Fire Management

[joebartels]

obviously I'm not the right person to start this thread but something away from specific fires is needed

Q: what is good fire management to you?

Q: what are those opposed to current fire management doing about future fires other than posting in public forums about current or past fires?
ie: running for some election, emailing/writing authorities, etc

Q: what percentage of moonscape do you support?
- none, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70%

other questions welcome

[Tough_Boots]

@rcorfman
"Context" yes... sorry auto-correct. But your statement insinuates that Singletree is hoping for humans to be "out out of the way" and that is just not at all what he wrote.

Basically, if we as a species are gone, then I don't see what difference it makes what the heck happens on this earth. Basically, there would be no one left to care one way or the other.

If you can't hope for positive things outside of your own benefit, I don't know what to tell ya. Some people see a grander picture that doesn't revolve around one species. I agree with Singletree-- If humans ever disappear, I hope for this planet to restore and thrive.

[tdwood]

@rcorfman I’m of the opinion that if the health and balance of a habitat (e.g. wilderness, wetland, etc.) is best served by the exclusion of humans, so be it. I’m the guy that heeds the warnings to not trample cryptobiotic soils; to not blaze new trails, or otherwise act in opposition to the best interest of the habitat as determined by those who I feel are smarter than myself in making those determinations, no matter how awesome it would be to get to whatever thing I’m being restricted from experiencing. In this life, it is not necessary for me to have an all-access pass for this planet.

I am heartened that there will always be places off-limits to the physical presence of humans. I also am aware that I drive a gas-powered vehicle to most of the trails I hike, so I am simultaneously saddened there isn’t a place left on Earth that is untouched by our environmental impact. I am at once part of the solution and the problem.

My comment about my hopes for nature in a post-human environment stems from this perspective. This planet is awesome. Nature is awesome. The idea that something so powerful and beautiful might not only heal, but thrive beyond my (or my species') ability to perceive of it doing so is very comforting to me. The thought of the birds continuing to sing, the waves continuing to crash, and, yes, the fire continuing to burn, without me here to experience it, suits me fine.

[rcorfman]

@Tough_Boots
I think you misunderstand me here. It's not that I don't want positive things outside my own benefit, I do. The only form of life on this earth that cares about things or the future of our planet, is us people. If we're gone, then there is nothing that can care about what happens on earth. Sure we can hope for a future for earth but that hope would die with the death of humans since that hope is from us to start with.

@t_d_singletree
I agree with your sentiments about being good stewards to earth, about caring for our environment and it's inhabitants. It's just that to me, hope is a human thing, so if a post-human environment ever occurs, then any hopes would have passed too.

Wow, I have strayed a bit far of topic. Sorry about that.

[Jim]

https://kjzz.org/content/697837/arizona ... ng-forests

Heard this on the radio yesterday. What I have been writing and saying for a while: water management districts need to help foot the bill.

[DixieFlyer]

The Coconino Forest is moving to stage 2 on Friday: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/NEW ... RmFJHuatUg

I'm not sure what good that is going to do. Stage 2 restrictions would not have prevented either the Slate Fire or the Telegraph Fire. It doesn't matter what restrictions are in place, there are some people that are going to cause fires, no matter what. I hate to say it, but it seems like the best way to prevent fires is to close access to the forests completely.

[chumley]

@DixieFlyer
While it's certainly not a concept that hasn't been used before, I'm generally not in favor of punishing the majority of responsible people for the transgressions of a small number of delinquents.

[DixieFlyer]

@chumley
I hear what you are saying and while I don't necessarily advocate forest closures, the current system doesn't seem to be working. I'd like to see increased enforcement of the rules, but I imagine that the forest service will say that they don't have the funding for that. Perhaps user fees would provide the funding, but many people are opposed to any sort of fees. So here we are.

[ShatteredArm]

@DixieFlyer
It might be taboo to talk about it around here... I dunno... But people have been being stupid around fire for ages. Yet it's only in recent years that our fires have gotten more frequent and more destructive. Every year seems to be worse than the last, but I think you'd be hard pressed to demonstrate any significant degradation in how responsible people in general are around fire. Furthermore, many of the large fires in the past decade - Bighorn and Frye in AZ, Whitewater and Johnson in the Gila Wilderness - were lightning-started.

Banning campfires and closing the forests isn't going to solve anything. The real issue is climate change.

[nonot]

Climate change (drier forests) is part of it, but a history of fire suppression is a bigger piece. We are now roughly 100 years since the forest service instituted fire suppression policies, and we are reaping the consequences of the decisions of our forefathers. The change in policy to encourage _managed_ fires and forest thinning has been short lived and is not retroactive applied to most of the vast expanses where fire was suppressed (due to cost)

Fires used to be extremely frequent, and extremely small, localized burnings perhaps every year, described as the "light burning" approach in this article:

https://foresthistory.org/research-expl ... ppression/

Fires seem bigger nowadays for several reasons, some of which are:
-they start to burn in overgrown areas that were unnaturally fire suppressed, making the fires hotter and harder to fight
-they start to burn in remote areas where fighting the fire is expensive and difficult, whereas less remote areas have likely been thinned/undergone managed fires
-suppressing the fire serves little good from a forest management perspective, in the sense that the area is overgrown, and allowing the fire to continue burning is the only way to cost effectively "repair" the mistake of a century of fire suppression, and effectively, to start over
-only when they spread large enough and threaten communities do people really notice them. Tiny fires go unnoticed.

[ShatteredArm]

@nonot
I'm not sure how much of a factor fire suppression is with fires that burn through non-fire-adapted biomes like the lower desert.

[nonot]

@DixieFlyer
While it's certainly not a concept that hasn't been used before, I'm generally not in favor of punishing the majority of responsible people for the transgressions of a small number of delinquents.

The punishments are not strong enough or public enough to act as a deterrence.

Education can help, but I'm convinced that most of the people doing this are practicing intentional ignorance.

There are 6 forms the forest service is using, that I see:
-gov't owned website indicating fire restrictions
-social media postings/repostings regarding fire restrictions (perhaps HAZ falls into this category)
-road passive signage indicating campfire restrictions at forest boundaries (the Smokey the Bear signs)
-flashing active signage along highways indicating campfire restrictions in and around the forest area (same as used for road construction/information)
-little flags placed in firepits with no fire signs, in dispersed campsites throughout the forest
-patrolling rangers that get out and talk to you telling you there are fire restrictions in place

I encounter perhaps 4-5 of these educational methods every time I have gone camping in summer, across dozens of trips. It seems inconceivable to me someone would not encounter at least 1.

[nonot]

@ShatteredArm
Usually this is where people chip in to talk about non-native grasses.

The shift from classic desert to grassy deserts needs to come with the expectation that fire patterns change from desert pattern to grassland pattern.

[ShatteredArm]

Usually this is where people chip in to talk about non-native grasses.

I don't think this fully explains the apparent increase in large and destructive fires. Why hasn't this always been a problem where buffelgrass is prevalent?

[nonot]

Usually this is where people chip in to talk about non-native grasses.

Why hasn't this always been a problem where buffelgrass is prevalent?

I don't understand the question. What problem are you referring to? Big fires? Human caused fires?

Deserts catch fire naturally, grassy areas catch fire more often naturally. Natural fires sometimes get big. Because lightning is often accompanied by rain, natural fires often do not get big.

People setting campfires in dry areas, whether forests, deserts, or grasslands, cause fires. Those fires likely are big more often because they are at the worst time of year when conditions are optimal for fire spreading.

People setting campfires in wet areas, whether forests, deserts, or grasslands, cause fires. Those fires generally stay small and are often used as controlled burns, because they are the best time of year where conditions make fire spreading slower/harder.

[Jim]

@ShatteredArm
Buffel grass isn't native and is spreading around the desert. Same with cheat grass, and the other exotic grasses in the mid-elevations of the Catalina, fueling fires such as in the Bighorn last June. In areas with adequate summer precipitation, and especially in Mexico, it is basically creating an exotic grassland where there was formerly desert vegetation.

@DixieFlyer I figure these restrictions are more about keeping resources free for other starts. It can't stop lightning fires or prevent accidental starts like the Bush Fire, but in these extreme years it helps them to not spread their resources thin and to have them available for the larger incidents. On Sunday, I watched at least 2 dozen tankers fly from 1 of the Tucson airports to the Telegraph fire. Those cost a lot of money.

[chumley]

5 million people now live in the Phoenix metro alone. It was 2 million in 1990. I would argue that a larger percentage of the population today is ignorant or willfully irresponsible than in 1990, but even if people haven’t changed behavior at all, the growth alone is simple math. There are more than twice as many idiots recreating on this land as there used to be.

Like most unsolvable issues in our society today, the solution is far more complex than a fixing a single problem.

These fires may be “historically” unnatural but as sure as people are natural, so are the fires. The only constant is change.

[ShatteredArm]

@chumley
But half these fires are starting naturally with no human intervention. You're suggesting that the growth of Metro Phoenix has somehow resulted in bigger fires?

[ShatteredArm]

I don't understand the question. What problem are you referring to? Big fires? Human caused fires?

Fires increasing in frequency and size.

Deserts catch fire naturally, grassy areas catch fire more often naturally. Natural fires sometimes get big. Because lightning is often accompanied by rain, natural fires often do not get big.

But...natural fires are more often getting big. The bighorn fire, frye fire, whitewater-baldy complex fire, all "natural". And this isn't just limited to the desert and grassy areas; last summer was a historic fire season all over the west.

[chumley]

You're suggesting that the growth of Metro Phoenix has somehow resulted in bigger fires?

Yeah, I think there's a very solid case to be made supporting that suggestion. Besides a larger number of people who make poor decisions, our increased population has resulted in fewer resources for our management agencies to devote to enforcement and prevention, range management, plus response and firefighting once an incident begins. Population increases have drastically increased the amount of developed acres and the urban heat island effect has subsequently increased temperatures and reduced precipitation in and near our major metropolitan areas including the Superstitions and Catalinas. So, as a piece of the contributing pie, I think population growth is pretty significant.

[eru]

Brought over and expanded to from elsewhere (I had gotten a bit off topic as what I'm talking about is mostly effects higher elevation land I'm more familiar with):

I feel like the Sierra Ancha could use more managed/prescribed burns that clear things out before enough fuel gathers for fires of catastrophic high intensity. A lot of the dense scrub forest near Copper Mountain is choked with fuel - my thoughts after hiking around FR693/FR236 were that it was a major fire waiting to happen. McFadden Horse Mountain recently had a very healthy fire. The trees are a little crispy on the bottom, but relatively few (though admittedly some) areas that got pretty cleared out.

The Yellowstone fire back in 1997 shows what happen after you aggressively fight all fires for decades - you end up with enough fuel that you eventually get one you can barely control. Yosemite NP has actually been ahead of their time in this manner, they've had prescribed burns since the 1970s IMO, but the NFS land near it is underfunded so that's how they ended up with the Rim Fire of 2013 where trees were igniting a hundred+ feet away from the fire due to the wall of heat rolling out.

Extra heat created from climate change, from cities (energy use, concrete vs plants, etc) as Chumley pointed out will impact the moisture in the ground which makes areas less fire resistant, as well as just humans moving water around for our own agricultural, recreational, or survival needs. The long term prognosis isn't great aside from heading to northern lattitudes.

The bipartisan infrastructure deal put $50B into wildfire related activities, and the federal 2022 budget amongst other things includes an almost 2/3 increase in funding to deal with the for the amusingly worded "excessive accumulation of biomass" for 4M acres that the USFS & DoI have planned to clear out this year. As Reagan said, "freedom isn't free" heh. It seems that there's some serious recognition and more nuanced understanding than "fire bad, no fire" or "logging bad, don't cut down anything" which has led to fire prone environments in the past. At a certain point the costs of rebuilding infrastructure start to make prevention/mitigation look good, but that doesn't help "wilderness" per se.

While NZ goes hardcore by only allowing logged trees to be removed by heli to keep landscapes pristine, having selective land based logging helps thin forests (obviously clear cutting is feces) and while the fire roads will negatively impact smaller wildlife they'll act as some degree of barrier for smaller ones and if in good enough condition could allow for transport of fire equipment. Lumber will be a bit more expensive, but with the climate change spikes in lumber from Canada (first catastrophic fires, then infrastructure destroyed from floods that occured from landscape eroded from those fires) that won't be too hard to stomach. Big Creek Lumber is doing some interesting stuff working with a local land trust to cut down unhealthy trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

re: personal action it'd be a mix of educating those around you on fire danger, and supporting policies that you feel help prevent future catastrophic fires with feedback to whatever channels.