Post by robeiae on Sept 9, 2020 7:50:58 GMT -5
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-wildfire-map-2020-n1239580
www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/08/california-wildfire-updates-lake-edison-power-outages-oregon-evacuation/5743310002/
Here's a piece at ProPublica: They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?
The piece goes on to detail the futile and bone-headed policies in California and the apparent reality that everyone knows they're all doing it wrong in California, but no one seems to want to do it right.
With four months to go in California’s fire season, a record amount of land has already burned.
Dozens of active fires. Close to 14,000 firefighters deployed. And California still has four months of its wildfire season in front of it.
Since the start of the season, more than 2 million acres, or 3,000-plus square miles, have burned, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Dozens of active fires. Close to 14,000 firefighters deployed. And California still has four months of its wildfire season in front of it.
Since the start of the season, more than 2 million acres, or 3,000-plus square miles, have burned, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/08/california-wildfire-updates-lake-edison-power-outages-oregon-evacuation/5743310002/
Wildfires whipped through isolated communities in two states and left backcountry campers and hikers stranded, requiring helicopters to airlift more than 140 to safety, authorities said.
About 40 wildfires were burning in California alone. Blazes were also reported in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana. Smoke has been detected at least as far east as New Mexico.
The fires devastated some isolated communities. In Oregon, a fast-moving wildfire caused "catastrophic damage" and probably loss of life in the town of Blue River, east of Eugene, Lane County officials said. At least 80 to 100 homes burned, said County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky at an emergency commissioners meeting Tuesday.
About 40 wildfires were burning in California alone. Blazes were also reported in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana. Smoke has been detected at least as far east as New Mexico.
The fires devastated some isolated communities. In Oregon, a fast-moving wildfire caused "catastrophic damage" and probably loss of life in the town of Blue River, east of Eugene, Lane County officials said. At least 80 to 100 homes burned, said County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky at an emergency commissioners meeting Tuesday.
Here's a piece at ProPublica: They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?
The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result, wildland fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier. Then, boom: the inevitable. The wind blows down a power line, or lightning strikes dry grass, and an inferno ensues. This week we’ve seen both the second- and third-largest fires in California history. “The fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic,” Ingalsbee said. There’s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. “We need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load.”
[snip]
Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres. The state passed a few new laws in 2018 designed to facilitate more intentional burning. But few are optimistic this, alone, will lead to significant change. We live with a deathly backlog. In February 2020, Nature Sustainability published this terrifying conclusion: California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire.
[snip]
A six-word California fire ecology primer: The state is in the hole.
A seventy-word primer: We dug ourselves into a deep, dangerous fuel imbalance due to one simple fact. We live in a Mediterranean climate that’s designed to burn, and we’ve prevented it from burning anywhere close to enough for well over a hundred years. Now climate change has made it hotter and drier than ever before, and the fire we’ve been forestalling is going to happen, fast, whether we plan for it or not.
Megafires, like the ones that have ripped this week through 1 million acres (so far), will continue to erupt until we’ve flared off our stockpiled fuels. No way around that.
[snip]
Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres. The state passed a few new laws in 2018 designed to facilitate more intentional burning. But few are optimistic this, alone, will lead to significant change. We live with a deathly backlog. In February 2020, Nature Sustainability published this terrifying conclusion: California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire.
[snip]
A six-word California fire ecology primer: The state is in the hole.
A seventy-word primer: We dug ourselves into a deep, dangerous fuel imbalance due to one simple fact. We live in a Mediterranean climate that’s designed to burn, and we’ve prevented it from burning anywhere close to enough for well over a hundred years. Now climate change has made it hotter and drier than ever before, and the fire we’ve been forestalling is going to happen, fast, whether we plan for it or not.
Megafires, like the ones that have ripped this week through 1 million acres (so far), will continue to erupt until we’ve flared off our stockpiled fuels. No way around that.
The piece goes on to detail the futile and bone-headed policies in California and the apparent reality that everyone knows they're all doing it wrong in California, but no one seems to want to do it right.
