Wildfire 2022

[Meadow Skipper]

CH is a gaslighting POS.

I think I’ve agreed with that on earlier posts. It’s disappointing he got an editorial slot on the NYT.

That picture KQ posted of the grain fire made me wonder how that got handled. I’d have been tempted to burn out from the road, but there might have been some good reasons for direct attack with machinery too.

[KQ]

I think I’ve agreed with that on earlier posts. It’s disappointing he got an editorial slot on the NYT.

That picture KQ posted of the grain fire made me wonder how that got handled. I’d have been tempted to burn out from the road, but there might have been some good reasons for direct attack with machinery too.

Good reason was a resort/winery in its path.


https://www.eritageresort.com/

[bodywhomper]

McKinney fire:fkna!!

I think I’ve agreed with that on earlier posts. It’s disappointing he got an editorial slot on the NYT.

Yes to both. He must sell a lot of copy for the big media and appeal to the (old) paradigm that many subscribers still follow.

Counter punch posted an op-Ed by him a few daze ago. Super gaslighty.

“Twitter” posted this as a general rebuttal to his overall claims
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories...c58e5a888ff283

[TBS]

Most irritating part of that op-ed was how every link he posted to prove a point was to something he wrote or did or sued.

Not to mention the demonstrable bullshit and gaslighting littered throughout, all masquerading as established fact.

There’s no doubt USFS and BLM can do a better job managing fire. But ol’ Chad is using WILDFIRE! to pursue his own agenda. Kinda like how NRDC used the spotted owl…

[bodywhomper]

He uses NEPA, ESA, and the FS/NPS rules/policies (woodpecker and ca spotted owl) with a fabrication of wildfire expertise (expert halo) to meet his agenda. And he’s fooled so many people.

[TBS]

“Twitter” posted this as a general rebuttal to his overall claims
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories...c58e5a888ff283

Great paper. This photo kind of provides the TL;DR version, no?
From Bootleg fire last year

[Meadow Skipper]

My daughter lives in Yreka. This was the view to the NW from their place yesterday.


This was to the south today.

[TBS]

^^^AQI at about 250-275 there right now. No fun

https://www.iqair.com/us/usa/california/yreka

Risk they will need to evacuate? They have large animals, no?

[Meadow Skipper]

^Risk they will need to evacuate? They have large animals, no?

They moved their 6 horses to a safe neighbors’ and they’re holing up in Weed at relatives’.

Their place is pretty fire safe and defensible - 40 acres of pasture, most of it irrigated/grazed. No continuous conifers or brush near the house. But it’s nerve-wracking for them.

[old goat]

When it comes to the removal of big, old growth trees CH has a point. I don't know what's actually happening on the ground or how representative the pictures of big trees on trucks are, but the problem lies in the lack of resources to do thinning properly. Given the cost and an inadequate budget forest managers turn to commercial logging which removes mainly marketable trees--the trees that should mostly be saved. Until Congress and states massively increase the money spent of fire prevention treatments there will be no solution.

[bodywhomper]

On my western Sierra property at 2600 feet, the 107 year old ponderosa pine that I cut down (beetle kill) was over 50” dbh. It definitely would have looked like a big tree on a logging truck, but it’s definitely not old growth. I rarely see bigger trees on logging trucks in my area.

To me, this is an example of CH gaslighting: showing a picture of big logs on a logging truck and stating that they are old growth when they are actually relatively young and date back to the initiation of fire suppression and human intervention allowing encroachment into the Yosemite valley meadows. CH wants to let the forests do their thing as if there were no humans present and to pretend that humans interacted with the forests for thousands of years. Following the 14th(?) century biblical use of the term “wilderness.”

[oldnew_guy]

On my western Sierra property at 2600 feet, the 107 year old ponderosa pine that I cut down (beetle kill) was over 50” dbh. It definitely would have looked like a big tree on a logging truck, but it’s definitely not old growth. I rarely see bigger trees on logging trucks in my area.

To me, this is an example of CH gaslighting: showing a picture of big logs on a logging truck and stating that they are old growth when they are actually relatively young and date back to the initiation of fire suppression and human intervention allowing encroachment into the Yosemite valley meadows. CH wants to let the forests do their thing as if there were no humans present and to pretend that humans interacted with the forests for thousands of years. Following the 14th(?) century biblical use of the term “wilderness.”

I thought that OG is more of a gestalt and forest structure thing, not necessarily an age thing.

At least thats what Jerry Franklin told me back in the day.

In your case it was dead, but he does have a point about retaining large old trees like that. I suppose your lot probably doesn’t have OG characteristics, but I imagine you are managing it towards those characteristics based on your posts.

The point being, we can manage our way towards OG fire resistant forests. Probably not in time or at a landscape level, but it is possible. Chads do nothing approach is pretty dumb IMO.

[TBS]

They moved their 6 horses to a safe neighbors’ and they’re holing up in Weed at relatives’.

ETA - just read the PCT is closed between Aetna Summit and Mt Ashland due to this fire

[Hopeless Sinner]

I thought that OG is more of a gestalt and forest structure thing, not necessarily an age thing.

At least thats what Jerry Franklin told me back in the day.

In your case it was dead, but he does have a point about retaining large old trees like that. I suppose your lot probably doesn’t have OG characteristics, but I imagine you are managing it towards those characteristics based on your posts.

The point being, we can manage our way towards OG fire resistant forests. Probably not in time or at a landscape level, but it is possible. Chads do nothing approach is pretty dumb IMO.

The thing is climate change may bring about a completely different climax forest that what we've had in the past. There is no road map to get "there", we don't even no where "there" is, and hopefully we'll know it when we see it.

The article that prompted the CH opinion piece is this one in the NYT from a few days earlier.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/u...pgtype=Article


It states no live trees over 20" dbh can be cut in Yosemite and it's doubtful that many, if any, big snags were felled and hauled due to their value to wildlife. Only 6 of 350 loads of wood from Yosemite went to the sawmill so it's a very small amount of merchantable timber.

[old goat]

On my western Sierra property at 2600 feet, the 107 year old ponderosa pine that I cut down (beetle kill) was over 50” dbh. It definitely would have looked like a big tree on a logging truck, but it’s definitely not old growth. I rarely see bigger trees on logging trucks in my area.

To me, this is an example of CH gaslighting: showing a picture of big logs on a logging truck and stating that they are old growth when they are actually relatively young and date back to the initiation of fire suppression and human intervention allowing encroachment into the Yosemite valley meadows. CH wants to let the forests do their thing as if there were no humans present and to pretend that humans interacted with the forests for thousands of years. Following the 14th(?) century biblical use of the term “wilderness.”

Shame to lose a tree like that, not to mention the cost. There are several dead Ponderosas or Jeffreys (I can only tell them apart by the cones) near us that no one seems to be in a hurry to remove. I can only hope ours don't get infected from them. While a tree like yours might not be technically old growth--what is the definition, pre-Columbian?--that's the kind of tree that should be saved. It's a climax species here, not a transitional one. It's big enough to withstand moderate intensity fire. Maybe too many big trees too close together means they have to compete for increasingly limited water but that's a subject way over my head.

I have no doubt CH is cherry picking his pictures. I did a quick search but it's hard to get a feel for what's really going on; I'm sure the NPS picks the pictures it shows judiciously as well.

I wonder how much burned forest will ever recover, given climate change. I bet a lot of it regrows as drought tolerant brush. The old growth trees--what's left of them mostly started growing in the little ice age. Around here everything was clear cut for the comstock mines etc in the second half of the 19thC, after the little ice age but still definitely colder and wetter than we'll ever see.

Climate change isn't new--the little ice age drove the Vikings out of Greenland and is a huge factor in the replacement of feudalism with capitalism--but change was slow enough that it wouldn't have been noticed by an average human. They would notice a particularly harsh winter but not a steady trend. We're probably the first humans to have been able to notice the change in the climate in the course of our lifetimes.

[Hopeless Sinner]

Shame to lose a tree like that, not to mention the cost. There are several dead Ponderosas or Jeffreys (I can only tell them apart by the cones) near us that no one seems to be in a hurry to remove. I can only hope ours don't get infected from them. While a tree like yours might not be technically old growth--what is the definition, pre-Columbian?--that's the kind of tree that should be saved. It's a climax species here, not a transitional one. It's big enough to withstand moderate intensity fire. Maybe too many big trees too close together means they have to compete for increasingly limited water but that's a subject way over my head.

I have no doubt CH is cherry picking his pictures. I did a quick search but it's hard to get a feel for what's really going on; I'm sure the NPS picks the pictures it shows judiciously as well.

I wonder how much burned forest will ever recover, given climate change. I bet a lot of it regrows as drought tolerant brush. The old growth trees--what's left of them mostly started growing in the little ice age. Around here everything was clear cut for the comstock mines etc in the second half of the 19thC, after the little ice age but still definitely colder and wetter than we'll ever see.

Climate change isn't new--the little ice age drove the Vikings out of Greenland and is a huge factor in the replacement of feudalism with capitalism--but change was slow enough that it wouldn't have been noticed by an average human. They would notice a particularly harsh winter but not a steady trend. We're probably the first humans to have been able to notice the change in the climate in the course of our lifetimes.

There is a different set of insects that attack live trees vs dead. More than likely your trees have already been hit and survived.

The definition of old growth is age dependent, but it's also dependent on the species composition that forms the climax forest. In some cases like temperate rainforests of coastal WA, OR, and SE AK it may take 500+years to get old growth from bare ground. In the Carolinas it may reach climax in 100 years and become old growth at 150 years.

[oldnew_guy]

The thing is climate change may bring about a completely different climax forest that what we've had in the past. There is no road map to get "there", we don't even no where "there" is, and hopefully we'll know it when we see it.

The article that prompted the CH opinion piece is this one in the NYT from a few days earlier.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/u...pgtype=Article
.

It states no live trees over 20" dbh can be cut in Yosemite and it's doubtful that many, if any, big snags were felled and hauled due to their value to wildlife. Only 6 of 350 loads of wood from Yosemite went to the sawmill so it's a very small amount of merchantable timber.

Thanks for the link. I’ll see if I can find time to read it.

I think you are right that climate change will most certainly bring about different climax ecosystems (forest or otherwise). I also think we are seeing it happen in real time.

I also personally think that most of this landscape level vegetation management discussion flies in the face of the reality I see occurring -> large wildfires are occurring across the landscape faster than we can apply management strategies. IE - climate change and Mother Nature are doing it for us and we are along for the ride and can at best hope to protect some critical resources. (IE - we might see nice fire resistance OG type forests re-established around certain communities and certain watersheds.)

IMO and from my training OG forest is not defined by age, it is defined by a set of characteristics. You can establish an average age it takes to get to the characteristics, but it’s not like it’s OG when it’s 100 YO and not when it’s 99.

[bodywhomper]

Old growth in a lot of areas of the Americans were heavily manipulated by man for thousands of years.

There was a guy on Twitter that was posting some 19th century maps on Yosemite valley last month, one map included the location of the saw mill that John Muir build.

CH has had a direct role in poor forest recovery in the western Sierra following high severity fire. There’s a scar in eldorado NF where the topsoil washed away because CH sued the NF’s NEPA compliance for the response/recovery/salvage operations. He didn’t sue the Tahoe NF for the same practices for the same fire. There’s a location where you can see (or at least used to be able to see) the border between the two NF’s because of the soil post-fire.

In my neighborhood, a 20 dbh pondo pine would be less than 50 years old. With no management except for fire suppression, my next door neighbor had 72 pondo pines on less than an acre that were larger than 20” dbh. It was very dense. (They all died from a single pine beetle infestation)

[oldnew_guy]

Old growth in a lot of areas of the Americans were heavily manipulated by man for thousands of years.

There was a guy on Twitter that was posting some 19th century maps on Yosemite valley last month, one map included the location of the saw mill that John Muir build.

CH has had a direct role in poor forest recovery in the western Sierra following high severity fire. There’s a scar in eldorado NF where the topsoil washed away because CH sued the NF’s NEPA compliance for the response/recovery/salvage operations. He didn’t sue the Tahoe NF for the same practices for the same fire. There’s a location where you can see (or at least used to be able to see) the border between the two NF’s because of the soil post-fire.

In my neighborhood, a 20 dbh pondo pine would be less than 50 years old. With no management except for fire suppression, my next door neighbor had 72 pondo pines on less than an acre that were larger than 20” dbh. It was very dense. (They all died from a single pine beetle infestation)

Wow, there is a PHd thesis for someone.

The 20” rule has caused lots of heartburn for lots of years. It’s too bad we can’t seem to move past the arguments of the 1980s/90s to a better style of management.

[bodywhomper]

They moved their 6 horses to a safe neighbors’ and they’re holing up in Weed at relatives’.

Their place is pretty fire safe and defensible - 40 acres of pasture, most of it irrigated/grazed. No continuous conifers or brush near the house. But it’s nerve-wracking for them.

I hope there’s a good outcome for your family! Being around the heavy smoke with little kids is tricky and tiring.

[bodywhomper]

I found this description of old growth in the Sierra. https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/F...wthForests.php

[oldnew_guy]

Old growth in a lot of areas of the Americans were heavily manipulated by man for thousands of years.

There was a guy on Twitter that was posting some 19th century maps on Yosemite valley last month, one map included the location of the saw mill that John Muir build.

CH has had a direct role in poor forest recovery in the western Sierra following high severity fire. There’s a scar in eldorado NF where the topsoil washed away because CH sued the NF’s NEPA compliance for the response/recovery/salvage operations. He didn’t sue the Tahoe NF for the same practices for the same fire. There’s a location where you can see (or at least used to be able to see) the border between the two NF’s because of the soil post-fire.

In my neighborhood, a 20 dbh pondo pine would be less than 50 years old. With no management except for fire suppression, my next door neighbor had 72 pondo pines on less than an acre that were larger than 20” dbh. It was very dense. (They all died from a single pine beetle infestation)

Thought bubble, not necessarily advocating for this.

If man has “managed” the forest for thousands of years and created a OG characteristic “Y” that takes 150-200 years to get to, has man now managed differently for 100 years and created OG characteristic “X” that takes 75-120 years to get to?

[LongShortLong]

At the same time, it’s a stretch to say logging makes wildfire worse, esp in select cut situations

Don't think it's a stretch at all, but exactly what happens. The replacement forest is densely packed trees that support crown fires. And the recently cut areas regrow with dense brush that carries fores to said crowns. Read the reports on California's big fires - most of them cover this.

Could we successfully log to create firebreaks? Maybe, but I doubt even that. For the first year or two we've got a firebreak. For the rest of forever, who's paying to clear the brush every few years?

Simple answers for complex problems don't work.

[John_B]

Are you talking clearcuts only LSL? In my neck of the woods the FS does the majority of their cutting as commercial thinning operations. Typical with piles burned afterwards. I don't think they make a shitbit if money off of it but it seems to keep them from getting sued as much.

And we can log in a sustainable manner to reduce burn intensity. This thinning operations are not a failsafe but as a whole they can reduce burn intensities. Here is a paper that retrospectively evaluates the success of thinning and fuel reduction projects after a large fire. That fire was practically in my back yard so I'm kinda invested in that one.

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...riven_wildfire

[bodywhomper]

That is definitely a paradigm established by Olmsted (don’t cut down or burn anything), but I’m not sure if current private forest plantation practices need to follow that practice. There are new industries coming out for wood, such as mass timber construction, which may change what is considered marketable.

Thought bubble, not necessarily advocating for this.

If man has “managed” the forest for thousands of years and created a OG characteristic “Y” that takes 150-200 years to get to, has man now managed differently for 100 years and created OG characteristic “X” that takes 75-120 years to get to?

“OG X” would need to include growth for 75-120 years followed by high severity fire followed followed by habitat change away from conifer and conifer/oak woodland to more shrub habitat