Posted on 07/28/2018 12:33:42 PM PDT by Kevin in California
Your response is what I was looking for.
I wanted people to have to confront that reality as they trashed California for not managing it’s forest better.
I agree.
I had not noticed the weather bubble over a fire before that one. It was a classic example of that.
Thanks for the links.
This one was a long one.
I read a lot of it.
Somewhere in the back of my mind is this question gnawing away at me.
How did forests ever survive without the management of man?
And yet, somehow they did.
There were no cities and towns then.
My comment was based on the claim by some that our forests are not healthy unless managed by man.
As for cities, I think it’s a better goal to manage them so that when the inevitable fires do come, they can be relatively immune to the negative affects of the fires.
When I hear of 500 homes in a community going up in smoke, it just occurs to me that steps in good planning had to have been overlooked.
Forests will be forests, and fires will be fires, but must we give them so much help in destroying us?
People move into some of these areas because of the beautiful trees. Then a forest fire comes long and those trees burn right up to the house, and the house is not able to stand up to temperatures in excess of one thousand degrees, and they combust.
Then there’s the problem of embers floating in on roofs that were not made out of the right materials.
There must be dozens of good ideas that could be implemented to stop homes from bursting into flames and chaining across a region to burn so many homes.
1. How about thermal barriers that could be raised to deflect massive heat away from the home, so it would’t combust?
2. How about incorporating swimming pool water in a system that uses the water there to dowse fires or prevent them from starting?
3. How about using natural berms to prevent heat from the most vulnerable direction?
4. How about homes that are partially subterranean, so that only a small percentage of it would have to be protected against the threat of a fire? Keep the best views in front of the part that is exposed, for enjoyment. Then have a barrier ready to protect that one small part of the home during a threat.
Some of these things could be a plus in other ways too, such as the subterranean home and the near constant temperatures year around, thus reducing heating and cooling costs.
The forests were logged previously. Then allowed to go fallow. the natural progression of fire was also tampered with resulting in extremely high fuel loads. We also have invasive species (bark beetles) imported from abroad (an unfortunate fact of modern life) killing trees and adding to the high fuel loads.
The forests in and around modern life will not manage themselves, just as wildlife populations will not manage themselves. You and I would both like to live in a more naturally managed state (small s) but that is not reality. You seem to have an overly simplistic outlook on how you would like things to be, I would like that too but it is just not reality.
Okay, then we just build the same homes near forests with the same designs we have in non forested areas.
We’ll continue to see 500 homes go up in smoke. Then we’ll see folks come here talking about others who are too simple to grasp what they are selling.
I’m not saying that some forestation precautions wouldn’t be reasoned, but I’m not blaming all this on forestation management by a long shot.
Seems to me we mismanage so many things, and then try to pin it on forestation management. No, we should never have implemented policies that allowed those beetles in.
We should never have allowed building codes in those areas to ignore the threat of fire.
And explain to me how a beetle infested tree causes all this?
Healthy trees combust too. The healthy pine tree has pine needles that go up like an ignited Christmas tree.
Some of this is just mindless blather.
We should never have allowed building codes in those areas to ignore the threat of fire.
I couldn’t agree more, but there’s more to it than just building codes. I’m not arguing your points, I’m just not going into as thorough an explanation as you would like I guess. As a builder of homes for the past 40+ years I could detail pares upon pages that would support some of you contentions and not support others, I don’t have the energy for that.
Additionally I’m surrounded by National forest and as a former political official and California resident will tell you forest management on the part of the fedgov for the past 30 years has been abysmal and has contributed to the decline of the forest. Think as you will, I’m not trying to argue you down.
I appreciate your agreements and additional information there, even the disagreements in part.
Take care. Thank you.
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