California is Burning (Again)

[splat]

Tahoe isn't screwed yet...

[east or bust]

Have they updated the map from last night? Looks like it hasn't moved.

[LightRanger]

Saying 5400 acres in the last 24 hours and minimal growth overnight. Makes sense with the weather.

MODIS from this morning:

[bodywhomper]

Pretty predictable given last winter's precip and the lack of landscape scale mitigation like prescribed fire and thinning.

In the past year, momentum has been growing about landscape-level mitigation in the sierra nevada. where i live, USFS rapidly approved a 1000 ac mitigation project, essentially a shaded fuelbreak between the greater forest and developed areas. the rapid approval involved some clear violations of environmental laws, which in the past would have been challenged, but public opinion is very strong in support of the project, and, afaik, it was not challenged. a lot of the landscape level argument has pivoted around vegetation density/biomass, wildfire hazards, surface water volume, and water quality. the focus has been on several academics and recent research that heavily supports mitigation and active management. recently, it's gone from academic circles, to industry professional types (foresters, water agencies, etc.), to the media. hopefully, it will soon enter large political policy discussions. the current CA water bond on november's ballet has a "watershed management" component.

Because I'm that kind of dick I'm compelled to point out that the land isn't "lost," it's still there, it's just...changed.

a 'problem' in CA is that there's strong arguments about forest restoration. there's a small organization that put a thorn in the side of usfs in the past to not implement some post-fire restoration activities. this small org now has backing of the cbd in opposition to usfs restoration from the rim fire. my understanding is that there was another fire a few years back that was mostly on tahoe nf, el dorado nf, and spi lands. the focus of that org (for some reason) was on the restoration planned for el dorado nf, which resulted in el dorado nf to apparently do nothing. apparently, now from a distance, you can see where the line is between tahoe nf and el dorado nf and where spi lands are surrounded by el dorado nf. all el dorado nf lands appear as a wasteland because the top soil all washed away, due to inaction by usfs. erosion control was implemented in tahoe nf and spi lands, and those areas are growing.

it looks like UCB has some strong research coming as a result of the King fire
http://yubanet.com/regional/King-Fir...p#.VBxgMPldX_E

[LightRanger]

^^^ Just read that piece about Blodgett. Maybe the voters of your district will be influenced by this event enough to kick out the carpetbagging McClintock. #electartmoore

[Meadow Skipper]

In the past year, momentum has been growing about landscape-level mitigation in the sierra nevada. where i live, USFS rapidly approved a 1000 ac mitigation project, essentially a shaded fuelbreak between the greater forest and developed areas.

That's great, but that fuel break is 1000 acres, the King fire is like 75,000 acres and rolling. Fuel breaks are good in that they aid suppression, but as a landscape scale treatment to improve forest health it's pretty small ball.

... the focus has been on several academics and recent research that heavily supports mitigation and active management. recently, it's gone from academic circles, to industry professional types (foresters, water agencies, etc.), to the media. hopefully, it will soon enter large political policy discussions. the current CA water bond on november's ballet has a "watershed management" component.

You hint at this, but planning projects is one thing, funding projects is quite another. Currently the money to pay for suppression comes from federal agencies' programmed money ('hard' dollars), and when the programmed fire funds run out, they have to take money out of the other areas - including forest health treatments and recreations, etc. - to pay for fire. And suppression costs keep going up annually in this era of common megafires, so the federal agencies have had to postpone and cancel forest health projects to pay for suppression. The King Fire is in the $5 million/day range now, the Happy Camp complex has run over $80 million to date, and that's just two big fires.

There was a bill in front of this last congress that would have changed the funding of federal wildfire suppression over to a separate emergency fund, like the ones used for hurricanes and other natural disasters so that the agencies' project dollars wouldn't be diverted to suppression and could still be used on projects. But even though there was wide agreement that it would be a good idea FUCKING CONGRESS, in their moronic pursuit of doing nothing, let the bill die. Vote your fucking congress person out if they allowed it to die.

[LightRanger]

The best is the smattering of comments I've seen on Twitter to the effect of "Tell the EPA to quit protecting frogs over people and this fire wouldn't have happened" with a photo of a yellow-bellied frog... implying that ESA protections are responsible for shitty forest management (setting aside the fact that EPA has jack shit to do with listings and CH designation). I mean, sure, they have an impact on management, but it's infinitesimal.

[bodywhomper]

mcclintock got gerrymeandered out of my area.

plenty examples of ESA and USFWS holding up federal wildfire mitigation. here's one: http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec...cal/me-burns15. there are many others.

there is a real concern that landscape level mitigation (not the 1k ac fuelbreak that i mentioned earlier or the mitigation from above linked article) will be held up through NEPA and/or ESA compliance. I have heard this in many places. approval for conducting research has been a multi-year nepa process, at least in the recent past.

hopefully, times and policy are changing and money starts moving more towards mitigation.

[ill-advised strategy]

That's a little over-the-top. If it managed to cross the crest, it'd have to burn downhill like 2500 ft of elevation to get to Truckee.

I didn't look at the whole setup. To me, if it's "raining charcoal" at my house I'm getting my shit together right now.

Sounds like it wasn't actually raining burning chunks.

[LightRanger]

mcclintock got gerrymeandered out of my area.

plenty examples of ESA and USFWS holding up federal wildfire mitigation. here's one: http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec...cal/me-burns15. there are many others.

there is a real concern that landscape level mitigation (not the 1k ac fuelbreak that i mentioned earlier or the mitigation from above linked article) will be held up through NEPA and/or ESA compliance. I have heard this in many places. approval for conducting research has been a multi-year nepa process, at least in the recent past.

hopefully, times and policy are changing and money starts moving more towards mitigation.

I'm aware that it happens, but I don't think ESA compliance holds up *that* many mitigation projects. NEPA, sure, but NEPA isn't a single frog. But the biggest issue is money, as Meadow Skipper said. Money for mitigation is raided for firefighting funds in a vicious cycle. The percentage of the FS budget that goes to firefighting instead of prevention/mitigation now vs 20 years ago is staggering. See: http://www.hcn.org/articles/forest-s...s-up-in-flames

[ill-advised strategy]

MS...we worked so hard on those mitigation projects around Taos and they accomplished nothing. Nothing...and it was years and years of really hard work by a lot of people. I think the general public has absolutely zero concept of how much work it takes to legitimately mitigate wildland fire hazard.
Lots of people need jobs, it's a shame the right wing has a conniption any time you start talking about a big public works project because there's an awful lot of work to be done.

[bodywhomper]

no arguing from me that the money would be better spent on mitigation. people are gun shy.

ESA and NEPA have held up a bunch of projects or kept projects from moving past early planning. even when there's been money available, ESA compliance has stopped projects cold. many agencies don't want to embark down the path of planning because of the perceived length of time and $$ in planning, i.e. environmental compliance, most specifically ESA. This was a discussion topic at a public symposium this spring in sacramento.

there are a few places that ESA compliance has been streamlined through HCP's (e.g. San Diego Co and cities), but those have been specific to fuelbreaks on locally-owned lands protecting adjacent structures and not landscape-level mitigation.

some federal agencies are trying to remove themselves from funding wildfire mitigation projects because of the time and money spent on the planning/environmental compliance phase (often times much more than the actual project "construction" costs) and the fact that the agencies could be successfully approving a vast number of other projects types that also do good.

USFWS has been cited as being obstructionist. i have experienced where these obstructions have been related to potential inducement of growth from the project, where there was speculative shit being made up between the cubes at the USFWS field office and no potential for growth inducement.... clearly something outside the purview of the agency and their obligations under Section 7 of the ESA. the end result in several instances has been that the rare plants and bird habitat that they were concerned about have been decimated in fire and not returned with most of their seed stock washing away. the areas have also experience habitat type conversion (invasive spp take over) and no longer suitable for the listed wildlife spp.

In California (I have not experience this problem in other states), the strict interpretations of the ESA Section 7 process, strict interpretation of the definition of "take" under Section 9, and the general and persistent requests by the USFWS to require species specific surveys. some of those surveys take several years to adequately complete and are many times not feasible,

USFS had a clear violation of ESA for that project near me that was approved. that project will alter occupied designated critical habitat for red-legged frog, likely resulting in "take" and possibly an adverse modification of CH. There was no record of communication between USFS and USFWS about the project (this is a violation of S7 and probably S9 once work starts up). the decisionmaker at USFS successfully took a risk.

i could go on....

[Meadow Skipper]

MS...we worked so hard on those mitigation projects around Taos and they accomplished nothing. Nothing...and it was years and years of really hard work by a lot of people. I think the general public has absolutely zero concept of how much work it takes to legitimately mitigate wildland fire hazard.
Lots of people need jobs, it's a shame the right wing has a conniption any time you start talking about a big public works project because there's an awful lot of work to be done.

I have a relevant story about that. Did you work on that project near Picuris? Anyway, some Washington departmental political appointee - a budget guy - wanted to see where the mitigation money was going so I took him out to that one. It was beautiful, a textbook mitigation/forest health effort that looked great, but all he could talk about was how much it cost.

IME, NEPA wasn't that big a deal on mitigation and forest health projects...as long as it wasn't a disguised logging project that called for road construction. Road construction is the big deal killer. Where I worked, we had a good relationship with FWS. <-Edit to add: as far as fire went, anyway.

[ill-advised strategy]

I have a relevant story about that. Did you work on that project near Picuris?

Did I ever.

[char]

I have to admit I am baffled by the talk of USFWS holding up projects, even if the NEPA takes 2 years to complete. Around here the USFS usually spends significant resources and time to complete the appropriate planning only to find themselves in court with an environmental group. Often long enough to require new planning.

I also have to be a little skeptical that an article that claims that homes would have been saved if only we could have done a controlled burn to save homes from 15 foot flame lengths.

[LightRanger]

G, that stuff makes sense and I believe you've mentioned some stuff about that example in the past. That said, I still find it hard to believe that it is nearly as much of an issue as you are making it out to be--particularly when compared to lack of funding, generally.

[old goat]

I didn't look at the whole setup. To me, if it's "raining charcoal" at my house I'm getting my shit together right now.

Sounds like it wasn't actually raining burning chunks.

It was raining cold charcoal here at Donner Lake on Wednesday--after the fire ran 10 miles up the canyon the night before. It was very nice to have clear skies yesterday--a ton of people took the opportunity to hike Mt Rose. Looks like east wind to continue for a couple of days.

Edit-this afternoon the west wind is back, along with the haze. Dang.

[bodywhomper]

the smoke today sucked. i guess auburn was worst than grass valley/nevada city. it got worst and worst as the day went on. eyes, throat, clothes, hair, lungs. yuck. hoping tomorrow is better.

[~mikey b]

I was in Auburn. It sucked. Little bit of rain tonight. Not bad.

[supermodel159]

I saw they finally cancelled the Tahoe IM last minute. Any of you guys signed up for that event?

[splat]

In the past year, momentum has been growing about landscape-level mitigation in the sierra nevada. where i live, USFS rapidly approved a 1000 ac mitigation project, essentially a shaded fuelbreak between the greater forest and developed areas.

That's great, but that fuel break is 1000 acres, the King fire is like 75,000 acres and rolling. Fuel breaks are good in that they aid suppression, but as a landscape scale treatment to improve forest health it's pretty small ball.

That sounds like the roadside thinning done around Tahoe that appears designed to keep the fire on the ground long enough to slow the spread and get on it. I can't help but think it makes sense at Tahoe.

Prolly the most significant development on the King Fire is that it spotted out ahead and is now in Tahoe NF.
Eight miles or less to Squaw.

[bodywhomper]

The smoke was even worst today. Local weather dude said that it was the worst since at least the star fire in 2001. We bailed and went down into the valley. Auburn had a reprieve today.

Apparently, the fire is now burning into the 2001 star fire scar. There is lots of optimism that the weather pattern change later this week will tip the scales in a good way.

Is the fire in weed contained yet? That one sucked. Lots of homes gone.

[Meadow Skipper]

Is the fire in weed contained yet? That one sucked. Lots of homes gone.

Out. It was pretty much just a one-afternoon thing. Made a hard run, and that was it. One of my ex-wives lives in Weed and had to evacuate, but was okay.

[old goat]

Heard on the radio (KVMR) that that spot fire by French Meadows had crews on it and was being contained.

[~mikey b]

Cap Radio running a story on Insight about fire smoke's health effects. Basically saying wood smoke from forest fires is less harmful than things like deisel smoke. More water, larger particles, less able to pass the lung/blood barrier and get into your system. Acutely annoying, but fewer long term affects. Interesting...