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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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A 1,000-acre prescribed burn in Sequoia National Park took the incident commander a third of an almost 40-year career to find a window when all the various factors lined up.
If we had a more wonkish, rational society, we would do more prescribed burns and we would realize that some of the prescribed burns would get out of control and some people's homes would burn but in the long run, far fewer homes would be burn down.
Instead we get slash government spending, cut my taxes, let me live where I want, and the government better not let my house burn down and if it does they better pay to let me rebuild it in the same place.
Same with flooding.
And unfortunately it is going to be same with climate change that is making the fire and flooding worse.
Maybe a forester could weigh in, but I assume with hotter, drier conditions, there are going to be large tracts of forests that are going to eventually convert to shrub/grassland. That conversion is going to involve a lot of wood fuel.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Yeah, West. These fires burn so hot that the forest doesn't come back, although I wonder if manual replanting would work. I know that folks are identifying and reproducing pine bark-resistant pines, for example. Clone these mofo's and put 'em to work.
Smoke is back in the Bishop area after a pretty reasonable day yesterday. Fortunately, we can get up high. Going there soon!
BAd
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Say T
Not real long ago I had both the eaves issue and a wood shake roof!
The Station Fire came within two blocks of the house. We had to get outa Dodge and we were lucky the fire was stopped in it's tracks.
Many houses that burned in San Diego fire(s) started in the eaves. There was a powerful video, but I can't remember where.
I took care of my roof issue, but didn't address the eaves.
There are many products out now. Sample of one
t
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Climberdude
Trad climber
Clovis, CA
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Minerals, thanks for the post on the Donnell Fire along Hwy 108. So far it looks like most of the Hwy. 108 climbing areas are not affected, but if this fire goes southwest, then a lot of great climbing areas will be affected.
Huge, mad props to the firefighters out there. Thank you Australia and New Zealand for sending additional firefighters.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Fourtunatly we were smoke free in the tetons this summer. only smoke we hit was in Ontario. I guess they were having a rough go as well.
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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New fire in the southern Sierra. Lightning caused fire on Anderson Peak, in Monache Meadows. They heloed in a seven man crew.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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And if Dardanelles got hit bad that means it has moved SW along 108 since the pic posted upthread. That sucks and doesn't look good for Kennedy Meadows either
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Not to beat a flaming roof back to life, but
"Wind-blown embers, which can travel one mile or more, were the biggest threat to homes in the [2007] Witch Creek Wildfire [San Diego County, CA]. There were few, if any, reports of homes burned as a result of direct contact with flames" from wildland fuels.
http://www.californiachaparral.org/bprotectingyourhome.html
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Yeah, West. These fires burn so hot that the forest doesn't come back, although I wonder if manual replanting would work. I know that folks are identifying and reproducing pine bark-resistant pines, for example. Clone these mofo's and put 'em to work.
Smoke is back in the Bishop area after a pretty reasonable day yesterday. Fortunately, we can get up high. Going there soon!
BAd
If you have a forest that hasn't burned in 50+ years, there aren't many good options. But if you were doing prescribed burns, you would obviously want to do them in wetter years when things didn't burn so hot. But if you have 50~100 years of accumulated wood fuel, there isn't much margin between being too wet to burn and burning so hot that it kills even mature trees.
My understanding: if the build up around the base of a tree, such as pine needles, is deep enough, then it can smolder for a long time and kill a mature tree that would otherwise have survived a ground (non-canopy) fire.
But I don't think all of those forest should come back. I think the expectation should be that some of those places should come back as scrub land. You might have Joshua trees where you once had pines.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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What really sucks around here is that the shade is gone after a hot burn which means the predominant ground cover coming back is mountain whitethorn until shade cover returns
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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You might have Joshua trees where you once had pines.
Give it a few more decades and you might have sand dunes and camels... ; )
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Regardless of yer views on fire’s benefits it is imperative to put them out ASAP most of the time. I’ve mentioned this before but it doesn’t seem to resonate. There is a plentiful supply of DC-10s and B747s that are past their prime as far as carrying pax however they have plenty of life left as fire tankers. They can be had for pennies on the dollar and the conversion is reasonable. Why do the retards on both sides of the aisle in Congress find $300 million for an F-35 a ‘good’ price? We could buy and convert 10 ‘heavies’ for one of those POS! For HALF the price of a B-2 we could have 30 heavies based within 2 hours of any fire in the western US. Imagine if 15-20 of them showed up to lay down retardant! Not many fires would stand a snowball’s chance!
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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^yes, the priorities in washington are generally too skewed towards imaginary threats from abroad rather than realities at home imo.
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John M
climber
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Regardless of yer views on fire’s benefits it is imperative to put them out ASAP most of the time
Perhaps.. if one did extensive prescribed burns and or heavy thinning and vegetation removal. Otherwise we end up with the overgrowth that we are currently dealing with, which makes fires hotter and more destructive. i.e. the yellowstone fire.
I am all for buying more planes and helicopters. But planes aren't the end all. They often can't fly because of smoke. They were grounded many days on the Ferguson fire because of an inversion layer in the weather.
But I do agree, we are going to need more planes and more trained pilots.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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They often can't fly because of smoke.
If they hit a fire within a few hours there ain’t gonna be no damn smoke! 😉
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John M
climber
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last year the Thomas fire near Ventura started at night and burned 12 miles in a couple of hours. Starting above Santa Paula and burning towards Ventura. At one point the fire was burning one acre per second. It started after dark. ;-) I haven't been able to confirm, but I believe it burned 55,000 acres in 24 hours. Not certain on that. In 3 days it burned 115,000 acres.
Oh.. and the winds were gusting over 70 mph and the hills above Ventura were thick with brush because of fire suppression and no controlled burns.
but I still mostly agree with you. More bombers. Lots more, and hit it hard early. But we will need to do lots of prescribed burns in order to keep our forests from over growing.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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Trying to do our part.
Over 3000 dead pines dropped, stacked, dried and winter burned this past February. And those were just from 42 one acre lots. Still have another 80 lots being cleaned this summer.
(One pile of four).
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John M
climber
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Fake smoke!!!! ^^^^
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John M
climber
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That really sucks DMT. Its been years since I have been up that way. I always love seeing those old resorts. I am jealous of those who got to experience them 50+ years ago. We spent most of our vacations in Yosemite and it was fantastic.
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