Colorado East Slope Vibes AGAIN

[Mofro261]

Only smoke in my valley is from my garage.

The endless rich people are the problem drum beat of yours gets old.

not here to defend Benny, but the story as presented in my local paper today...

Developers describe Black Forest as the largest contiguous stretch of ponderosa pine in the United States -a thick, wide carpet of vegetation rolling down from the Rampart Range that thins out to the high grasslands of Colorado's eastern plains. Once home to rural towns and summer cabins, it is now dotted with million-dollar homes and gated communities as a result of the state's population boom over the past two decades.

...makes it sound as if the McMansions are fueling the blaze.


I feel for anyone going through a fire loss- we had a house burn to the ground in 2003 and dealing with insurance was a pita (fuck you Allstate).

[Lone Star]

Has anyone looked at more than a couple pictures of this fire? Some observations:

Defensible space doesn't mean jack shit if you have a wood deck and wood shingles. There are a ton of photos of houses burning while all of live fuels remained unscathed. Little consideration seems to be given to ember wash in terms of protecting homes.

A lot of backing fire through thick duff. Pretty small flames, but if the duff goes all the way to your house..... brings us back to defensible space but then, everybody's harping on 10-1000 hour fuels and short green vegetation, neither of which was burning as readily.

Ponderosa Pine--- a 50 year history is taking the fire return interval of ponderosa out of context. These areas probably burned every 10-20 years, or more frequently, back in the day. Brings us back to the duff issue.....

[flatlander#2]

not here to defend Benny, but the story as presented in my local paper today...



...makes it sound as if the McMansions are fueling the blaze.


I feel for anyone going through a fire loss- we had a house burn to the ground in 2003 and dealing with insurance was a pita (fuck you Allstate).

But, what does it matter if they are ghetto trailers, cool bro's living in cool bro houses or wealthy people living in 10k+sqft pads? Cripes you can't tell people they can't own certain types of weapons, wear helmets, or who sings the national anthem at a basketball game with out a 2 year old tantrum. You think telling them where they can't live is going to work? Or have big gov come in and say your wood deck has to go? Especially in CoSprgs? That's dumb. Thing is, shit that can catch on fire will just as surely the tingly parts like to be tingled, combustibles will combust. A metal house in the forest is still a metal house in a forest that will catch on fire. If shit goes to hell it will burn just as surely. I choose to live there and like I have said before, let my damn house burn I don't care, I can find another one. Blahblah fire cycles, defensible space, does any of that really matter? Is it really true that if you had a concrete house with all the trees cut back and grass nipped tight by a goat your house is going to be safe? Smell like smoke for all eternity, but safe? I've had some of these dudes come out and they are like, well we'll have to take these trees down near your house, you'll need to mow that area, and and, wait what? It isn't the burbs, if I wanted no trees and a mowed yard, I'd live there.

It's dry and hot and only June.

[Hugh Conway]

But, what does it matter if they are ghetto trailers, cool bro's living in cool bro houses or wealthy people living in 10k+sqft pads? Cripes you can't tell people they can't own certain types of weapons, wear helmets, or who sings the national anthem at a basketball game with out a 2 year old tantrum. You think telling them where they can't live is going to work? Or have big gov come in and say your wood deck has to go? Especially in CoSprgs? That's dumb. Thing is, shit that can catch on fire will just as surely the tingly parts like to be tingled, combustibles will combust. A metal house in the forest is still a metal house in a forest that will catch on fire. If shit goes to hell it will burn just as surely. I choose to live there and like I have said before, let my damn house burn I don't care, I can find another one. Blahblah fire cycles, defensible space, does any of that really matter? Is it really true that if you had a concrete house with all the trees cut back and grass nipped tight by a goat your house is going to be safe? Smell like smoke for all eternity, but safe? I've had some of these dudes come out and they are like, well we'll have to take these trees down near your house, you'll need to mow that area, and and, wait what? It isn't the burbs, if I wanted no trees and a mowed yard, I'd live there.

It's dry and hot and only June.

So, spend a shitload of money fighting fires for people who don't give a shit about if their house burns? Huh? That's like the "mcmansions" who want their suburbs in the middle of fire country.

[hatchgreenchile]

All the rambling about changing weather, forest life cycles, global warming, etc. etc. goes out the window when you hear some dumbass backwoods country fuck likely started the fire:
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingne...+Local+News%29

Edit: Also looking at the homes destroyed on Google Maps, you judge for yourself who's space is "defensible".

[flatlander#2]

I'm not asking anyone to defend my house, the insurance company is.

Fire country, tornado country, earthquake country, river flooding country, hurricane country, blahblahblah.

[Hugh Conway]

I'm not asking anyone to defend my house, the insurance company is.

same thing.

meh, all the dicks in Colorado cheer when some dickhead lights a fire in SoCal and it burns.

[grrrr]

Has anyone looked at more than a couple pictures of this fire? Some observations:

Defensible space doesn't mean jack shit if you have a wood deck and wood shingles. There are a ton of photos of houses burning while all of live fuels remained unscathed. Little consideration seems to be given to ember wash in terms of protecting homes.

A lot of backing fire through thick duff. Pretty small flames, but if the duff goes all the way to your house..... brings us back to defensible space but then, everybody's harping on 10-1000 hour fuels and short green vegetation, neither of which was burning as readily.

Ponderosa Pine--- a 50 year history is taking the fire return interval of ponderosa out of context. These areas probably burned every 10-20 years, or more frequently, back in the day. Brings us back to the duff issue.....

All true. Although I would say the issue isn't one of protecting homes, rather of building them so they don't ignite.

P-pine forests do have a return interval of 10-20 years, however most of the forests around are mixed conifer. Fire return intervals in Colorado mixed forests have return intervals in many cases of several hundred years. The Fern lake fire in RMNP was burning in an area that last burned about 800 years ago.

It's likely that Black Forest had a more regular fire return interval, as it is lower and drier than most of the mountains. That would also explain why it is largely P-pine and not mixed.

Unfortunately, the realtors selling you a piece of land aren't probably the best people to advise you on whether you are at risk of a wildfire or not.

[grrrr]

So, spend a shitload of money fighting fires for people who don't give a shit about if their house burns? Huh? That's like the "mcmansions" who want their suburbs in the middle of fire country.

People are not logical.

They don't want to fund the local fire department. They want to bitch when they don't give me city level service.

They don't want to have the government tell them how to build. They want the government to step in when their house burns down.

They don't want to cut their trees. They want to sue for the loss of value when their trees burn up.

[Benny Profane]

All the rambling about changing weather, forest life cycles, global warming, etc. etc. goes out the window when you hear some dumbass backwoods country fuck likely started the fire:
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingne...+Local+News%29

Edit: Also looking at the homes destroyed on Google Maps, you judge for yourself who's space is "defensible".

Ha, I was thinking of this when the argument came up that these fires didn't happen many moons ago - there weren't any people there to start the fires.

Best solution I heard after last year is for the state to literally draw lines around areas, and make it very well known that, if you want to live there, fine, but, forget about fire protection. Like that will ever happen.

[grrrr]

Ha, I was thinking of this when the argument came up that these fires didn't happen many moons ago - there weren't any people there to start the fires.

Best solution I heard after last year is for the state to literally draw lines around areas, and make it very well known that, if you want to live there, fine, but, forget about fire protection. Like that will ever happen.

I've got a better idea. Let's draw a line around the whole state and make an ignorance free zone. That would keep you out.

[Benny Profane]

Well, actually, I was thinking about stupid zones.


All about stupid zones

Published 26 May 2002 in The Denver Post

Copyright ©2002 by Ed Quillen. All rights reserved.

Judging by some recent inquiries and current events, it must be time for another explanation of the Stupid Zone, a term I may have invented a few years ago.

The Stupid Zone was proposed as a compromise. On one hand, there is private property with the associated rights to use your land. On the other, people want low taxes.

These two forces collide when rural land is subdivided and people start building houses on five- or 10-acre lots. They bought the land, and they want to exercise their property rights by building houses and moving in.

When they do this, they cause a need for governmental services: road construction and maintenance, school bus routes, law-enforcement investigations and patrols, that sort of thing.

Do they pay their own way? Apparently not. Custer County, in the Wet Mountain Valley of Colorado, was one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States during the 1990s, and most of that growth came in the form of rural residences on multi-acre lots.

So there was a study to determine whether county taxpayers were better or worse off for all this conversion of agricultural land into residential land.

It turned out that for every dollar that local governments (essentially, the county and the school district) received in taxes from agricultural land, they spent only 54 cents on services. But for every tax dollar that came in from these exurban developments, they were spending $1.16 on governmental services.

Thus the working families who live in trailer parks in town are subsidizing the folks who build 3,000-square-foot houses on wooded 20-acre estates.

But in modern America, that's not an issue that resonates with a public that keeps building sports stadiums to subsidize billionaire team owners and millionaire athletes. Phrasing a question as why are we taxing the poor to benefit the rich? just brings accusations that you're trying to start a class war, and we already have other wars in process.

Some of these rural subdivisions are in sensible places, but many are not. Most notably in recent years, some sit in tinderbox forests where devastating fires are merely a question of time.

If a county tried to protect its taxpayers by zoning against such subdivisions, it would impinge on property rights. But if it allows such developments, then it's forcing its taxpayers to subsidize them.

The Stupid Zone is a way to resolve that dilemma, and it would work like this: A county planning office would consult with every sort of expert to determine where it would be stupid to build houses, and people within those zones would be on their own.

Mining historians would map old shafts, stopes and tunnels. Hydrologists would specify flood plains. Foresters would identify wildfire potential. Geologists would be busy with rockslide and mudslide routes, major fault systems and swelling or unstable soils. Biologists would describe bear habitat, porcupine haunts and deer migration routes.

It should be noted that most of this information is already available, and so assembling the requisite data shouldn't cost much.

Once it was assembled, the county government would use it to draw Stupid Zones. People would be free to build whatever they wanted in the Stupid Zones, but local government would provide no services other than the absolute minimum.

That is, the sheriff would serve warrants in the Stupid Zone, but there would be no routine patrols or investigations of property crimes. Stupid Zone children could go to school in town, but the district would not concern itself with their transportation. Roads in the Stupid Zone might be maintained or plowed -- but by the property owners in the zone, not by the county. Marauding bears or hungry mountain lions in the Stupid Zone would not be a matter of public concern or expense.

When wildfires broke out in the Stupid Zone, the local fire district would build its fireline at the Stupid Zone boundary -- you should have the idea by now.

The Stupid Zone lets people do whatever they want with their own property. It also reduces, or perhaps even eliminates, local subsidies for development in Colorado's many Stupid Zones. The state could take it a step further and require insurers to take Stupid Zones into account when setting rates for homeowner policies -- shared risk is one thing, but why should you and I pay more just become some people want shake-shingle roofs and wooden decks in a fire-prone forest?

And if the idea caught on, the federal government might adjust its fire-fighting and disaster-relief policies -- after all, just how many times should we all be expected to pay for rebuilding Florida after a hurricane?

Stupid Zones are a way to respect property rights and to reduce taxes -- Republican political themes in a Republican state. So when will some county going to take this sensible step?



btw, that was written in 2002.

Flatlander should definitely be in a stupid zone. I found that in a thread where he actually proposed asking authorities to save the trees on his property, but, let the house burn. Stupid.

[Elkhound Odin]

I miss Ed Quillen. I always looked forward to reading his articles in the Sunday paper.

[grrrr]

Sure, except that it's based on an erroneous assumption.

The "state" doesn't draw lines saying were there will be fire protection or not...or you could say that the state draws a line around the whole state and say's "you're on your own". Did you miss the part about how the state of Colorado does not fund fire protection?

Fire protection funding in Colorado is funding solely by local fire protection district taxes. Nobody is subsidizing Evergreen Fire, the decision about how much fire protection they pay for and get is made solely by the residents of Evergreen.

In fact the formula is completely reversed from what is described in that article. The residents of Buffalo Creek subsidize the City of Denver. Denver Water has large chunks of land in their area, pays nothing for the protection of that land, and relies on the handful of residents in Buffalo Creek to pay for protecting their watershed for them.

They have a lot of fires in that district. Almost all of them are human caused. Almost none of them are caused by local residents. Almost all of them are caused by weekend warriors from Denver leaving their beer cans and campfires behind on Sunday evening.

[RootSkier]

All about stupid zones

It's amazing how even when you copy+paste something halfway interesting, you still come across as just an insufferable douchenozzle. Is this your internet thing or are you really impossible to be around in real life, too?

[Benny Profane]

Sure, except that it's based on an erroneous assumption.

The "state" doesn't draw lines saying were there will be fire protection or not...or you could say that the state draws a line around the whole state and say's "you're on your own". Did you miss the part about how the state of Colorado does not fund fire protection?

Fire protection funding in Colorado is funding solely by local fire protection district taxes. Nobody is subsidizing Evergreen Fire, the decision about how much fire protection they pay for and get is made solely by the residents of Evergreen.

In fact the formula is completely reversed from what is described in that article. The residents of Buffalo Creek subsidize the City of Denver. Denver Water has large chunks of land in their area, pays nothing for the protection of that land, and relies on the handful of residents in Buffalo Creek to pay for protecting their watershed for them.

They have a lot of fires in that district. Almost all of them are human caused. Almost none of them are caused by local residents. Almost all of them are caused by weekend warriors from Denver leaving their beer cans and campfires behind on Sunday evening.

Well, I said state, he says counties in that column. Even then, you're dealing with the swinging dicks of various local response entities, who want to be in charge if and only when the fire blows into their jurisdiction. Plenty of stupid people in government, right? I think we can all agree on that one. Especially the conservative no tax let the free world reign and let the cards just fall as they may type. Like this:

http://www.csindy.com/coloradospring...nt?oid=2598215

I guess if it's Colorado Springs, they believe a higher power will work out everyone's problems.

[powder11]

It's amazing how even when you copy+paste something halfway interesting, you still come across as just an insufferable douchenozzle. Is this your internet thing or are you really impossible to be around in real life, too?

Why do you think he lives alone and spends all his free time posting cut and pastes on this forum?