It's fire season again

Mr. Coffee said:
That isn't even the first time that has happened.

The Yacolt Burn of 1902 jumped the Columbia River near Bridal Veil, Oregon (just upstream from Rooster Rock State Park). The Columbia is about a mile wide there.

In 1994 a fire near Chelan, WA crossed from the north side of Lake Chelan to the south side (near Lake Chelan State Park), again crossing about a mile of open water.

During the recent fires that burnt over my property, I personally saw brands transported over a quarter of a mile in the presence of fairly light (15mph) winds.

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Terrifying! more than I want to know. Caught a little break today, light shower, cooled things off.
 
Sierratim said:
My step-brother, his wife, and their dog just evacuated their home at the north end of Lake Tahoe. No point on waiting for the knock on the door he says! They've headed to his daughter's place north of San Fran.

Couldn't agree more.

I wish them safe travels.
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I wish us all safe travels, space fans. That and whatever gets a cup of coffee out your way.
 
DSC_2255.JPG

See the smoke in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, coming from the Shasta/Trinity/Monument fires.
 
john peck said:
Got lucky in my neck of the woods; we got a good shower yesterday & are slated for a soaking
rain on friday. A little dance can´t hurt. Faith can move mountains... dynamite & a dozer helps.
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In moderation, yes indeed.
 
Art Deco said:
The General Sherman( and others) get a fire blanket.
www.bbc.com

California fires: General Sherman and other sequoias given blankets

Fire-resistant blankets protect General Sherman and other sequoias as a California blaze closes in.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
View attachment 100197
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I've hiked around in the forest above that park. The depth of the forest litter is astounding. Not much they can do about it up on the trails as the topography is very steep. Many of those stupendous trees have fire scars.
 
Fire helps giant sequoias in many ways. Small, green cones full of seeds awaiting germination grow near the crown of the trees, yet without fire or insects to crack open the cone, the seeds remain trapped inside. Green cones can live with viable seeds inside them for up to twenty years. Fire dries out the cones, enabling them to crack open and deposit their seeds on the forest floor.
Click to expand...

Fire and the Giant Sequoia

www.150.parks.ca.gov www.150.parks.ca.gov
 
reed scott said:
I've hiked around in the forest above that park. The depth of the forest litter is astounding. Not much they can do about it up on the trails as the topography is very steep. Many of those stupendous trees have fire scars.
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Seems like "they" whoever "they" are, don't want to do much either. Would like to see what a small chipper on wheels pulled by an ATV could do. Should be easier than helicopters dropping fire fighters.
 
Art Deco said:
Seems like "they" whoever "they" are, don't want to do much either. Would like to see what a small chipper on wheels pulled by an ATV could do. Should be easier than helicopters dropping fire fighters.
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I was quite surprised to learn about some of the things the forestry people do to control and even prevent wild fire. There is a solid case for S Lake Tahoe having been saved by the foresight of the forestry people. When new subdivisions were created in S Lake Tahoe they bought up the lots and thinned the trees and removed brush and forest litter on dozens of lots. Homes were not built on those lots. This of course infuriated the taxing authority of S Lake Tahoe as it robbed them of a lot of property tax money. The forestry people also do prescribed burns and they get absolute hell FOR it. Two large major previously control burned areas of late helped greatly in fighting both the Dixie and Caldor fires. The major impediment to wild fire prevention is always the politicians and the developers who bribe them.

I learned these things recently by listening to 'The Lookout's' reports on You Tube.
 
reed scott said:
I was quite surprised to learn about some of the things the forestry people do to control and even prevent wild fire. There is a solid case for S Lake Tahoe having been saved by the foresight of the forestry people. When new subdivisions were created in S Lake Tahoe they bought up the lots and thinned the trees and removed brush and forest litter on dozens of lots. Homes were not built on those lots. This of course infuriated the taxing authority of S Lake Tahoe as it robbed them of a lot of property tax money. The forestry people also do prescribed burns and they get absolute hell FOR it. Two large major previously control burned areas of late helped greatly in fighting both the Dixie and Caldor fires. The major impediment to wild fire prevention is always the politicians and the developers who bribe them.

I learned these things recently by listening to 'The Lookout's' reports on You Tube.
Click to expand...
Those seem like reasonable steps to take. I'm sorry you had to go to YouTube instead of the older media to learn them.
 
To be fair, and I honestly don't really want to be, there are some practical limitations that we ought to keep in mind.

There are several hundred million acres of land (not all of it forest land) in the lower 48 requiring fuel reduction treatments of one kind or another. Manual fuel reduction (that atv and a wood chipper) cost about $1000 per acre. Prescribed burns are slightly less expensive at about $800 per acre. So we are talking hundreds of billions of dollars in costs here. And for those who say, "we should log them" there are three things you need to consider: not all of the land needing fuel treatments is forest land, not all of the forested land needing fuel treatment has marketable and commercially valuable timber, and there is a lot of evidence that current logging practices leave the land more prone to catastrophic fire, not less.

From another perspective, I and my neighbor have done some small prescribed burns on our property. To do a 2-acre burn required two skilled and experienced people working hard all day. And we had to plan that for months and the safe time window to do the burn was about five days. The time windows for safely doing prescribed burns are quite narrow, and we don't have all that many people who have the skillset to do them properly.

What I'm saying here is that these are all good ideas and obvious things to do, but it is going to require buckets of money and training an army of people to do the work. I have to wonder if that will even be politically feasible.
 
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Mr. Coffee said:
To be fair, and I honestly don't really want to be, there are some practical limitations that we ought to keep in mind.

There are several hundred million acres of land (not all of it forest land) in the lower 48 requiring fuel reduction treatments of one kind or another. Manual fuel reduction (that atv and a wood chipper) cost about $1000 per acre. Prescribed burns are slightly less expensive at about $800 per acre. So we are talking hundreds of billions of dollars in costs here. And for those who say, "we should log them" there are three things you need to consider: not all of the land needed fuel treatments is forest land, not all of the forested land needing fuel treatment has marketable and commercially valuable timer, and there is a lot of evidence that current logging practices leave the land more prone to catastrophic fire, not less.

From another perspective, I and my neighbor have done some small prescribed burns on our property. To do a 2-acre burn required two skilled and experienced people working hard all day. And we had to plan that for months and the safe time window to do the burn was about five days. The time windows for safely doing prescribed burns are quite narrow, and we don't have all that many people who have the skillset to do them properly.

What I'm saying here is that these are all good ideas and obvious things to do, but it is going to require buckets of money and training an army of people to do the work. I have to wonder if that will even be politically feasible.
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Thanks Mr.Coffee. I have often said that one of the great things about EBR is that sooner or later, someone who knows what they're talking about will chime in.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
To be fair, and I honestly don't really want to be, there are some practical limitations that we ought to keep in mind.
not all of the land needed fuel treatments is forest land, not all of the forested land needing fuel treatment has marketable and commercially valuable timer
Click to expand...
Green knobheads demanded wood chips from US be transported to the UK to burn. Green energy, don't you know.
theconversation.com

British power stations are burning wood from US forests – to meet renewables targets

It’s not the ideal renewable energy but biomass is a better bet than coal.
theconversation.com theconversation.com

"Last year, 6m tonnes of “wood pellets” harvested from forests in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Virginia were shipped across the Atlantic, to be burnt in renewable “biomass” power plants. This was almost double the 2013 figure – the US “wood pellet” industry is booming.


Demand is largely driven by European countries wanting to meet targets set out in the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive. Half of the pellets exported from the US were used to generate electricity in Britain’s massive Drax power station, which is slowly converting from coal to biomass in order to reduce carbon emissions and claim valuable “Renewable Obligation certificates” for green electricity. So can it really be sustainable to transport wood halfway round the world to burn in a power station?"
 
Anna, isn't it bizarre?
No more than using cheap electricity rates at night to shine strong electric lights on solar panels which then provide solar generated electricity to sell at a huge price markup.
That went on for a while. It was a bit too bold to last.
 
Did a very pretty early fall ride with my wife on a local route we hadn't ridden before, Lower Colfax Rd to Mt. Olive Rd with a turnaround when Mt Olive turns to gravel. This took us into the Bear River canyon between our home and the City of Colfax. Colofax had been evacuated in August of this year as the River Fire advanced (my post #396 in this thread). We saw evidence of this fire along our ride today;
0930211350_Film1.jpg

This is just one of the 102 homes burned in the 2,600Ac River fire. It literally hits home when you cycle past one of the homes and can still smell charred timbers and trees. Firefighters stopped this arm of the fire here, just before it reached the nearby elementary school, post office and corner store. Home made signs thanking the firefighters were on most fences.

We aslo rode past many burned trees as well, but once you've seen a burned out house the trees don't warrant a pic.

Some are saying that fire season is over. Nope. Not until the seasonal rains start. The town of Paradise, CA burned to the ground in in the Camp Fire that started on NOV 8th, 2018. Stay tuned...☹
 
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Sierratim said:
Did a very pretty early fall ride with my wife on a local route we hadn't ridden before, Lower Colfax Rd to Mt. Olive Rd with a turnaround when Mt Olive turns to gravel. This took us into the Bear River canyon between our home and the City of Colfax. Colofax had been evacuated in August of this year as the River Fire advanced (my post #396 in this thread). We saw evidence of this fire along our ride today;
View attachment 101818
This is just one of the 102 homes burned in the 2,600Ac River fire. It literally hits home when you cycle past one of the homes and can still smell charred timbers and trees. Firefighters stopped this arm of the fire here, just before it reached the nearby elementary school, post office and corner store. Home made signs thanking the firefighters were on most fences.

We aslo rode past many burned trees as well, but once you've seen a burned out house the trees don't warrant a pic.

Some are saying that fire season is over. Nope. Not until the seasonal rains start. The town of Paradise, CA burned to the ground in in the Camp Fire that started on NOV 8th, 2018. Stay tuned...☹
Click to expand...
It´s scary, got so dry here for a spell, but today a good steady 6 hr. downpour. at least an inch.
Was nothin´ to cause flash floods, but we got a good soaking.
 
The one continuous phenomenon we witnessed on our 3 week trip out west was lots of dried up lakes, rivers and reservoirs. The west has been frying in heat and damn little rain for many years. Jackson Lake between the Tetons and Yellowstone was a couple hundred yards from the shore compared to where it should be. Sad.
 
The Sierras got the first snows of the season this past weekend into today! Lake effect snow off Lake Tahoe dropped up to 3 inches on South Lake Tahoe, the community threatened by the Caldor fire just weeks ago.

The downside? The winds required to generate lake effect snow have been over 20mph across much of the north state today, with gusts to 46mph. These winds have fanned new fires across the state with homes being lost on Brannan Island in the delta area. Winds are quieting for the evening, but darkness has grounded all aerial fire fighting until dawn. Strong winds are expected to resume as the sun rises as well.
californianewstimes.com

Fire burns on Brannan Island in delta area of Sacramento County - California News Times

A fire is burning in the delta region of Sacramento County. The video taken by KCRA3 shows. The fire is on the island of Branan, south of Rio Vista on Highway 12. The video shows flames and large black smoke smoke. The video also shows an aerial fire extinguisher. Drop the flame retardant on the …
californianewstimes.com californianewstimes.com

It is peak fire season in the western US...☹
 
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