2020 Wildfire Season

[SirVicSmasher]

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[old goat]

I remember doing a job in Sacto and coming home on 5 in the middle of the night and hitting tule fog. I think that was my first experience with that dense of fog. Fortunately being on 5, not a lot of turning involved.

It's not the turns that get you, it's running into people with no lights on. Or people who get freaked out, pull off the road, stop, and don't turn their lights off.
Love those 100+ car pile ups. Driving in fog is a real art--too fast and you rear end people, too slow you get rear ended.
A lot like driving in heavy snow--you get stuck behind some guy going way too slow, finally pass and realize that without someone to follow you're not able to go any faster than he was.

[altasnob]

Here's a question for any aperists: what do bees do when it's smokey like this? Do they flee their hives or hunker down?

I'm not an aperist, but my good friend's family owns www.foothillshoney.com and is one of the largest bee farmers in Oregon. They own several tracts of property outside of Mollala. They got special permission to go into the mandatory evac zone the other day and transported the bees to safer property. So I assume the bees stick around.

[bodywhomper]

I heard the bees go to part time in these conditions, same for most(?) plants.

[ill-advised strategy]

I figured you might get a little blowback on that.

Oh well.

I guess they want to panic and worry. I would be comforted by knowing thousands of us have proven you can live in wildland fire smoke and come out perfectly healthy. Then again, I’m an idiot, so whatever.

Anyway. You will recognize the trend, having recently experienced posters arguing with you (of all people! lol!) about fire science...which, to me, is just an astonishing example of where we’re at as a society, and how this medium functions to equalize knowledge with speculation, fact with opinion, etc.

[Meadow Skipper]

Oh well.

I guess they want to panic and worry. I would be comforted by knowing thousands of us have proven you can live in wildland fire smoke and come out perfectly healthy. Then again, I’m an idiot, so whatever.

Anyway. You will recognize the trend, having recently experienced posters arguing with you (of all people! lol!) about fire science...which, to me, is just an astonishing example of where we’re at as a society, and how this medium functions to equalize knowledge with speculation, fact with opinion, etc.

In defense of that, it’s extremely easy to find support (and misinformation) these days on media for every possible (and impossible) stance and POV Imaginable.

That, and this crazy situation we’re in has been going on long enough to drive everyone a little (or completely) nuts. Of course the drive is shorter for some people than others.

It’s best for me when I can try to be amused, or helpful.

[char_]

Oh well.

I guess they want to panic and worry. I would be comforted by knowing thousands of us have proven you can live in wildland fire smoke and come out perfectly healthy. Then again, I’m an idiot, so whatever.

Anyway. You will recognize the trend, having recently experienced posters arguing with you (of all people! lol!) about fire science...which, to me, is just an astonishing example of where we’re at as a society, and how this medium functions to equalize knowledge with speculation, fact with opinion, etc.

I may not have as much experience as Meadow Skipper and certainly never was as qualifed, but I did 13 seasons of WF firefighting for the BLM and USFS in a primary firefighter role.

The negative effects of wildfire smoke exposure were understood to be negative from day 1 of my career. It was trained.

While I was working for the Feds, they did a study (Domitrovich etc all) where they strapped air sensors to IHC's, helitack, and Type 2IA crews and actually measured the exposure and calculated the expected increase in diseases for WWF over a 10 year period. PM2.5 and PM10 exposure is underwood to be bad for downwind communities, it's why it is a big focus of the RX series of Burn Boss classes. I sat in a heavy inversion that prevented flight for weeks and months in northern CA in 2012, so did every community.

At least for awhile, there was a big push by the union to get a number of diseases classified and presumptively caused by smoke exposure for WWF, similar to structure FF.

So when you say "fire science" doesn't indicate a risk from WWF smoke, all WWF whobhave been exposed are fine and people are overreacting, I don't know what you are talking about.

[Sharon Needles]

Ohh noze!!! The Oregonian says Oregon fires are massive due to fuel build up caused by decades of fire suppression and poor management.

https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020...7mLFsMKqRoBq0k

[ill-advised strategy]

So when you say "fire science" doesn't indicate a risk from WWF smoke, all WWF whobhave been exposed are fine and people are overreacting, I don't know what you are talking about.

Reread my post.

I said the fact that ppl here with no experience at all will argue fire science with a state FMO about fire science (elsewhere on the forum) indicates they’ll argue anything with anyone and that expertise and experience are being rendered meaningless by the current methods of exchange.

You want everyone to trip out about being smoked in for a few weeks, alrighty.
You (likely) and I ate more smoke than 99.99% of human beings. I’m fine, you’re fine. All I did was try to reassure people that if we got through it they will too, for fucks sake.

[ill-advised strategy]

Bunch of douchebags on here.

Jesus fucking Christ.

[char_]

Reread my post.

I said the fact that ppl here with no experience at all will argue fire science with a state FMO about fire science (elsewhere on the forum) indicates they’ll argue anything with anyone and that expertise and experience are being rendered meaningless by the current methods of exchange.

You want everyone to trip out about being smoked in for a few weeks, alrighty.
You (likely) and I ate more smoke than 99.99% of human beings. I’m fine, you’re fine. All I did was try to reassure people that if we got through it they will too, for fucks sake.

Dude, I have shit in my lungs that shows up on x-ray and that means I now get monitoring x-rays. Smoke, some respiratory illness I had, I don't know. The science tells me I am statistically more likely to get a variety of diseases as I age because of that exposure.

Your dismissal of the science surrounding smoke exposure and the legitimate concerns of downwind communities who are experiencing months of smoke exposure is strange to me.

[Sharon Needles]

Bunch of douchebags on here.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Hysteria and anger makes bullshit easier to sell.

People are also much likely to act outta anger and panic than any other emotions.

[MTT]

Oh well.

I guess they want to panic and worry. I would be comforted by knowing thousands of us have proven you can live in wildland fire smoke and come out perfectly healthy. Then again, I’m an idiot, so whatever.

Anyway. You will recognize the trend, having recently experienced posters arguing with you (of all people! lol!) about fire science...which, to me, is just an astonishing example of where we’re at as a society, and how this medium functions to equalize knowledge with speculation, fact with opinion, etc.

My throat is very sore today. The smoke is nasty around here. My assumption is that when the smoke goes I start getting better. Imperial evidence suggests that.
I grow weary of this constant barrage of the sky is falling.

Did any of you see the Trump rallies here in northern nevada. Yesterday.
It's not really about some dude from NYC. It's really just sayin. Fuck You. I'm gonna live my life.

That's all it is.
Respectfully
MTT

[SkiBall]

It's not the turns that get you, it's running into people with no lights on. Or people who get freaked out, pull off the road, stop, and don't turn their lights off.
Love those 100+ car pile ups. Driving in fog is a real art--too fast and you rear end people, too slow you get rear ended.
A lot like driving in heavy snow--you get stuck behind some guy going way too slow, finally pass and realize that without someone to follow you're not able to go any faster than he was.

This for sure. It was the middle of the night and very light traffic which probably saved my ass.

[PB]

The dense tule fogs in the Sacramento valley miraculously went away when they stopped burning the rice stubble. When I first lived there finding your freeway exit was often a challenge in the winter. You never booked a flight before noon unless it was a very early flight where the plane landed the night before. Planes couldn't land in the fog back then. When I stopped living there in 2011 dense fogs were almost unheard of. Like London--the famous fog was actually smog, and lethal. Much better now than in Dickens' day.

That would imply that there wasn't any fog before they started burning the rice fields, which I suspect was not the case.
I do recall, however, a similar hypothesis that heavy smoke resulted in rain, based on anecdotal observations of rain after major civil war battles. Also have heard some local farmers make the claim that the fog's gone because we don't have the standing surface water that we used to - seems more credible but the surface water reduction preceded the fog disappearance by a considerable amount of time, so .....

Imma go with climate change.

And double yeah on driving in the fog - almost killed myself and several others when I was young and foolish by trying to pass someone on a 2 lane road; the oncoming car's light were invisible until they suddenly popped up 30 feet in front of me. Car being passed slows down, I slow down, oncoming car slows down, we all come to a stop, I sheepishly back up and get out of the way. I should have been arrested.

[KQ]

I'm not an aperist, but my good friend's family owns www.foothillshoney.com and is one of the largest bee farmers in Oregon. They own several tracts of property outside of Mollala. They got special permission to go into the mandatory evac zone the other day and transported the bees to safer property. So I assume the bees stick around.

Nice!

I heard the bees go to part time in these conditions, same for most(?) plants.

I noticed a couple of umbrella wasp nests in my yard were very still. Wasps were just clinging to the nest not moving.

[John_B]

I noticed a couple of umbrella wasp nests in my yard were very still. Wasps were just clinging to the nest not moving.

The perfect time to strike!

[old goat]

That would imply that there wasn't any fog before they started burning the rice fields, which I suspect was not the case.
I do recall, however, a similar hypothesis that heavy smoke resulted in rain, based on anecdotal observations of rain after major civil war battles. Also have heard some local farmers make the claim that the fog's gone because we don't have the standing surface water that we used to - seems more credible but the surface water reduction preceded the fog disappearance by a considerable amount of time, so .....

Imma go with climate change.

And double yeah on driving in the fog - almost killed myself and several others when I was young and foolish by trying to pass someone on a 2 lane road; the oncoming car's light were invisible until they suddenly popped up 30 feet in front of me. Car being passed slows down, I slow down, oncoming car slows down, we all come to a stop, I sheepishly back up and get out of the way. I should have been arrested.

The fogs aren't gone and I agree they were there before there was rice burning, or Europeans, or people in the Central Valley. But certainly the extremely dense fogs of the 70's, when I moved to Sac, are rare or nonexistent. Warming might be part of it too, I suppose, less standing water as you say.

[GoldMember]

My throat is very sore today. The smoke is nasty around here. My assumption is that when the smoke goes I start getting better. Empirical evidence suggests that.
I grow weary of this constant barrage of the sky is falling.

Did any of you see the Trump rallies here in northern nevada. Yesterday.
It's not really about some dude from NYC. It's really just sayin. Fuck You. I'm gonna live my life.

That's all it is.
Respectfully
MTT

FIFY

[LongShortLong]

Ohh noze!!! The Oregonian says Oregon fires are massive due to fuel build up caused by decades of fire suppression and poor management.

https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020...7mLFsMKqRoBq0k

Article seems worth a read.

You neglect to mention the part that says Oregon forests are so biologically productive that management schemes are impractical.

I'd say the same for CA. An area along 50 I visit regularly had a fire burn and kill 99% of vegetation. Within 2 years, the brush regrowth was more hazardous than the prior forest. At 4 years it was 15-20 feet high and impossibly dense. Not sure how to mitigate that in any economical manner. (Besides not building in it). Prior to fire, the forest did not seem overly dense to my non-expert eyes. Spaced widely enough you could (theoretically) drive through it, one to 3 foot diameter trees. One section had thinning due to power lines too.

[LongShortLong]

People want to believe there's an easy solution. I'm not seeing it. How do you protect Coffey Park in Santa Rosa? Subdivision, not in a forest. The natural "fire break" consisted of a 6 lane freeway with frontage roads - like 100-200 feet of permanent bare mineral clearcut. Burnt to the ground with lives lost. There's probably a mishmash of partial solutions that help some of the time against some fires. Zoning, building codes, defensible space, control burns, evacuations, insurance, etc.

[bodywhomper]

People want to believe there's an easy solution. I'm not seeing it. How do you protect Coffey Park in Santa Rosa? Subdivision, not in a forest. The natural "fire break" consisted of a 6 lane freeway with frontage roads - like 100-200 feet of permanent bare mineral clearcut. Burnt to the ground with lives lost. There's probably a mishmash of partial solutions that help some of the time against some fires. Zoning, building codes, defensible space, control burns, evacuations, insurance, etc.

An optimistic twist would be to state that it’s a complex and multi-faceted solution.

[bodywhomper]

I noticed a couple of umbrella wasp nests in my yard were very still. Wasps were just clinging to the nest not moving.

There’s been a handful of tarantula wasps on my property that have not seemed to slow down in the past week of smoke. I’m pretty sure they’re on the hunt. I’ve been trying to get some photos of them, but they’ve been too fast. Such a beautiful insect, fairy wings and all.... with a super vicious sting.

[old goat]

Article seems worth a read.

You neglect to mention the part that says Oregon forests are so biologically productive that management schemes are impractical.

I'd say the same for CA. An area along 50 I visit regularly had a fire burn and kill 99% of vegetation. Within 2 years, the brush regrowth was more hazardous than the prior forest. At 4 years it was 15-20 feet high and impossibly dense. Not sure how to mitigate that in any economical manner. (Besides not building in it). Prior to fire, the forest did not seem overly dense to my non-expert eyes. Spaced widely enough you could (theoretically) drive through it, one to 3 foot diameter trees. One section had thinning due to power lines too.

The typical fire in the pre-Columbian Sierra I believe happened on average about every 15-20 years or so (I'm doing my best to remember something I read some time ago), and took out the brush and immature trees, leaving the mature trees. With fire suppressed for over 100 years the fuel loads are such that the big fires kill the mature trees. The road back to replacing that mature forest is long and difficult and maybe impossible. At best it will require active human management to control the brush and excess trees while suppressing fire to allow an appropriate number of trees to grow and become mature enough to resist wildfire. As I recall from college botany a climax forest takes can take centuries to mature and become homeostatic.

Clear cutting has pretty much the same effect as a fire that kills the mature trees. Lots of little stuff grows back and it's difficult for big trees to grow back without excess smaller size fuels accumulating at the same time.

My understanding of the original forest in the Sierra was big, widely space trees, with the forest floor largely grass which stayed green in the summer. Those native grasses have been displaced by grasses brought by the pioneers. I've seen forest like that--it's quite beautiful, it looks a lot like a man-made park.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

There was an interview on NPR last night and they were talking about wildfires. How they were a part of the ecosystem, yada yada. One of the guests chimes in that while all of that was true, when the smoke and fire starts impact population centers that the fires need to be put out and that it’s government’s job to do so.

I don’t think the average city or suburban dweller has any idea about wildfires. They don’t understand that we can’t put these fires out. The best we can do is try to prevent and contain them.


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