Converting wood to biochar doesn’t address that.

The bigger issue is that prescribed fire is comparatively much easier and cheaper. I’ve been on burns where we had a biochar kiln going, and were also burning piles. We easily burned dozens of piles in-place, and loaded maybe 6 into the kiln. We also had to set it up near a road, because it was heavy and needed a water truck nearby to extinguish the coals and make char.

I’ve been doing prescribed fire for a couple years now and people OFTEN bring up biochar. My feeling is that sure, go for it. If you have the resources and time, awesome. But don’t stand in the way of people doing good work because you think there’s a better way to do it. There’s plenty of work for all of us.