Posted on 01/11/2025 6:18:06 PM PST by logi_cal869
In early May, flames began to spread through a pine forest, consuming a dense carpet of leaves and underbrush. The burn was the definition of a "good fire," intentionally ignited to clear vegetation that could fuel future infernos.
It happened in the state leading the nation in controlled burns: Florida.
As Western states contend with increasingly catastrophic wildfires, some are looking to the Southeastern U.S., where prescribed fire is widespread thanks to policies put in place decades ago. From 1998 to 2018, 70% of all controlled burning in the country was in the Southeast.
While a continent apart, both regions have a similar need for fire. For thousands of years, forests and woodlands experienced regular burning, both sparked by lightning and used by Native American tribes, which prevented the buildup of flammable growth. Without fire, the landscape is prone to intense, potentially devastating wildfires.
- snip -
Western states have a long way to go Florida has done prescribed burns on more than 1.6 million acres so far this year. California has only burned around 35,000 acres. The state is 2.5 times larger than Florida.
California recently signed an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to reduce vegetation on 1 million acres of public lands, but the goal is still out of reach. Experts estimate that tens of millions of acres need addressing statewide, but lack of funding, personnel and political will has limited the work on public lands.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Yeah, pigs fly. npr good for somethin today.
Special note: CA burned 35k acres in prescribed burns in 2021 by the date of this article.
Want to know how many acres they burned in 2024?
72,000
"priorities" ya know. /s
Because conservatives govern, while liberals rule.
Nice. Useful.
US Forest Service summary of prescribed fire in California for 2024:
“November 20, 2024 — The U.S. Forest Service successfully treated over 325,000 acres for forest health on national forests in California during the 2024 fiscal year. This includes over 72,000 acres of prescribed burning alone. The previous U.S. Forest Service record for prescribed fire was set in 2018 when 63,711 acres were treated. This marks significant progress toward the USFS target of deploying 150,000 acres of beneficial fire in California’s Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire.”
https://wildfiretaskforce.org/usfs-completes-record-setting-year-for-prescribed-fire/
Nice report on prescribed fire use nationally which I’d not come across prior:
2021 NATIONAL PRESCRIBED FIRE USE SURVEY REPORT
https://www.prescribedfire.net/pdf/2021-National-Rx-Fire-Use-Report_FINAL.pdf
bookmark
A related article not worth a separate post:
THE BURNING SOLUTION: Prescribed Burns Unevenly Applied Across U.S.
(caution as to source and slant in article, but it’s a sign that ‘science’ is waking up to the fact that Florida is not crazy in its zeal to perform prescribed burns)
Our little town is bracketed by thousands of acres of both national and state forests…not parks, forests. We never have wildfires because we have frequent controlled burns to manage underbrush and other combustibles. Of course, we’re Florida, not California….
Florida report on wildfire mitigation (for comparison to the state of California, for the same period cited: 2021):
FLORIDA PARK SERVICE
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ANNUAL REPORT
July 2020 – June 2021
California government made huge mistakes.
However, the bigger picture scenario (which neither Democrats nor most FReepers would like to acknowledge) is that there are more people living in that semi-arid, fire prone area than the area can reasonably support long term.
Flame away. :-)
When I returned to Oregon after three plus years in Florida, I found myself looking upward, a lot. There’s nothing taller than a palm tree in Florida. 100-plus foot tall trees are everywhere, here. And it rained in buckets in the summer, where I was. Apples and oranges, as far as fires go.
California stopped maintaining their firebreaks, ostensibly because they interfered with the migration of an endangered mouse.
Well aware. I think it was a video pinged to me by FReeper EBH which alerted me to the dichotomy between your state & CA.
I did a little digging and found it to be factual and, in addition to my being ignorant about it despite long interest in fire ecology and efforts to mitigate conflagrations, hardly reported on at all.
They were not "mistakes."
They were a plan.
Sierra Club will not allow forest management.
Link on that?
Because we’re not stupid down South.
Yeah, I recall reading some of their BS on the matter a number of years ago.
Talk about ‘the need for fire’...
The south is just better in many ways
Just don’t ask victor davis Hanson lol
Man he detests us
Someone else commented earlier, but I’d like to word it differently.
The real difference is the politics between the two regions.
one that burns down has only one party, namely Democrats,
the other region that doesn’t burn down has a mix of parties.
Diversity can be a friend.
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