Page 36 of 46 FirstFirst ... 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 ... LastLast
Results 876 to 900 of 1146
  1. #876
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    2 hours from anything
    Posts
    10,734
    Quote Originally Posted by old goat View Post
    Californians in Cal Fire responsibility areas went berserk when the state started taxing them for fire protection. Citizens who live in Fire Protection Districts or cities with their own FD's have always paid for that protection through their taxes.
    Same people bitch about the rates for insurance and that carriers are pulling out of California because they don’t want to write risks here. The same people think they support a free market too.

  2. #877
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Posts
    15,781
    ^ Right?

    Quote Originally Posted by TBS View Post
    ^^^While the Hillbilly Brigade no doubt did some good protecting that area, I tend to discount the locals' judgement about the level of service provided by the professionals.
    Their being pissed off about a 30 min planning meeting being Exhibit A
    I saw that idiotic attitude from locals a number of times over the years, California, Nevada, Alaska, Washington... I have no time for those clueless morans now.

  3. #878
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    inpdx
    Posts
    20,197
    Quote Originally Posted by TBS View Post
    ^^^While the Hillbilly Brigade no doubt did some good protecting that area, I tend to discount the locals' judgement about the level of service provided by the professionals.
    Their being pissed off about a 30 min planning meeting being Exhibit A
    i rolled right past that
    thx for that perspective

  4. #879
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Posts
    15,781
    Pretty good article about looking at the entire picture.
    https://www.adventure-journal.com/20...gic-wildfires/

    Addressing just part of this problem will produce incomplete solutions. Rather, I believe a multipronged strategy is what’s needed. One element is improving forest management to make these lands less primed to burn. The other is reducing carbon emissions and reining in global temperatures – the only way to moderate climate conditions that make fires larger and more likely.

  5. #880
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    8,966

    2020 Wildfire Season

    Thx for posting the adventure journal article.

    When I attended an early planning-level site walk for one of the landscape level Tahoe fuels project, the planning folks (eg fire ecologists/burn bosses) were told by the program managers to not include environmental compliance as a constraint in their broad scheming. This would include air quality regulations.

  6. #881
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Posts
    15,781
    Quote Originally Posted by bodywhomper View Post
    Thx for posting the adventure journal article.

    When I attended an early planning-level site walk for one of the landscape level Tahoe fuels project, the planning folks (eg fire ecologists/burn bosses) were told by the program managers to not include environmental compliance as a constraint in their broad scheming. This would include air quality regulations.
    Well, that’s the sort of bullshit that makes me glad I’m retired. But it’s outrageous bullshit...and indicative.

  7. #882
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    8,966
    Quote Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper View Post
    Well, that’s the sort of bullshit that makes me glad I’m retired. But it’s outrageous bullshit...and indicative.
    They are/were to get them waived.

    Newsome suspended all state enviro regs for his 2019 $40M fuel reduction projects.

  8. #883
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Posts
    15,781
    Quote Originally Posted by bodywhomper View Post
    They are/were to get them waived.

    Newsome suspended all state enviro regs for his 2019 $40M fuel reduction projects.
    I‘d bet it ends up in court.

  9. #884
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    8,966
    Quote Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper View Post
    I‘d bet it ends up in court.
    The Tahoe thing? Possible.

    The 2019 newsome projects? I think they’re done (still might be challenged).

  10. #885
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Couloirfornia
    Posts
    8,871
    The 2019 projects are done.

    I actually posted and then deleted a post last night noting that Cliff Mass has been posting kooky shit related to fires and climate since at least 2017. And I'm pretty sure the guys (like Swain, and others) who actually do the research think he's a bit of a kook these days too.

    Meanwhile, the issues addressed here are not just confined to CA (though the paper doesn't explicitly address Oregon).
    https://weatherwest.com/archives/7550
    Quote Originally Posted by Ernest_Hemingway View Post
    I realize there is not much hope for a bullfighting forum. I understand that most of you would prefer to discuss the ingredients of jacket fabrics than the ingredients of a brave man. I know nothing of the former. But the latter is made of courage, and skill, and grace in the presence of the possibility of death. If someone could make a jacket of those three things it would no doubt be the most popular and prized item in all of your closets.

  11. #886
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Posts
    15,781
    Here’s a good article that starts out discussing funding to increase prescribed fire capability, and it also discusses the limitations of Rx fire.

    There’s also some really good info and links on how homes come to ignite, well worth reading for those that live near burnable country.

    https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/09/24...uce-fire-risk/

    Anyone that reads this thread regularly might be interested in a lot of stuff on wildfiretoday.com. Some of it is not universally interesting, but...

  12. #887
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    50 miles E of Paradise
    Posts
    15,570
    Interesting...

    In our slice of Paradise the local fire department advises and assists homeowners with defensible perimeters. Not a big concern for me personally as we are surrounded on three sides by 50 yards of sprinkled greenspace.

    Seems to me that insurance companies would be the right group to provide incentives to harden a property against fire, not the government.

    Question for others in wildfire country - do your building codes require use of non-flammable materials? For instance, our house is stick-built, but with "fire resistant" asphalt shingles, and siding in Hardiplank.

  13. #888
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    8,966
    I once participated in a kickoff meeting for a defensible space grant where the local agency’s fire marshal, who was not a participant in preparing the grant application, pointed out that the grant’s annual local match $$ was greater than the annual salary of a new staff who could solely focus on enforcement of the existing defensible space ordinance. With that info, the local agency withdrew their grant application and moved forward with that hiring.

  14. #889
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    8,966
    National guard helicopter at the airport today.
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	IMG_4013.jpg 
Views:	69 
Size:	1.22 MB 
ID:	341284

  15. #890
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    EWA
    Posts
    22,006
    When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something." Rep. John Lewis


    Kindness is a bridge between all people

    Dunkin’ Donuts Worker Dances With Customer Who Has Autism

  16. #891
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    valley of the heart's delight
    Posts
    2,474
    Quote Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper View Post
    Well, that’s the sort of bullshit that makes me glad I’m retired. But it’s outrageous bullshit...and indicative.
    Is it though? Can't do a control burn because air quality may suffer. But go ahead and set pollution records with a wildfire. I hear the air pollution constraint as a common barrier to control burns. Also - can't do a control burn because it might hurt the endangered animal/pant/whatever. But go ahead and bbq them in a wildfire, flood the creeks with ash and debris, and overheat the stream with no forest. Methinks some of the environmental constraints work against the environmental objectives and that should be evaluated and changed as necessary.

    I'd say broad scheming while ignoring environmental compliance is a fair start. See what we could do. Then weigh the environmental compliance benefits against the likely wildfire outcomes when deciding which compliance measures are useful. It could be that control burning produces greater environment hazard than wildfire. If so we're stuck. If not, maybe we get a workable plan.

  17. #892
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    In Your Wife
    Posts
    8,291
    Quote Originally Posted by TBS View Post
    Seems to me that insurance companies would be the right group to provide incentives to harden a property against fire, not the government.
    That's an interesting take. Not saying I disagree with it, but I feel the exact opposite: the compulsion for protecting your property from fire should come through the building code and planning/zoning regulations in the community.

    You want to put a new roof on your house? The building department won't give you a permit unless you upgrade it to a class A assembly. New siding? Same deal, no permit unless it meets fire resistance standards. New windows? Same thing with tempered glass.

    Want to build a new house? You need to submit a landscaping and irrigation plan at the time of building permit submittal to be reviewed for defensible space, and you and your architect better familiarize yourselves with unvented roof assemblies.

    Are you planning to make substantial improvements (>50% assessed value of the structure) to an existing home? Well open up that checkbook, because if you want to do that, you will need to bring the entire property into compliance with the latest wildfire regulations.

  18. #893
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    truckee
    Posts
    23,120
    Quote Originally Posted by LongShortLong View Post
    Is it though? Can't do a control burn because air quality may suffer. But go ahead and set pollution records with a wildfire. I hear the air pollution constraint as a common barrier to control burns. Also - can't do a control burn because it might hurt the endangered animal/pant/whatever. But go ahead and bbq them in a wildfire, flood the creeks with ash and debris, and overheat the stream with no forest. Methinks some of the environmental constraints work against the environmental objectives and that should be evaluated and changed as necessary.

    I'd say broad scheming while ignoring environmental compliance is a fair start. See what we could do. Then weigh the environmental compliance benefits against the likely wildfire outcomes when deciding which compliance measures are useful. It could be that control burning produces greater environment hazard than wildfire. If so we're stuck. If not, maybe we get a workable plan.
    Environmental challenges to controlled burns and thinning aren't brought by environmental groups that know science, they're brought by NIMBYs who don't like the smoke and think the more trees the better. Of course the right likes to use big fires to blame environmentalists.

  19. #894
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Posts
    15,781
    ^ Right on. Fires have always been a social and political magnet.

  20. #895
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    EWA
    Posts
    22,006
    People Have Caused Most Of NE Washington's Wildfires This Year, Not Lightning

    New fire statistics from the Washington Department of Natural Resources show lightning has played a much smaller role in causing fires this year than in the past.

    The agency has just released its latest data that covers the January through August period for northeast Washington counties.

    DNR spokesman Guy Gifford says 494 fires were reported in that period, slightly above the five-year average of 480.

    “One of the things that is different this year is 96 percent of our fires were human caused, with only four percent lightning. Normally 21 percent are lightning caused and 79 percent caused by people," Gifford said.

    He says many of those fires were caused by people burning debris. “One thing this spring with the stay-at-home order there were a lot more people outside cleaning up their property, and so we had a lot more people doing debris burning than in prior years.”

    There were also 19 arsons reported in the period that ended August 31.

    The fires of September have added significantly to the acreage burned in Washington. Around 300,000 acres began burning on Labor Day alone. But up until the end of August, Gifford says 2020 was shaping up to be a relatively light year with only 26,000 acres.

    The data from the fires that started during the Labor Day windstorm are not in the database yet. Many of those are believed to have started from downed power lines. 34 fires were attributed to downed power lines in the period of January through August.
    When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something." Rep. John Lewis


    Kindness is a bridge between all people

    Dunkin’ Donuts Worker Dances With Customer Who Has Autism

  21. #896
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Wasatch Back: 7000'
    Posts
    12,966
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	IMG_7207.jpg 
Views:	61 
Size:	1.09 MB 
ID:	341356
    “How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world? I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher”. — Jimi Hendrix

  22. #897
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    8,966
    Quote Originally Posted by old goat View Post
    Environmental challenges to controlled burns and thinning aren't brought by environmental groups that know science, they're brought by NIMBYs who don't like the smoke and think the more trees the better. Of course the right likes to use big fires to blame environmentalists.
    Usually with one or two ngo’s backed by a fringe subject matter expert, like Chad Hanson or the chaparral institute.

  23. #898
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    50 miles E of Paradise
    Posts
    15,570
    Quote Originally Posted by old goat View Post
    Environmental challenges to controlled burns and thinning aren't brought by environmental groups that know science, they're brought by NIMBYs who don't like the smoke and think the more trees the better.
    You mean like the woman from Portland who took it upon herself to write a letter to the editor of our local weekly paper, bitching out USFS for a controlled burn while she was here on her well-deserved vacation?
    It was special.

  24. #899
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Posts
    15,781
    Quote Originally Posted by TBS View Post
    You mean like the woman from Portland who took it upon herself to write a letter to the editor of our local weekly paper, bitching out USFS for a controlled burn while she was here on her well-deserved vacation?
    It was special.
    The tourists’ ruckus is something to contend with when the Grand Canyon is smoked in from fires that are ‘let burn’ or Rx.

  25. #900
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    50 miles E of Paradise
    Posts
    15,570
    Yup there’s only a handful of Rx days available here. Only done in April and May, and maybe eight days with acceptable weather. So USFS only burns 3500 acres per year on the 1.6 million acre Deschutes NF.

    IOW it will take approx. 400 years to treat the whole NF. (Cue Bob Marley)

    In the meantime, 60% of our local ranger district has burned by wildfire in the last 20 years. In the last two years we’ve had weeks of AQI = 500.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •