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Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible

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

#221

Post by lazide »

samtho wrote: post #196
XorNot wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Most reasonable people understand the difference between accident and negligence. How is it we are able to have professional engineers sign on off plans if they know they will be held personally liable for failures? This is very much a solved problem and I don’t think it’s wise to entertain FUD.

People get sued all the time (and lose) due to damage caused by accidents (that weren’t negligence).

Professional engineers ARE held personally liable for failures. That’s why there aren’t that many of them, and they tend to be extremely conservative and most things they sign off on are very limited in scope.

No sane PE would ever sign off on a realistic prescribed burn plan, because they couldn’t control the variables enough to not get ruined. Any plan a PE would sign off wouldn’t be implementable because, surprise, conditions change rapidly and it’s not economic to do detailed real-time surveying of overgrown areas that need prescribed burns all the time.

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

#222

Post by samrus »

thallium205 wrote: post #215
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…

I live in Tahoe and firefighters do controlled burns feet from houses all the time (in Nevada) without a problem. I see them rake the debris into piles and burn them. … not that hard.

Those firefighter haven't dealt with the toughest challenge of all: NIMBYs

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

#223

Post by Sprocklem »

jdminhbg wrote: post #149
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it was possible, but like all collective action problems it involves people organizing for the general good at a cost to themselves. Everyone in the world masking (with effective masks), distancing a bit, and using standard sanitary practices edit to add, because I forgot - for two months , and a few with immune compromises spending some more months isolated, would eliminate a significant chunk of all contagious…

> Everyone in the world masking (with effective masks), distancing a bit, and using standard sanitary practices edit to add, because I forgot - for two months, and a few with immune compromises spending some more months isolated, would eliminate a significant chunk of all contagious respiratory illnesses, not just have stopped this single one from spreading. This is delusional. China did far more than this and still…

China is not the whole world, and had to deal with the risk of COVID entering the country from other places. Notably, they did bring COVID numbers down to a very low level, albeit temporarily.

> And even in a fantasy world where you could actually stop all human-to-human contagion, many respiratory viruses have animal reservoirs, making the entire exercise pointless.

None of this contradicts GPs claim that it would eliminate a significant chunk of all contagious respiratory illnesses. Quite a few (common) respiratory diseases don't have animal reservoirs and would be effectively eliminated.

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

#224

Post by 3littlefish »

Absolutely terrifying. We have major fires in rural Spain in the Summer months, especially as it's getting drier earlier every year. We've had a huge issue with the grass verges not getting cut in time, before everything dries out. Then people throw cigarettes ends out of their cars on the motorway and the whole area goes up in flames. It's a mixture of risk factors, environmental, council/planning, and some personal responsibility.

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

#225

Post by brodouevencode »

stcroixx wrote: post #214
brodouevencode wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If CO continues on their path, their fires will go out of control and spread to other states. If they had a way to contain their fires within their state I’d agree to let them burn it down if that’s what they want to do, but I don’t see how that isn’t a major problem for all their neighboring states. Even if their neighbors are smart and doing prescribes burns as they should, it doesn’t mean they can’t suffer massive…

> Even if their neighbors are smart and doing prescribes burns as they should, it doesn’t mean they can’t suffer massive losses from a huge out of control fire started in another state.

These sorts of issues usually wind up in court, in which the circuit court would then certainly have the ability to force CO into acting properly. WY would just need to show that there was indeed damage. States fighting happens all the time (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-state_water_dispute for example), but rarely does it need to become a federal issue.

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

#226

Post by AndrewOMartin »

h2odragon wrote: post #120
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…

Most of the land West of the Mississippi is Federally owned. You wanna do fire abatement on BLM land, you got a long hard fight ahead of you, before you ever get to a written regulation you can cite. Much less laws voted on by Congress.

BLM = Bureau of Land Management.

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

#227

Post by putnambr »

jwie wrote: post #187
putnambr wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Colorado's land to burn, though. Most of the issue is fuels load on federally-managed land.

This quirk of the west should really be addressed. The feds “own” far too much of the western US.

Uhh, no. Fed just needs to relax regulations around air quality, especially when the thing they're saying no to will improve air quality in the long run. I recreate on our federal lands and can't imagine the same access in state or private hands. State ownership inevitably leads to valuing extraction activities over recreation activities, if not just selling it to the highest bidder (Wilkes Brothers) directly.

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

#228

Post by hodgesrm »

toofy wrote: post #202
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…

I just want to chime in not to disagree with anything you’re saying (for the record I think your post is thoughtful. I don’t know enough about the nuances to agree or disagree) and it isn’t even directed at you but to all of us and our discussion styles. I really hope that the collective We shift to saying something like “ One of the many complications…” rather than “The problem” or “The biggest problem”. When it com…

> Sorry for the tangent poster and readers, but this minor quibble seems important.

I fully agree. It's not just important, it's actually the essence of the problem.

1. Forest fires are hard to solve because many of the loudest voices on the topic are people who see them as an opportunity to bring up their favorite issue.

2. The fact that root causes are intertwined also means that real progress will be slow and potentially limited, at least in the short to medium term.

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

#229

Post by CydeWeys »

kazinator wrote: post #193
CydeWeys wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's something even more fundamental than all that. If someone does a prescribed burn (say, a local government), and it gets even slightly out of control and accidentally burns down a few homes, they will immediately face a huge amount of blame and consequences and probably get run out on a rail. But if they don't do a prescribed burn and then the inevitable wildfire burns down a bunch of homes, well then, tough luck…

Doesn't a controlled burn work by removing a swath of combustible material, so that a subsequent fire cannot cross that area? That material can be removed by other means that don't risk fire.

"Cannot" is a strong word. Fires smoulder for a long time and you cannot control the wind. It would be foolish to expect a prescribed burn to have zero chance of causing collateral damage.

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

#230

Post by enigmurl »

hodgesrm wrote: post #228
toofy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to chime in not to disagree with anything you’re saying (for the record I think your post is thoughtful. I don’t know enough about the nuances to agree or disagree) and it isn’t even directed at you but to all of us and our discussion styles. I really hope that the collective We shift to saying something like “ One of the many complications…” rather than “The problem” or “The biggest problem”. When it com…

> Sorry for the tangent poster and readers, but this minor quibble seems important. I fully agree. It's not just important, it's actually the essence of the problem. 1. Forest fires are hard to solve because many of the loudest voices on the topic are people who see them as an opportunity to bring up their favorite issue. 2. The fact that root causes are intertwined also means that real progress will be slow and pote…

It's not actually the essence of the problem, it's just one of many complications...
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