Those Tahoe fires

A year or two ago there was a news bit about the Lake Tahoe region. Specifically highlighting the trees and undergrowth around the area in the residential sections...

Tinderbox then. They had an opportunity to fix it but it cost too much. To go in and mechanically cut trees down to reduce the risk of fire was a big issue. Many people thought the tall old trees (a bit too old for the normal forest succession and starting to die back) should stay and that cutting them down would be interfering with nature or some hippie sierra club bullshit. Basically it was an unmanaged stand of trees that evolved over time synergistically with fire. not annual but close to it low scrub fires clearing out the fuel and creating fertile beds for the new seedlings to germinate. And keeping the space open and park like. Unfortunately fire suppression is its own worst enemy. Especially in areas where fire and the ecosystem have evolved together.

I wonder how all those people who felt that managing their forested neighborhood was too expensive are feeling now that the homes are gone, burnt to the ground? Or are they callous folks who will rebuild with insurance money. Too bad the insurance folks couldn't chip in to help pay the costs of reducing the risk of loss to fire before all the homes burnt to the ground.

Pine trees are pretty cool. Able to survive scrub fires without any loss in growth potential, but if the fire hits the crown of the tree with enough intensity it is like setting off a book of matches. Very unfortunate.

I mourn the loss of the trees more than the property loss. 225 structures is a lot of property damage. How many board feet of lumber was lost in the blaze?

There is a company cutting submerged timber deep in reservoirs up in British Columbia. And the Audubon and Sierra club folks don't want ya cutting trees to manage fire risk, among the tax payers who don't want to pay to 'cut' trees to reduce risk when they can't pay for schools. It is absolutely a tough call. And when you have a disaster like this it prompts questions about historic practices.

Capital is capital. Cash is a resource that many people prize more highly than any other. Fortunately the loss of human life isn't the headline with this fire. Prevention prevention prevention.

All predictions are that this year will be an intense forest fire year. Yet it seems people would rather the forests burn than to establish a management program of active practices that both increase timber harvest and reduce fire risk, and reduce fire damage if it were to sweep through.

Cutting trees to keep the forest alive is far better than standing back and dumping helicopter loads of water on burning trees. But many don't see it that way.

In a way, that quote from yesterday applies here. And again what i said can be taken incorrectly. To be very clear i'm not talking about clear cutting. Not at all.

And shit, i find myself agreeing with the monkey in chief as quoted on the front page of this PDF http://www.ncfirewise.org/pdf/MinimizingWildlfireRisk.pdf. He probably had a speech writer or "special interest" group feed him that line. But you never know. Maybe he did say it all by himself. Some people say he ain't stupid. And while that management PDF is for North Carolina, it still holds essentially true in broad application for most all fire prone areas. Species can change and do change from zone to zone but fire doesn't really care what it is dealing with. Fuel is fuel.

See. Too much floating in my head. I need to get the power tap harness fixed (or just break down and buy a new one) so i can fill my head with power numbers instead of grumbling about management of forests and stuff.

-g