Wildfire management LTTE

Also, because it's relevant, apparently DTJ came to a similar but more idiotic conclusion. All be it, it's unfunded - apparently Iran is more important, but the modernization part sounds good.


I don't know if it matters, but I like removing any EPA hurdles to prescribed fires.
 
I simply don't believe that data.
View attachment 415577
the FS isn't even attempting IA on these small starts, everyone is already committed to the big ones that didn't put out during the IA. Thankfully everything west of the crest has seen rain, and will see more rain.

The DNR might do better, and I know our local FD's are doing a helluva lot better. Maybe that's funding. Maybe access. Maybe strategy. Like a combination.
Thats a helluva lot of fire at the same time!

Hard to ask the best agency around to handle all that...esp. with the feds staff cut way back.
 
Wife’s doctorate is forest science. She worked at the LaGrande research lab for 35 years. Spent a lot of time reviewing fire response as well as fighting fires early in her career. We’ve been following along and there are a couple of things not being talked about. While it was mentioned we learned to do a real good job of putting fires out when they got started. There are fire lookouts in Oregon that pre date WW11 as well as towers that have been installed near where folks rigged small tree houses as the original fire lookouts and would ride horses to get help or handle it themselves. That suppression dramatically changed the landscape even with logging well in excess of sustained yield up into the 70s and 80s. Most studies show there are more stems per acre now than any time in history. That’s fuel. Much of the west was on a 25 year average burn cycle, think controlled burn on a macro scale. That cycle doesn’t occur now. You mentioned correctly that parts of Eastern Oregon and Washington were every bit as hot and dry as they are now in the early 50s. 70 some years ago, and prior you could ride a horse through the lodge pole near East and Paulina likes or up around Crane Prarie. You couldn’t do it now.
I’m afraid it will get worse before getting better.
 
I've been fighting fires as a civilian dozer operator in our local area, about 150-200 sq miles, for over 40 years. You learn fire behavior for the area you are familiar with. The smartest thing that professional firefighters do is to ask the locals for advice. Sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't.
 

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