Posted on 06/28/2012 8:47:17 PM PDT by GSWarrior
It was a standing room only crowd at the Community Center in De Beque Thursday night as nervous residents learned how to protect their property from the advancing Pine Ridge wildfire.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbc11news.com ...
I’ve got lots of friends in Grand Junction. A beautiful part of the country.
A well pad, for those like myself who’d not heard the term before is a site constructed, prepared, leveled, or cleared in order to perform the activities and stage the equipment necessary to drill a natural gas exploratory or production well.
So there is no danger of anything igniting?
I saw on a friend’s FB that I-70 is shut down. (He lives in Parachute.)
I did some work in the area but on the south side of the interstate. Hope all are safe out there.
Residents who live in the Valley south of DeBeque on the south side of I-70 have been evacuated.
Manageable danger. First, most well production is shut down on BLM land (our land, not BLM's... GRR) during stage 2 fire conditions (which has been the status for a while.) As well, well pads are usually kept clear of vegetation. This actually makes them staging areas for most firefighting work.
The biggest danger is using heavy equipment in the area breaking underground pipes that will have residual petroleum products in them.
Outside of well pads, there are condenser tanks and pumping stations - these have less clearance around them, and are more exposed for wildfires. That said, again, these places are generally cleared of all vegetation or at least any major fuel sources for a wild fire.
So, in summary, well pads are places where firefighters can make a stand against a wildfire. Better, though, is to let loggers in before the wildfire can happen and let them thin the forest, both for the health of the forest, and for the benefit of jobs.
Thanks. This fire is consuming cedar, sagebrush, grasses, etc
Y’all can thank the US (and state) Forest Service for these fires...IMHO
The problem is the banning of clear cutting, the idea of replacing a tree with two trees, and putting out smaller fires. All of this is what causes the huge fires we have today.
The problem is the banning of clear cutting, the idea of replacing a tree with two trees, and putting out smaller fires. All of this is what causes the huge fires we have today.
Same problem has been seen in Australia. Greenie policies which led to devestating fires and lives lost. People were not allowed to clear around their houses. You can see where that would lead.
You can lay the blame firmly at the feet of environmental groups. They have actually organized groups for zone defense so that each one files routine appeals and lawsuits on EVERY thinning project that comes out of the National Forests. They have prevented the USFS from doing its job and have funnelled money for management to money for bureaucracy, paperwork, lawsuit defense and paying their attorneys. It is a fact.
PUBLISHED: 01:18 EST, 3 May 2012 | UPDATED: 01:18 EST, 3 May 2012
'Unleash Hell': New Al Qaeda magazine describes in detail how to start huge forest fires across the U.S..with instructions on how to make 'ember bombs'
Al Qaeda has called upon its followers to unleash massive forest fires upon the United States this summer.
Published in the latest edition of the notorious terror magazine, 'Inspire', are graphic instructions for the creation and ignition of 'ember bombs'
http://www.evergreenaviation.com/supertanker/index.html
Date: 6/29/12
Evergreen International Aviation Statement Concerning the Supertanker
We felt compelled to release this statement due to the overwhelming amount of calls we have received concerning the availability of the Evergreen Supertanker. We at Evergreen are saddened by the fire devastation now taking place in many Western US states. For over 60 years, we have supported the US Forest Service in its important mission to battle and control fires, and it is our desire to continue this rich history of service. While our helicopters continue to work fires for the State of Alaska under State contracts, unfortunately, our Boeing 747 Supertanker Very Large Air Tanker (VLAT) aircraft awaits activation with the US Forest Service.
We have never been told why we have not been activated by the US Forest Service, so we can only speculate as to why we face this outcome:
That’s exactly right but there’s more to it. The tree huggers like to talk about re-forestation but these large fires that are burning overgrown krap burn so hot that they kill the ground, essentially turning the ground to brick. Nothing will grow there for decades until either the brick washes off or new silt/sediment/mud, etc. builds up enough to hold a grass seed. We have a few of those barren areas in Central Oregon and all resulted from non-management of the range or forest.
Intentional loss of forage and shelter.
The tankers don’t put out fires. They tempoirarily reduce the severity so firefighters can get close enough to build fire lines.
It is a huge mistake to pour money into tankers and think that will solve the problem.
The local Forest budget has to be pumped up to reduce fuels so that these confulgrations don’t happen. We are at 1,000 trees per acre when historic density is more like 10 trees per acre. Muir galloped his horse through the forest in his day. Panoramic photos from fire lookouts in the 1920s are startlingly sparse on vegetation compared to today. It is a tangled mass of ladder fuels and dead trees now.
IF thinning, including the necessary cutting down of some large trees, and timely salvage can take place without being embroiled in appeals and court, the profit could help to substantially offset costs.
If the EPA got off its ridiculous boiler MACT standard that no one could ever meet, then cogeneration, pellet and smallwood facilities could be built or reopened to take in the small fuels and actually make energy or value added products from them.
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