Wildfire ‘24

[Meadow Skipper]

^ In 1910 there was a number of extremely large and destructive wildfires in and around Montana and Idaho - web search for the big burn 1910. The land management agencies were either brand new (forest service) or didn’t exist yet (Park Service, BLM, etc) but the Big Burn was the catalyst for initiated/increased wildfire suppression on public lands. (There’s not much history for states’ wildfire management yet at that point)

Before that wildfires burned more or less freely - originally ignited by lightning or indigenous actions. But industrial grazing and logging were both severely altering the firescape and increasing the commercial demand for those resources.

So formal fire suppression policies and operations were developed and organized, and that worked pretty well (from a suppression standpoint) until towards the end of the 20th century.

But to answer the question, until the Euros started exploiting the west, yeah, millions of acres burned in an average year in the west, some years more than others. But fires weren’t always so destructive, though things like old growth even-aged Douglas-fir stands in the PNW show that there were stand-replacing fires back then.

Changes in weather patterns, vegetation patterns and conditions, habitation and population, etc. have made it kind of crucial.

[XXX-er]

A wild fire ski bud told me something about the Spaniards altering Spain with over grazing in the middle ages and it seemed to have something to do with fire, which sounded intriguing do you know anything about that ?

[NBABUCKS1]

^ In 1910 there was a number of extremely large and destructive wildfires in and around Montana and Idaho - web search for the big burn 1910. The land management agencies were either brand new (forest service) or didn’t exist yet (Park Service, BLM, etc) but the Big Burn was the catalyst for initiated/increased wildfire suppression on public lands. (There’s not much history for states’ wildfire management yet at that point)

Before that wildfires burned more or less freely - originally ignited by lightning or indigenous actions. But industrial grazing and logging were both severely altering the firescape and increasing the commercial demand for those resources.

So formal fire suppression policies and operations were developed and organized, and that worked pretty well (from a suppression standpoint) until towards the end of the 20th century.

But to answer the question, until the Euros started exploiting the west, yeah, millions of acres burned in an average year in the west, some years more than others. But fires weren’t always so destructive, though things like old growth even-aged Douglas-fir stands in the PNW show that there were stand-replacing fires back then.

Changes in weather patterns, vegetation patterns and conditions, habitation and population, etc. have made it kind of crucial.

Thanks for the perspective. A lot more nuanced than a simple yes or no. Appreciate it.

[Meadow Skipper]

A wild fire ski bud told me something about the Spaniards altering Spain with over grazing in the middle ages and it seemed to have something to do with fire, which sounded intriguing do you know anything about that ?

I don’t know much about Euro fire history, but if the Spanish grazing history in New Mexico (starting in the 1500s) and California is any indicator, I betcha your bud was on to something.

When I go to Yurp I’m always fascinated looking at the landscapes and speculating on how long it has been since it was wild and basically unaffected by humans.

[XXX-er]

Yeah my buddy is a retired BC gov fire guy, he has been teaching courses to the FN and i think he did some stuff in Sweden

I bike toured the TDF route on the France side of the Pyrennes and the Camino on the Spanish side

The french side is truly beautiful and lush, every morning it was like somebody smeared cosmoline on my wayfarers while the spainish side was moon scape

What I read about the grazing in Spain is that the kings men would ride ahead of the kings herds to warn the peasantantry that the sheep are coming and the peasants could do nothing about it , something about the divine right of kings of course it altered the country, I think the spaniards did some dumb hit like that, something about all the infusions of aztec silver completely fucking up the monetary policies of medieval spain

[Meadow Skipper]

Facebook and instagram posts from fire folk have started ranting about a huge number of UTF (unable to fill) requests for experienced fireline supervisors and staff like dispatchers. This might hurt.

Shitty pay and unresolved burnout conditions will do that I guess.

When all of the West is on fire at once, this is who deals with it

BOISE, Idaho — As Sean Peterson took his seat Friday morning in the nation’s nerve center for fighting wildfires, 104 large blazes raged uncontained across the United States.
The federal government’s firefighting resources were already fully committed, but requests from regional commands kept pouring in.

The day before, his office had turned away requests for 37 aircraft, 40 fire engines, and hundreds of specialists, from dispatchers to heavy equipment bosses. Six hundred more requests had landed that morning. The Park Fire in Northern California was exploding at a pace that horrified and amazed even the hardened veterans here. A firefighter injured by a tree had been evacuated to an Idaho hospital. And an aircraft had gone missing overnight amid the smoke billowing from Oregon’s Malheur National Forest.

NICC at the National Interagency Fire Center (aka the Puzzle Palace, Head Shed, or those motherfuckers in Boise) is the top of the pyramid for wildfire resource coordination in the US. Resource requests from field unit dispatch centers go to the Geographic Area Coordination Centers where, if they can’t be filled by the GACC, they go to NICC, which scouts for available resources in the other GACCs.

[BCMtnHound]

In BC, we classify our landscape into four disturbance types: Type 1 is rare stand replacement events, mostly coast and very wet interior forests, and disturbance is about equal to fire/landslide/windthrow; Type 2 infrequent stand initiating events, most interior wet forests; Type 3 frequent stand initiating events, most dry cedar climax and montane (spruce climax but lots of lodgepole pine); and Type 4 stand maintaining fire, which is our dry interior Doug fir and ponderosa/grassland forests.
100yrs on whitey on the landscape has pretty much fucked em all up. Converted Type 1, 2 & 4 into Type 3, through stand conversion and fire suppression. Especially the dry Doug fir types, they are way overstocked and even some aforestation in grasslands. Now with drier and warmer weather, fire is happily doing its thing. The Type 2 & 3 types were the large fires traditionally, but there was still more of a mosaic of stands before our industrial hewing and planting of trees occurred.

It’s going to take time, loss and hardship to turn our forests and communities resilient to fire again. No silver bullet and it will be different for each landscape unit. Expectations will be the hardest to change I think.

I am just very thankful these past 7yrs of significant fire events didn’t occur when the top half of the province was still halfway through the pine beetle epidemic, with red lodgepole contiguous across the landscape. Dodged a bit of a perfect storm there. 2/3rds of the province could have gone up like Jasper.

[XXX-er]

I've heard them complaining on social media but I think we were very lucky to only lose 30% of jasper

apparently the highways have openned or are openning and so is CN

[Conundrum]

I live just north of NIFC (those motherfuckers in Boise) . Also a Guard Air base there. Been seeing a number of grey C130s heading north today.

[old goat]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wildfires

[bodywhomper]

Pretty rad discussion here ^^^ about historic land use changes!!

Possibility that the Park Fire may take out one of the chinook populations https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2024/ju...nias-most-ico/

[FrankZappa]

VLAT westbound at min altitude to hump over Monarch pass (11k+ asl) around 6pm tonight. (Salida/poncha springs) Came back eb about or less w/n an hour later

[John_B]

Pretty rad discussion here ^^^ about historic land use changes!!

Possibility that the Park Fire may take out one of the chinook populations https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2024/ju...nias-most-ico/

From an attempt at optimism there is also data that shows that fish populations benefit in years ~5-10 post fire due to the increase in sediment load(after many of the fines have blown out, increased complexity due to wood entering the stream and perhaps increased nutrients.

That said when current returns are in the neighborhood for 20-40 fish all bets are off.

The other interesting thing that caught my eye is the article refers to those spring Chinook being on a 3 year life history and at least in the upper Columbia it is way more common to see 4 year old Chinook vs 3 year olds.

Now back to fire and we can stop talking about fish squeezing.

[bodywhomper]

I’m optimistic and hopeful for the chinook, but it sounds like they’re dropping a lot of retardant

On another note:

[Meadow Skipper]

^ Yeah, it doesn’t look good for the Chinook habitat in Mill Creek at the Park Fire.

I was just looking at the air show on the Watch Duty app on the NE side - it’s kind of insane. I saw 3 lead planes, air tankers in and out constantly, almost a dozen helicopters, and an air attack ship overhead coordinating it all.

What you’d call an aluminum overcast in the sky.

[bodywhomper]

I’m pretty sure the planes from my local airport are working up there. We hear them flying every morning heading up there and every evening coming home - and we’re frantically checking apps, yubanet, FB, etc. to see if they’re heading in or working something nearby.

On Zeke’s live YouTube thing last night, he was describing how part of Mill Creek that was still outside the fire perimeter was true old growth Doug fir forest. The area was never logged. His afternoon update today was that they lit 2(?) big(!) back fires from the top of Mill Creek between part of the fire front and Mineral. He sounded skeptical if it would be helpful in saving the town.

[Meadow Skipper]

The 8/7 morning map of the Park Fire shows yesterday’s blowout on the NE side. Gonna have their work cut out for them today to keep it out of the towns of Mill Creek and Mineral.


Today’s NICC report shows so much activity all over the west.
https://www.nifc.gov/nicc-files/sitreprt.pdf

[The AD]

The town of Stehekin on Lake Chelan in the North Cascades is currently threatened. Fires entered the town last night, apparently. A "get out now" order was issued a few days ago, but apparently in Washington state officials cannot force people to leave and many stayed. The only way out is by boat or floatplane.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...ted-to-worsen/

[skaredshtles]

The town of Stehekin on Lake Chelan in the North Cascades is currently threatened. Fires entered the town last night, apparently. A "get out now" order was issued a few days ago, but apparently in Washington state officials cannot force people to leave and many stayed.

[The AD]

I get the desire to stay and protect your property, but honestly your life is more important than your house. Get the fuck out!

[Meadow Skipper]

The town of Stehekin on Lake Chelan in the North Cascades is currently threatened. Fires entered the town last night, apparently. A "get out now" order was issued a few days ago, but apparently in Washington state officials cannot force people to leave and many stayed. The only way out is by boat or floatplane.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...ted-to-worsen/

I might be wrong, but I believe that people cannot be ‘forced’ to evacuate, even when it’s called ‘mandatory.’

[skaredshtles]

I might be wrong, but I believe that people cannot be ‘forced’ to evacuate, even when it’s called ‘mandatory.’

Not in a nation that is founded on Freedumb.

[Kevo]

The 8/7 morning map of the Park Fire shows yesterday’s blowout on the NE side. Gonna have their work cut out for them today to keep it out of the towns of Mill Creek and Mineral.


Today’s NICC report shows so much activity all over the west.
https://www.nifc.gov/nicc-files/sitreprt.pdf

We're currently breathing the smoke from that blowout.

This video is pretty wild- https://www.instagram.com/p/C-WYU0Hs45M/

It's surprising to me that they had a 16 blade wide dozer line and let the head of the fire burn all the way up to it. Why not burn it off?

[The AD]

I might be wrong, but I believe that people cannot be ‘forced’ to evacuate, even when it’s called ‘mandatory.’

Maybe they need to come up with a new term, then. Mandatory sure sounds like you must go.

[BCMtnHound]

Peace officers will enforce orders here if minors are involved, but they won’t otherwise force property owners to leave. They will set up roadblocks and the like and prevent access into the zone. Once out, you can’t get back in unless authorized.