[white-flame]

The US and state governments have long done controlled burns as well; this isn't some lost native american art. It's just that in more recent years, homeowners and tourism boards and the like really, really didn't want any fires at all, no matter the consequence.

[dfsegoat]

Sonoma County, CA here. Can confirm it’s not some lost art and controlled burns were common.

From the time I was a child to now, controlled burns have basically vanished. It correlated with people moving here.

Propublica recently confirmed this anecdote:

https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-...

[dang]

That article was discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24323379

[krn]

What a great read. Thank you.

> We live in a Mediterranean climate that’s designed to burn, and we’ve prevented it from burning anywhere close to enough for well over a hundred years. Now climate change has made it hotter and drier than ever before, and the fire we’ve been forestalling is going to happen, fast, whether we plan for it or not.

> Megafires, like the ones that have ripped this week through 1 million acres (so far), will continue to erupt until we’ve flared off our stockpiled fuels. No way around that.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Would controlled burns still be useful at this stage, or is flaring off in megafires the only way forward now?

I'm from South Australia, so raging fatal bushfires were a part of my childhood.

[akiselev]

Controlled burns are harder to do as climate change gets worse, but that just means creating larger firebreaks around burn zones and dedicating more resources in a shorter timespan (due to the shrinking season for safe burns).

Many insurance companies in fire prone areas already require homeowners to clear their yards of fuel so with well funded, proactive fire departments, the vast majority of populated areas can be protected with a once a decade (or less frequent) burns.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Yes, controlled burns are useful at any stage. It's not like current climate is the hottest ever for this planet. In fact, it's one of the more cold ones: glaciation still exists!

[vikramkr]

by the point we leave the ice age, there's no guarantee that there'll be anything left to burn - the whole place could undergo desertification well before the ice caps melt.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

It is extremely unlikely. Go to google maps, somewhere near perm and zoom to a level where you can see individual buildings. Then try scrolling east to Vladivostok, and notice how long it will take and how many trees are there.

[pvaldes]

> We live in a Mediterranean climate that’s designed to burn,

False. Humid Mediterranean forest is designed to be fireproof. Mediterranean has aquatic ecosystems also.

[vikramkr]

the statement isn't that Mediterranean climates burn. The statement is that a Mediterranean climate, California's climate, is a climate that is designed to burn. If you are going to be pedantic, do it right.

[pvaldes]

Lets do it right, then. Climates are not designed to burn. Is impossible in fact. Temperatures can't burn itselves. Are an abstract concept. Frost can't burn, neither can humidity, hours of sun or rain. So lets start by the most basic thing that is not mistaking an animal with a cloud, please.

I'll repeat again here. Some Mediterranean biocenoses are shaped by fire. Not all. Other NOT.

And shaped by fire means that they can stand fire, they can even promote it, and are frozen in its current state by fire. This does not mean that this is the better, or only possible outcome for that place. Ecosystems are always trying to reach the most higher level of organization possible. And those are very humid, even in Mediterranean climates.

[vikramkr]

Still not pedantic enough. Ecosystems aren't designed and they aren't trying to reach levels of organization - they just are. There's no concept of "better." The current equilibrium for the climate in these regions of the west involves frequent fires. Stopping fires has disrupted the ecosystem by moving it away from the equilibrium state, resulting in situations conducive to much larger and more destructive fires (destructive to humans - to the ecosystem defining "destructive" is difficult, and the fires likely move the system back to equilibrium).

I'm not sure what your argument is trying to accomplish- its pretty clesr to anyone reading that the discussion is about how the ecosystem has evolved such that forest fires are an important and integral part of maintaining equilibrium, and pushing the system into disequilibrium is a root cause of the current fire disaster. I could at least respect a pedantic technically correct argument, but technically, ecosystems arent trying to reach any level of organization and the concept of "better" does not apply to ecosystems- theres no moral or other ranking to biomes!

[seattle_spring]

What were you hoping to gain by typing this out?

[jb775]

It's surprising there isn't some sort of legal requirement to carry out strategic controlled burns.

If urban sprawl is the root cause of not conducting these, there should be more regulation and accountability on a small govt scale. They are the ones who approve/decline developer plans. Sounds like there may be a tragedy of the commons game theory issue here where certain counties are cashing in on local development projects while offloading the risk to outside counties.

[teilo]

The same US and state governments that used to regularly practice controlled burns in the Pacific Northwest, later banned those controlled burns, to devastating consequences. It's only been the last few years that we've seen a reversal of that, but it's been too little, too late.

[olivermarks]

I'm also in Sonoma County and the combination of urban building spread on known fire plains coupled with a lack of vegetation management is having devastating consequences. I've been listening to the Sonoma County budget deliberations of the cliquey board of supervisors here all week, there is greater emphasis on spending on itinerant and homeless populations than on forestry management which makes little sense.

[kurthr]

I agree that Sonoma county is mighty cliquey and likes to beat around the bikeshed... but, I also don't think they're the ones who would do controlled burns. I'm also glad that we have (some) state officials that know what they're doing on controlled burns since they're hard to do without endangering people, property, and prosperity. Certainly, it's a lot better than having a bunch of SWE figure it out by reading news articles or wikipedia. Maybe that's what happened in Big Sur?

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've talked to oldfarts^d^d^d^d^d^d^d^d people (partnered with First Peoples) who have designed controlled burns, forest management experts with degrees in the topic, and even folks who run timber companies... and it's known there's a lot that could be done, but... the Santa Cruz and West Sonoma redwood fires are unprecedented. It takes a lot to get those coastal forests ablaze... enough that you're not going to get a controlled burn in Cazadero, Bonny Doon, or Empire Grade. They (unlike the interior) don't typically burn more than every 50-100 years. You can log reasonably large areas and remove underbrush, but in a wildfire like these last few weeks the flames can jump miles and that's too much area to safely log (mud slides) or regularly burn. Big Creek lost a lot of good timber in well managed forest that didn't stop the fires.

I'm also confused by the idea that if the same areas of Napa and Lake county could just burn a few more times then they wouldn't burn the next few years. It hasn't worked the last 3 times (really check caltopo for the burn overlap). It's just low brush that grows back quickly, because all of the trees that were on it have been burnt off. Then you get to Sierras where the pine beetle has created huge areas of kindling... but where was that beetle 300 years ago? Not in the Americas. How invested were the Miwok in stationary real estate? Not so much, it was a different time and a different attitude.

This all just has the ring of climate change denial...

[olivermarks]

x86_64Ubuntu https://sonomacounty.ca.gov/PRMD/Fire-Prevention/Vegetation-... SC run a chipper program for residents to chew up their trimmings, but various state bureaucracies are responsible for what's left of forestry management.

Walking around redwood groves of 1000 year old trees with burn scars, the reality is that California ecology has always had 'cleansing' fires. The humans, the abysmal electric grid that starts a lot of the fires and building in fire plains have predictable results in amplifying that at this time of year.

Paradise (which used to be called 'pair of dice') is one of the most dangerous places to live in California, a combination of winds, canyons and narrow roads. They've had endless fires in that part of the world, but more people moved there (cheap) and when the 1912 pge power pylon fell over on a 45% wooded hill the inevitable happened. Most of Houston Texas is built on a flood plain, yet people will be astounded and appalled when they have a 100 year flood and the UK Guardian etc will blame it on global warming...

[x86_64Ubuntu]

Is forestry managed at the county level?

[neltnerb]

Converting wooded areas to homes means that the required controlled burn ares aren't there anymore either, they are trying to protect land that didn't used to be protected because now it's houses.

Pretty obvious in retrospect, confusing that we're still doing it, unclear how we'd reverse it, probably no good way out...

[konspence]

A dark but predictable outcome is that they will eventually burn down, and insurance companies will be afraid of covering new development in these areas. After which point controlled burns can again occur

[slavik81]

Or, the government will step in and provide disaster-relief so people can rebuild their homes on the charred embers.

...maybe I'm just being cynical, but that's often how disasters are handled. e.g. https://www.insurancehotline.com/resources/should-government...

[konspence]

Sure, but if insurance is hesitant..

[neltnerb]

Yeah, this works... once. Maybe twice. At some point no one will insure you and you are seriously on your own because the fire department just won't come. But I suppose it is technologically feasible to design a less likely to burn home. You'd have to actually try though.

[canofbars]

Australian firefighers have said that every time they do controlled burns they receive mountains of complaints about smoke or about how hot debris burned holes in their garden shade. Also how the weather now leaves less and less time where burns can be safely done.

[Ma8ee]

And the longer you wait the harder it is to do safely.

[pvaldes]

We should invent a magic machine and call it wood chipper, or branch shredder or something like that

But, not. Fire. Fire is a lot of fun. We need to send more CO2 to the air ASAP. How could we renounce to the lovely smell of barbecues?.

[salawat]

The wood chipper really only shuffles the problem around, and doesn't provide the ecological boon that many West Coast species are dependent upon.

After all, that debris has to get moved somewhere, or it is just more fuel. Further, what are you running the wood chipper with? Where are you getting it from? How are the people doing the work getting there?

Planned/properly engineered burns just work, and the only reason they stopped was an accumulation of humanity that refused to adapt to the ecological needs of their environment to an excessive degree.

I'll concede we're now in the territory of arguing what constitutes "excessive" degree, which to me is any cessation of activity that tends to increase ecological stability over time, rendering an area unfit or overly risky for human population or sustainable economic/ecological value extraction. I'm generally open to a lot of pro-environmental policies as long as knock-on effects are generally counted into the equation, but your wood chipper idea falls foul of A) seeming to glance over them with little scrutiny, B) not taking into account the ecology of the area.

It really does sound like a fundamentally people driven problem.

[raverbashing]

Have NIMBYs gone too far now?

[x86_64Ubuntu]

It becomes a lost art when you stop doing it at the scale as previously done.