California & New Mexico Fires

[kingsnake]

Amazing photos: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... acres.html

[Jim]

This is the 3rd year in a row where the Gila has burned in June with large 100,000 acre + fires. 2 of them were "natural caused" lightning. All 3 were in wilderness areas which really should have been able to accept these fires with minimal damage, and since 2 of 3 were natural, if crazy controlling chimps weren't here, they would have burned. The Gila Wilderness had it the last 2, now the Aldo Leopold "Butters" (Stoch?) Wilderness gets its.

I still maintain that if they had allowed the 2010 lightning caused Horse fire to go where it wanted with control around properties, the forest would have been better off in 2011 and 2012.

[rwstorm]

perhaps of interest...

http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/artic ... smoke.html

[RedRoxx44]

The first three words of that made me think of Cheech and Chong----more seriously just finished rereading the " The Great Fires of 1910" that burned over 5 million acres, and finally finished "1492" which touches on the care of the forests by various groups in north and south america before Columbus.

[Jim]

Big fire near San Jacinto. Could threaten C2C. Anyone else paying attention to the Mountain Fire?

[rwstorm]

@Jim_H
I am and I don't like it one bit.

[azbackpackr]

Big fire near San Jacinto. Could threaten C2C. Anyone else paying attention to the Mountain Fire?

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3516/

[azbackpackr]

Here's an interesting article on wildfires: trends, economics, possible solutions.
http://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story? ... T098.gmail

[Jim]

Here's an interesting article on wildfires: trends, economics, possible solutions.
http://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story? ... T098.gmail

That is worthy of it's own topic. I expect, that despite the obvious solution being to continue preventive measures for a fraction of the cost of reactionary suppression, we will support the fire fighting industrial complex and spend increasing amounts with little real affect.

[Jim]

The Rim Fire once again demonstrates that in dry years with dry windy conditions, the Forest Service has no hope of containing or controlling the fire. I suspect that only burn outs on highway 108 and the higher alpine forests or/and bare tundra rock will be the ultimate container for the Rim. Still, excessive spending on the Fire Fighting Industrial Complex will prevail.

[chumley]

Of all so-called "natural disasters" (because it only becomes a disaster if it affects people), only wildfire can be controlled or mitigated in process (we can argue over how "natural" many of the fires are another time).

Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Floods, Ice Storms, Tornadoes, Tsunamis, etc. are all things that happen with no possible control and then we spend billions of dollars to clean up, repair, rebuild, rehabilitate, recover. (Pre-planning can help mitigate the damage of some events: dams, flood channels, sturdier structures, etc. but except for throwing sandbags during flooding there's really nothing to be done while one of these other events is actually in progress).

If a fire isn't first controlled, slowed, or stopped altogether, only then does it fall into the same category as the others.

I've never looked up statistics on the subject, but when fire threatens a WUI I suspect that the cost of the Fire Fighting Industrial Complex is probably a great deal less than the Disaster Recovery Industrial Complex.

[Jim]

A now out dated figure for this year, is $ 1.2 Billion, and from what I understand cuts will be made in other places, usually management. So, as a hiker, this largely unnecessary expense has a direct impact on the available forest spending for trail users. It does, after all, come from the same source.

I guess that is directed at me, but I can't tell. Either way, since I was unable to locate the post, I'll say that there was an article posted here in the forum some time ago, 1 year or more, that was about an interview with someone in the forest service who was saying that fighting small fires is easy, and there is basically no hope when it comes to the big ones in the hot dry years. Therefore I draw a conclusion and post here that this fire, in an area with well below mean precipitation for 2 years, and under hot windy conditions, exemplifies the thesis that in these cases all that will happen is the spending of large amounts of money with little more to show for it than if a more conservative approach had been taken. With the exception of structure protection, large 747 tankers dropping surfactant in the wilderness or wilds of the forest, simply to steer it, is little more than an unnecessary expense. The Inciweb reports already state HWY 108 is the ultimate break line, well north of the fire perimeter.

Satellite interpretation of the GPS map Joe posted on the HAZ Website already shows the fire running into bare rock, or what appears to be bare rock, and that, not expensive human measures, will be the ultimate container for the Rim. Just as in the Wallow, the fire was controlled, not because of costly and valiant efforts, but because it hit the near fuel-less grasslands, and became drastically easier to stop. The edges can be steered under the correct conditions, but high winds can blow the fire out of the containment lines. The Schultz spotted over a mile away, so a wind shift perpendicular to the established surfactant drop lines can easily spot beyond the lines, and the cost have little benefit under erratic conditions.

I would be willing to bet, that WUI fire costs are substantially higher on a per capita basis, simply because the density is typically low and the cost high when compared to most other disasters While I don't argue for the complete absence of that sort of thing, I do argue against spending on small fires in wetter years. Steer, control in places around resources, but suppress without regard, no.

http://www.onearth.org/articles/2013/06 ... ire-policy

Some more fun. Returning to 1950 is a fools idea, and one we seem to be pursuing. I remind you again of the suppression of a lightning fire in the Gila Wilderness 3 years ago after a wet winter, 1 and 2 years before large, hot fires came through in erratic, uncontrollable fashion, and the subsequent fires may have been far different, had a fire in 2010 been 50,000 or more acres, instead of 1,000.

[kingsnake]

Google Earth, wtih Rim Fire outline, and a tour of surrounding areas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... UOhXxNBEzA

[rwstorm]

http://vimeo.com/73310936

[Jim]

http://inciweb.org/incident/3672/

A list of small lightning fires in the San Bernardino outside LA.

All starts are being suppressed

Fantastic :roll: