2020 Wildfire Season

[wooley12]

AQI was 157 at 6 am. Now at 180. Heading to 225.

[Sharon Needles]

Apparently a good bit of you people are unaware of the fire triangle.

[puma]

Bend is 531. It is awesome

[Hood26]

Thanks for this. Started running the range hood fan (sounds like a jet), laundry room fan and all bathroom fans. Seems to be helping.

Careful not to run it too long. Too much negative flow will draw more outside air right back in when you open the doors or up the the crawlspace. But then again I am no HVAC expert or dentist.

[puma]

Careful not to run it too long. Too much negative flow will draw more outside air right back in when you open the doors or up the the crawlspace. But then again I am no HVAC expert or dentist.

That was my thought too, but I am also not skilled with hvac...

[altasnob]

Bend is 531. It is awesome

Jesus, Washington's air quality map tops out at 500. White Salmon is at 500 right now. Low 300s in the Puget Sound.

[PB]

Continuing the climate change discussion : trying to remember any significant episodes of smoke in the Bay Area between 1960 and 1990 and coming up blank, as in none. Assuming none occurred but would defer to sharper minds.

[Hood26]

That was my thought too, but I am also not skilled with hvac...

Woke to a really smokey bedroom. With the central HVAC not running and the house shut tight overnight, I was puzzled until I found that my wife had been running a bathroom fan for an extended period of time. Since then we have used exhaust fans more sparingly and have had less issues.

[AK47bp]

When you remove air from your home it is replaced by outside air.


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[LongShortLong]

Continuing the climate change discussion : trying to remember any significant episodes of smoke in the Bay Area between 1960 and 1990 and coming up blank, as in none. Assuming none occurred but would defer to sharper minds.

They used to burn all the rice fields yearly, around this time. Sacramento got it often enough to pass a law despite the strong ag lobby. Would guess it blew into the bay now and then.

Based on the 30 year time period, the Oakland hills should have burnt once or twice too. They are currently due - maybe this year.

Satellites make it more obvious what's going on. In the 60's, who's to distinguish a local grass fire from a distant forest fire?

[KQ]

Woke to a really smokey bedroom. With the central HVAC not running and the house shut tight overnight, I was puzzled until I found that my wife had been running a bathroom fan for an extended period of time. Since then we have used exhaust fans more sparingly and have had less issues.

Well I shut the door and only ran it for about 15mins to get rid of some of the smell then I taped it up and shut the door again. House is too cold to run AC so this is what I've got. Windows are top notch as are doors. Bathroom vents are my only weak spot.

AQI is now 366

[muted]

When you remove air from your home it is replaced by outside air.


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Thats what the government wants you to think, but in reality it's much more complicated than that.

[east or bust]

Jesus, Washington's air quality map tops out at 500. White Salmon is at 500 right now. Low 300s in the Puget Sound.

Sweet, can’t wait for that to roll a couple miles east...

[KQ]

That dot in the air is the sun.

[4matic]

I was looking at a house in Ukiah. Can’t buy fire insurance there right now and prior to the moratorium it was $3000 a year. Same house in wildfire safe area is $600.

[SkiBall]

Continuing the climate change discussion : trying to remember any significant episodes of smoke in the Bay Area between 1960 and 1990 and coming up blank, as in none. Assuming none occurred but would defer to sharper minds.

I was there from mid 70’s until 2000. I can’t recall smokey days even when the Berkeley hills burned. Spent the very early part of life in NE L.A. and I remember the hills glowing a few times at a young age so I am drawing on some memory at least.

[KQ]

crap we just went up to 405!

[old goat]

I don’t think this has been posted but here’s an explanation of events that led to the weather event earlier this week:

1. east asia has a record-breaking heatwave this summer
2. as a result, sea surface temps in east asia get really hot
3. a typhoon hits those hot waters, and sends a boost of extra energy into the jet stream
4. the jet stream hits 200 mph, and sends that slug of wind across the pacific
5. this pushes a mass of cold dry air down from canada along the rockies, switching the weather in the rockies from 100 degree heat waves to snowstorms
6. this burst of cold air pushes the preexisting mass of hot dry air towards the west coast, gusting up to 65 mph
7. this acts like a bellows on existing wildfires, and fires up a ton of new ones, and pushes their smoke and a huge cloud of dust ahead of it towards the west side of the mountains.
8. as the pulse of hot dry dusty smoky wind is pushed down the west slope of the cascades and sierras, the sinking air compresses and heats up, making things even hotter and drier and fire-prone.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2...JXSru4de5DbLX4

So the fires came from Gina. Just like I figured

People can argue all they want about what's the most important factor in the fires. They all matter. Some we can do something about, some we can't.

Fire suppression we can do something about right now--although the scale of the work required means it will happen very slowly if at all, but at least we can lobby for more thinning, clearing, and controlled burns near population centers.

The weather and terrain we can't do anything about.

The climate we can do something about, but if we start now we may see results in decades.

Land use and building codes we can do something about. It won't stop the fires but it will allow resources to be spent containing fires rather than protecting structures and rescuing people. There are a lot of places people are living where the risk of fire is too high and the resources locally available to protect them are too sparse. A lot of these burned communities shouldn't be rebuilt.

So fix what we can fix. Lobbing molotov articles back and forth doesn't fix anything.

[altasnob]

In WA in the National Parks (Olympic, Rainier) and wilderness areas the powers that be have a policy of not trying to fight naturally started fires. They just let it burn uncontrolled. Not sure if this is the same policy in OR and CA. I wish more areas were wilderness and we could have this policy in more of the west because to me, it is on the only long term sustainable solution. Unfortunately, we have too much private land in the Western forests dotted with homes. So we are stuck trying to prevent and fight these fires. Thinning trees and clearing brush means building and maintaining roads, which is not good for the ecosystem, and not good for climate change long term. Stop subsidizing rural living over urban living so more people are economically forced to live in cities (because who wouldn't want to live in the mountains in the west with biking and skiing out their back door).

[John_B]

In WA in the National Parks (Olympic, Rainier) and wilderness areas the powers that be have a policy of not trying to fight naturally started fires. They just let it burn uncontrolled. Not sure if this is the same policy in OR and CA. I wish more areas were wilderness and we could have this policy in more of the west because to me, it is on the only long term sustainable solution. Unfortunately, we have too much private land in the Western forests dotted with homes. So we are stuck trying to prevent and fight these fires. Thinning trees and clearing brush means building and maintaining roads, which is not good for the ecosystem, and not good for climate change long term. Stop subsidizing rural living over urban living so more people are economically forced to live in cities (because who wouldn't want to live in the mountains in the west with biking and skiing out their back door).

Dont forget North Cascades NP. In my experience working for the NPS they still do a lot of management on wilderness fires. They are certainly not airdropping in dozers but they are doing bucket drops and doing their best to manage burn intensity rather than a strict "let it burn" policy.

[Tap]

5pm Sunday AQI forecast, red is > 160. Right now Bend is 522.

[KQ]

444 AQI now. I feel so bad for my horses but there is nothing I can do for them.

[thefortrees]

5pm Sunday AQI forecast, red is > 160. Right now Bend is 522.

It appears Ullr is sending our neighbors north of the border a little “fuck you for closing your borders to the murikan covid infected skiers”

[bobz]

I just heard, without citation (maybe mikey could confirm or deny?) that China Peak ski area didn't have time to move out a half-ton of avy control explosives, and, well, you know. A bit of a show I guess if anyone was there to watch it happen. Oops!!

[~mikey b]

I heard they got a crew in there to get rid of it. Not sure if they moved it or disposed of it.