Controlled burns can prevent wildfires; regulations make them nearly impossible • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by lazide » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

hcurtiss wrote: post #39

jackphilson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this just generalizes to the recurring problem of individualism vs collectivism. Government regulation is the answer, but it's not being applied efficiently here

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.

Near as I can tell, there is also a narcissistic manipulation element here.

Autocrats often exist because ‘no one else can do what needs to be done’. They do this by being willing to be unphased by the threat of being ‘the bad guy’, or even reveling in it. They know as long as the folks in the background get what they need, they’ll actually be fine.

Narcissistic manipulation is when someone tells a story placing the blame for damage on someone or an institution while ignoring the actual context of that person or institutions actions so as to displace the blame/damage for their own actions (or lack thereof) and their own lack of ownership for the outcome. We’re awash in it right now.

It’s super toxic for everyone, and fighting it is extremely difficult to nearly impossible in the legal system because of rules designed to STOP this kind of manipulation (which is typical), and steady reduction in the consequences for ‘minor’ issues like Perjury and Contempt of Court which make failed attempts at this manipulation ‘free’.

Rules of evidence, standing, the way court ‘happens’, procedural things that cost time and money, etc. all play into it.

And the system inevitably ends up favoring bullshit, because anything but bullshit requires individuals take a stand and say ‘the rules say x, but in totality that’s bullshit and produces an unjust outcome so we’re doing something else’ is, well, not favored in the way the law works. Sometimes for good reasons, but it usually gets perverted in the day to day reality.

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

#52

Post by modriano » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #17

This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…

I think the root of the problem is that we set erroneously low prices for some behaviors.

Actuaries should be able to figure out reasonable values for the probability of some costly outcome (e.g., a massive, uncontrollable wild fire) given specific behaviors or conditions (e.g., letting property grow into being a wildfire risk, vs reducing that risk by clearing overgrowth), and for risks with costs that a person/company can't ever cover (e.g., a massive wildfire), those responsible entities should have to carry insurance, who can incentivize or implement cost-reducing preventative actions in the places with greatest risk.

In the climate change context, the price of dumping GHGs into the atmosphere is nowhere near the cost. If we priced that in, economics would rapidly make renewable | nuclear power projects, public transit projects, shifts away from concrete in construction, etc economically obvious choices. But we've messed up the prices, and these messed up prices incentivize people to ignore problems or worse, spend societal quantities of money and labor on growing the problems.

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

#53

Post by D13Fd » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

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…

This was my first thought as well. The title should be "Regulations make them nearly impossible [in Colorado]"

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

#54

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

everythingfine wrote: post #43

I'd like to point out that this problem can technically be solved by a well-meaning arsonist who's willing to break the law. Simply send a public message to fire departments naming the date and location that a forest fire will start, let the fire departments prepare like they would for a controlled burn, and then set off the blaze. There's some difficulty involved with establishing sufficient credibility for this to…

[deleted]

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

#55

Post by m00x » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

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...

Canada recently had a "controlled burn" that was made by an international association. They weren't trained on Canadian forests properly, now it's a huge wildfire.

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

#56

Post by anoncow » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

thanatos519 wrote: post #44

anoncow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the equivalent analogy here is to prevent a big issue from occurring, management creates small issues that it can control. Or do I have it wrong? If you handle small issues, it’s similar to handling small fires and not letting the small fires eat away at a certain portion of the forest.

Right. The small issues are minor outages causing customer inconvenience and/or lost revenue. The big issues are major pwnage and loss of everything because you were afraid of causing small issues while fixing things.

That makes a lot of sense. By allowing the teams to fix things quickly and break things, management creates an environment where people can continuously learn how to handle fires and this makes them ready to handle bigger fires and also prevent bigger fires.

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

#57

Post by lazide » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

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…

1) it’s all good until you’re one of the ‘little people’

2) succession/plan B is always the problem with dictators/dictatorships.

If you’re lucky, the interests of those in power are genuinely aligned with your best interests and they’re competent - (Singapore/PAP, at least historically), but nothing lasts forever.

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

#58

Post by Maciek416 » Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

everythingfine wrote: post #43

I'd like to point out that this problem can technically be solved by a well-meaning arsonist who's willing to break the law. Simply send a public message to fire departments naming the date and location that a forest fire will start, let the fire departments prepare like they would for a controlled burn, and then set off the blaze. There's some difficulty involved with establishing sufficient credibility for this to…

This is not really true, and if you'd like to learn more than you ever wanted to know about this topic then you should start following Zeke Lunder from The Lookout and review some of his wildfire analysis videos on YouTube. He often talks about the idea of "good fire". Not all fire is "good fire". A lot of megafires, the kind that might be sparked by an arson technique ignorant of modern wildfire management practices, do not necessarily lead to "good fire". They may at certain stages (especially when wind dies down) exhibit some traits of "good fire", but for the most part, these are forests that are the way they are due to too much suppression for too long, and now require "good fire" if our goal is to still have a healthy forest after the fire. An arson that starts a megafire is going to potentially transition to a very different type of forest, or an un-forested wasteland, as seen in various places in the Sierra foothills and SoCal.

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

#59

Post by cbsmith » Wed, May 17, 2023, 5:01 PM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #29

anonporridge wrote: post #17

This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…

Another example is how many people advocated for (and how many countries essentially adopted) letting covid spread throughout the population (either like wildfire or via "flatten the curve") to get natural herd immunity because letting a poorly understood (but known to be quite deadly) virus spread through the population was doable but giving out vaccines that hadn't been through phase 2 trials wasn't.

That's not entirely accurate. The case for letting covid spread hinges on whether you have the medical infrastructure to manage the pandemic. If you can handle a "more than flu season" chunk of your population needing medical care then there's no real pandemic threat. Unfortunately, many countries in the developed world reduced the size of their medical infrastructure because they could rely on flu vaccines to minimize the demands of flu season. Sure, you can try to flatten the curve, but COVID-19 proved to be difficult to contain, and initially we had little understanding of how transmissible it was, and what it would take to contain it. This meant you had to plan for a worse that was almost certainly worse than we'd actually face.

The thing is, vaccines that haven't been through phase 2 trials can potentially make a pandemic worse. That's why you have to wait for them to resolve.

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

#60

Post by Curvature5868 » Wed, May 17, 2023, 5:02 PM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #17

This illustrates a more generic problem with our legal system. When the option for positive action to mitigate a problem exists, we often don't do it because the action creates legal liability for any and all negative externalities of the action, even if the negative externalities as a whole are drastically less than what would happen doing nothing. We resist permitting prescribed burns because when they cause uninte…

A viable solution might be the creation of an insurance fund to compensate for any unintended damage caused by prescribed burns. This fund, funded by utility companies especially those in wildfire-prone areas, would function similarly to banks' contributions to the FDIC. This could alleviate liability concerns, thereby encouraging proactive wildfire prevention strategies.