ogmtb

Nope, not in forest management. I'm just an educated resident of California (as opposed to a know-nothing resident of the Midwest).

I am protesting though. I am protesting your child-like nonsense with cold, hard facts. Why does that make you uncomfortable?

Cyclist0108

He just doesn't want to see this kind of thing happen when people neglect to rake their leaves.

curbtender

As I type, the winds in the east are kicking up. What brings relief to one area, is a problem to others. Rain will clear our area pretty soon but bring mudslides and hazardous runoff to those devastated areas.
Native American burning

FrenchFit 

Knowing the issues and actually doing something about them (managing) are two different things. My comments echo CALFIRE leadership, I don't know where you are getting your information. Only these last few years are they talking about more aggressive, effective action. For 2019 they plan on intentionally burning 125,000 acres if I heard it correctly. So, it has been a 20 year run of political and social battles over the 'correct' policy and impacts on air quality, environment, etc., etc.. In the meantime, the problem has escalated. As much as a love Jerry B., he is still talking about "climate change" as the problem, hence 'little can be done'-

"... there is no level of planning or management that will eliminate risks when you have 60 mph winds in extreme drought conditions" is one of those arguments that convinces people that there is nothing wrong with doing nothing, which is about was we've been doing. Kinda' like " It was a 100 year storm, how could we prepare?". But I absolutely agree with you that allowing housing developments and community development in high risk fire areas is part of the problem. No different from zoning and developing flood plains as residential property.

Cyclist0108

Many of the most recent and deadly fires have been caused by uninsulated power lines coming down. These, combined with auto-restart devices (reclosers), create a huge fire hazard. But they are too cheap to install insulated wires or bury the cables underground. That could cut into corporate profits.

Much better to focus on raking leaves.

GailT

I'm interested in the CALFIRE comments - do you have a link to their comments? I work in air quality at the EPA, and I work closely with some of the Forest Service folks. It is fair to debate whether they should be trying to do more prescribed burns, but it is very challenging to complete the burns they want to do - they need approval from state agencies before doing a burn, certain meteorological conditions have to be met, and even then, it is not risk free - people have died in prescribed burns that got out of control. And this is expensive - they can only work with the budget that Congress and the President provides.

I think people are smarter than that. There is a lot we can to reduce risks, including creating defensible space around homes. A lot is already being done, more needs to be done. But even after we spend billions of dollars on forest management, which will take decades, there will still be some catastrophic fire that we can't prevent, and when bent people (not referring to you) make claims that the Paradise fire was caused by gross incompetence, that's simply nonsense and counter productive.

GailT

Finnish Biologist Corrects Trump On Rakes

Cyclist0108

The defensible space idea works for conventional relatively slow-moving forest fires, but the Camp fire was fundamentally different, due to the very high winds and super-heated air. Houses didn't just catch fire. They exploded into flame when they were hit with super-heated air. Everything in the path of the firestorm was incinerated. Metal objects melted. Cars were blown off the road into the ditches.



Melted water meter

Cyclist0108

I realize this isn't exactly what you are asking for, but it sounds like you might be interested.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...t-13400503.php

Also, here is a link to the report (PDF):

https://lhc.ca.gov/sites/lhc.ca.gov/.../Report242.pdf

caloso

Interesting story done by my local NPR station, Capital Public Radio, on the Global Supertanker. Here's What It Takes To Get A Cal Fire Tanker In The Air - capradio.org

FrenchFit 

CALFIRE's leadership has remarkably self-critical of past practices, (Fed & State) I think you can find those comments in articles all over the interwebz, including Forbes, CBS network, and well as more partisan sites.. There are also official memorandum published from the Executive Staff that you can find out there posted in the web as pdfs.


Perhaps search Mike Marcucci's comments as a start.

rydabent

If you people from Calif are so educated, why is your state BILLIONS OF DOLLARS is debt, and most of us from the ignorant states in the mid west debt free.

Then---------------------again if you are so educated why have you let over 70 of your resident suffer the horrible death of burning to death?? And again if you are so educated, why havent you devised a fix to prevent hundreds of square miles of your state to be burned to the ground? The destruction of all those forest tree and the wild life is unacceptable. Again IMO the totally ignorant leadership if you can call it that from Sacramento is beyond disgust, and again, attacking me and the people of the mid west is really stupid. This is not where the problem resides. Your continued person attacks are wearing quite thin.

ogmtb

While these claims have nothing to do with California air, they are consistent with your comments in that they aren't based in fact. Extra nonsense points for conflating States' debt with personal debt even if you're wrong about that as well.



Repeating the same nonsense over and over doesn't change the simple fact that you don't know what you are posting about.



Sometimes the truth hurts. You only have yourself to blame for that.

Cyclist0108

It's got a huge surplus. Stop reading Fakebook for your news and pull your head out of your arse long enough to do a basic fact-check.

GailT

Thanks - good report, and a positive description of the Forest Service, here are two quotes from the report:

"The U.S. Forest Service is a valuable leader and partner in several collaborative activities - it advocates an "all lands, all hands" approach and many stakeholders are quick to praise USFS Region 5 Forester Randy Moore's willingness to consider science-based forest management solutions. However, there are constraints outside of his control, particularly funding, which impede forest management. USFS fire suppression costs have soared from 15 percent in the early 1990s to more than 50 percent in 2017 - the most expensive year on record. That year alone, it spent more than $2 billion in fire suppression, exceeding the nearly $1.6 billion allocated."

"The backlog of restoration treatments also is large. Approximately six million acres of forest within the Sierra Nevada need to be treated. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) commits in the draft Forest Carbon Plan to increasing yearly forest treatments from 250,000 acres to 500,000 acres on all National Forest Systems Lands in California so that by 2030, nine million acres will be treated with fuels reduction, managed and prescribed fire, weed removal and road improvements to reduce sedimentation."

Forest Service researchers were some of the first to recognize the value of fire in forest management, and they are also the first to criticize the old approach in the 20th century of suppressing all fires. They no longer suppress all fires, but when lives and property are at risk, they are still required to suppress fires, even though this make the long term problem worse, and it also reduces their budget for forest management. Catastrophic fires were a problem even before widespread fire suppression strategy was adopted - it was the catastrophic Big Burn fire that prompted the suppression approach. I don't think you will find anyone critical of the current Forest Service approach, apart from their budget being too small for forest management.

eja_ bottecchia

Cyclist0108

There are no shortages of problems in CA, but at the moment, the budget apparently isn't one of them.

Unfortunately, I think we are in the early days of another recession, so this may quickly change.

caloso

If anyone were interested in educating himself about California debt policy, I would recommend the Legislative Analyst's Office reports, particularly this one on Prop. 2 (which mandates payments on state debts and the state rainy day fund) and the Governor's payment proposal. https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2016/3363...sal-022416.pdf

Or one could continue to spout off in ignorance. One's choice.

rydabent

Uh------------might try googling Calif debt. They say 1.3 Trillion.

cyclic_eric

Reading through the thread, I think I'd best preface my question by saying that I thoroughly sympathize with victims of this horrible fire. I'm not here to argue, I just want to go for a bike ride.

I regularly cycle many miles a week here in Oakland. I imagine several of you do likewise. If you're relatively fit & healthy, do you think it's ok to go for a ride? The masks are not reasonable, imo, for the type of riding I want to do.
I haven't found any clear answers to the question. I suspect many of you, like myself, are fit enough to bicycle centuries. Do you think our general fitness be sufficient to clear away the temporary insults of this smoke?

rydabent

The only truth here is the fact that forest management in Calif SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7000 buildings burned, over 70 people dead, and hundreds missing. And that IS the truth.

And again while as I say in the wax and wane of things when you consider the death and losses, in the future for years, mountain biking in the burned out areas will probably non existent.

ogmtb

This really shows that you can't comprehend the impact of fire on mountain bike trails in the West. In many areas it's possible to ride mere weeks after the fire because the trail remains, even though the chapparal and manzanita has burned (see below). In many heavily forested areas the riding resumes after the downed trees have been cleared.

The scenery changes but the trails remain. Because dirt, rocks and sand don't burn...

ogmtb

Not ok to ride. Heavy particulates don't "clear away," they settle in the lungs. This info is readily available in recent news coverage...

It's a moot point though with the weather change tomorrow afternoon.

caloso

I haven't ridden outside in 10 days. I rode Zwift in the garage this morning and briefly considered commuting. Currently over 200 in Sacramento, 170-180 in the East Bay. You could probably get away with it, but I don't think it's worth it personally.

nesdog

I live in the Conejo Valley, smack dab in the middle of the evac zone. We were out for four days. I bailed on our local shop ride on Saturday after just a few miles as the air quality was not exactly epic in favor of the trainer. Didn't see any reason to destroy my lungs.

It's better today, although we have rain coming in. Hoping to get a decent ride on Friday if the rain has stopped.