Forest fires out West

[John Kasaian]

Have a Plan "B"
With the current heat wave and all the growth from the wet Winter, I'm fearful we're heading into another brutal fire season which might close access to much of the National Forests and Parks in the US.
Cal-fire publicized importing a giant aerial tanker and crew from Australia to bolster the fleet.
My last trip up the hill I was expecting to see cows grazing to keep down the native grasses, but oddly, not much on the hoof to be seen.
Tere was a lot of dozer work cutting fire breaks on fence lines though.
The wild flowers are done around here and the grass is already brown.
We're just waiting for something to go terribly wrong.

[Drew Wiley]

And here we are with Tioga Pass still closed due to snow well into July. They've scheduled control burns in some of that same area which was catastrophically impacted a couple years ago, such as Jose Basin, not because of more dead pines, which were pretty well wiped out, but due to all the lush deep grass which grew up afterwards.
But you've still got big swaths of beetle-killed yellow pine in the Bass Lake area. Much of it up above Mariposa is already wiped out.

A bit inland around here people are finally beginning to wake up. Goat herds and their shepherds are being leased, control burns are going on, fire breaks are being plowed, and urban fire departments are being seriously trained in brush fire control too. Cattle have always been employed in most of our Regional Parks. Our biggest risk is eucalyptus groves (plus serial arsonists - three of them were arrested last week in the south Bay).

[Jim Fitzgerald]

I say "burn them at the stake!" If they catch an arsonist that should be the punishment. I know it is not PC to say this. If we allow arson to keep happening without harsh punishment it will continue.Our forests are way too important.

[John Kasaian]

Right now, smoke from the Pika Fire has closed some trails in Yosemite NP and caused visibility problems in Yosemite Valley.
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident-publication/caynp-pika-fire/pika-fire-smoke-information

[Lachlan 717]

Arson is a very dangerous act, and not only for the obvious reason.

FBI profiling pioneer, John Douglas, is very clear on arsonists, especially if their behaviour stems to sexualised offending as well. He puts forward the theory that psychopaths can share three common traits - as children they were bed-wetting, animal-abusing arsonists. He reasons arson is a sexual offence. In the early days of profiling, he had the NYFD video crowds who were found at bin fires.

Good read, but disturbing content…

[Drew Wiley]

Arsonists get in really deep poo-poo if they are caught and convicted. And here in CA at least, to bolster their sentencing time, each incident they light one counts as an additional offense. The guy who lit 30 grass fires in a row the same day, along a single rural road, got indicted and sentenced for each, with the prison time added up - basically a life sentence. Likewise, those who import, make, or distribute illegal fireworks in bulk volumes get serious sentences. But what kinds of spiders weave their cobwebs inside the heads of arsonists is something the Shrinks can discuss, or movies decide (remember Backflash?).

I lived through a couple of big arson incidents, when just one wacko managed to burn a cumulative 450,000 acres in three successive incidents. But back then, they simply locked him up in a nuthouse for the rest of his life. Hot ash was raining down for two weeks; and even though we had an aluminum roof, we'd be outside day and night hosing it with water too. Lots of other families lost everything, and one older couple, their own lives. I don't know if John K. remembers that one, the Deadwood Mtn Fire when Ahwahnee and Nipiniwassee were destroyed - same year as Kennedy was assassinated.

[John Kasaian]

Yup, I remember Deadwood.

[Michael R]

Lots of fire in northern BC and Alberta now.

[domaz]

The Northwest has been pretty clear of smoke and active wildfires so far. Get in your hikes while you can though.

[Greg Y]

388 Wildfires currently in BC..... 240 out of control!
https://wildfiresituation.nrs.gov.bc.ca/map
117 in Alberta but only 5 of note....
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/8d86d267dcf44ad085a11939186f3d3a
https://srd.web.alberta.ca/wildfires-of-note

[Drew Wiley]

We're due for some smoke drifting south from western Oregon fires tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad here, but further north, I dunno.

[Michael R]

We're due for some smoke drifting south from western Oregon fires tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad here, but further north, I dunno.

On our side, New York etc. have been told to brace for more smoke from the northern quebec fires.

[Vaughn]

Now that the morning fog is burning off and it is heading into the mid-70s, the sky is clear of smoke (so far, some a little earlier in the week). High temps are forecasted in the low 70s for the next ten day...high temps around 90 inland a couple of ridges/watersheds from here. Summer is just getting rolling...

[Drew Wiley]

A little bit of smoke smell, taste, and brown haze settled over the Bay yesterday. But the coast itself had clear blue sky (except where the fog moved in). I was at the cat and mouse intersection of clear and drifting fog shooting some of my remaining 4X5 Acros film at an estuary - lovely light.

[Tin Can]

Canada Smoke

Is making me very tired

I have factory lungs

[DavidFisk]

I say "burn them at the stake!" If they catch an arsonist that should be the punishment. I know it is not PC to say this. If we allow arson to keep happening without harsh punishment it will continue.Our forests are way too important.

Nahhh. Death is too good for them. Hang them from their feet and dip them into a big vat of boiling water continuously but not enough to be fatal. Lift them out, then repeat. A few weeks should do it.

[Drew Wiley]

The defense strategy of the latest arsonist indicted around here is that his meth lab "accidentally" caught fire. But given the fact his wife was burned alive in it, and that the remains of a timed detonation device were found, he'll probably spend the rest of his life in prison regardless. Several adjacent homes were destroyed.

At least that wasn't the case with the 40,000 acre or so Big Sur forest fire a few years ago, which involved a more decent individual merely trying to destroy any incriminating drug trade evidence by setting on fire his cabin back in the woods. Not everyone was amused however, since that is the southernmost holdout of our ancient coastal redwoods, and a lot of them were incinerated. The FBI shows up in town asking about your whereabouts, so whadda ya do? - panic, and make a big bright obvious torch of your hideout. Yeah, really smart. Maybe this would go better with the current Lounge thread about the Fargo movie, with its own stupid criminals.

[Willie]

Nahhh. Death is too good for them. Hang them from their feet and dip them into a big vat of boiling water continuously but not enough to be fatal. Lift them out, then repeat. A few weeks should do it.

Be sure to keep frogs away from the vat so you don't re-do the "frogs in boiling water" experiment. ;-)

[DavidFisk]

Be sure to keep frogs away from the vat so you don't re-do the "frogs in boiling water" experiment. ;-)

Right. Gotta keep the frogs safe at all costs.

[Torontoamateur]

The press and reporters ignore the hundreds of thousands of wildlife that dies. The Birds and insects. This carnage is without measure. Yet no one says a word. I am a hunter and conservationist. I understand that animals , Birds insects and the fish in our lakes die from these immense fores. Canada is especially vulnerable You in the USA hear about the smoke. Here a thousand miles away from the fires the smoke smell is string. Nothing survives a fire We see what is left of a tree but the wildlife consumed and gone. turned to ashes. and that is the untold story
Who will say this and document this? Who will photograph a burnt animal A bird dead from smoke inhalation Fish floating in an ask covered lake?

[Drew Wiley]

A lot of our wildlife is highly adapted to fires, since fires are naturally cyclic. But the truly catastrophic mega-fires of the past decade or so pose a whole other level of challenge. And there are indeed individuals and agencies rescuing animals and treating them, and if possible, again releasing them. A lot of orphaned cougar kittens and bear cubs, and deer fawns, have been rescued, and either later released or given to zoos if unable to fend for themselves. Local TV media and documentaries feature of lot of that kind of activity for sake of public awareness. Even stranded pets get documented and their pick-up locations advertised. Birds simply migrate and return. Burn areas are especially rich in bugs under bark, along with tree sap, and actually attract abundant bird life.

Just above my former hometown there was the most dramatic firestorm ever recorded - the highest non-volcanic thermal cloud in history, over 70,000 ft high, with four true fire tornadoes spinning in it at the same time, and the scale of devastation literally involved the release of more energy than 20 hydrogen bombs. But just the next spring, back in there, there were young tree squirrels running around, and a multitude of frogs croaking in the streams, and abundant bird life, and an amazing Spring bloom. No, the scenery will not be the same, neither in my lifetime, nor perhaps in centuries. But the deer have already returned for the fresh lush grass, along with the mountain lions and bobcats, and even open-range cattle.

I'd imagine it's a lot worse in Australia and Tasmania, where they've got entire categories of ancient marsupials dependent upon specialized eucalyptus forest habitats. And such drastic fires are now many places. Greece and Algeria are especially hard hit at the moment. We might finally have a partial reprieve here in northern California due to an especially wet Winter and Spring. But anywhere pine beetle breakouts has been rampant, massive fires are inevitable. And Calif also has a lot of creosote and pitchy shrubbery at the lower and mid-elevations, which is genetically programmed to burn once it's mature. There's nothing new about that. But all the modern subdivision and development back in those woods is a recipe for disaster, especially given any intense drought alongside it. I've certainly survived more than my own fair share of giant forest fires.

People forget the risks and learn slowly, but now learning how to contend with the risk has become a matter of life and death for many communities, and lessons are being learned. And it's amazing how there's so much compassion for animals, either domestic or wild, even when people are fighting for their own lives. Many a rural fire truck has thrown a scared pet or orphaned critter aboard while fighting the flames. Hopefully Canada will follow suit.

Loss of biodiversity - insects, plants, entire ecosystems - is a tragedy, and it's only going to accelerate due to out-of-control climate change as well as a long legacy of unwise monoculture forestry and industrialized agriculture, as well as mindless development sprawl. I feel it intensely due to my own field biology background, but even more so due to my love for the outdoors. But the Pandora's box has been opened up, and hell is already breaking loose.