Wildfire management LTTE

[SAJ-99]

Sorry you missed the point. The point you made about costs of prescribed burns vs. wildfire. There's no comparison in costs. Homes are destroyed, lived are changed forever. People die.

You missed my point. No one is arguing that Rx burns are beneficial and I'm not trying to say it wouldn't be cheaper in the long run. The issue is that the areas that need it are those that are near people and people complain about that smoke like they complain about everything else. That and insurance companies don't like the idea of lighting stuff on fire on purpose... so now they sell you insurance for that. Someday you will discover that things are never simple as they seem in your head. Go back to yelling at clouds.

 

[Irrelevant]

You're going to sue the forest for burning?

You've completely missed the point

 

[COEngineer]

You've completely missed the point

People keep writing that, but then don't explain what the point actually is.

Here's my take: You (and many, if not most, people) don't like smoke from forest fires (mostly because it's annoying and potentially dangerous, especially to people with existing respiratory health issues) and you want to blame someone. But it's not easy to figure out who to blame because we all share responsibility at some level (who we vote for, how involved we are in shaping public opinion, where we choose to live, etc, etc) and a fair amount of blame rests with our predecessors - forest (mis)management has been ongoing for more than a century. Forest fire mitigation, management, and suppression are complicated and expensive and we could be doing a lot better, but our short-sightedness makes us the worse enemies of our future.

 

[quarterhorse]

What are the solutions? Everything seems to involve more $ and people are not in favor of higher taxes.

I have no new solutions. Most everything has been tried and argued about for decades. I agree it's all costly and people hate taxes and love to gripe.

I hope we can recognize there are a lot of resource professionals doing their best with what they have to address the situation they face.

 

[Bonasababy]

Sorry you missed the point. The point you made about costs of prescribed burns vs. wildfire. There's no comparison in costs. Homes are destroyed, lived are changed forever. People die.

I Think his point was that costs to prevent fire are less expensive than the cost of fighting them.

 

[Bonasababy]

I do think solutions are there.

I also know that they will be unpopular, and likely require a major change in the country's leadership.

The anti-science, climate change isn't real stance has to change. It indirectly leads to making the problem worse by preventing acknowledgement that we live in a new normal and change is needed. A big part of that need is acceptance that climate changes make it worse, and restoration of cuts followed by expansion of resources is needed to mitigate the increased frequency of fires that are the new normal.

The role timber harvesting plays in creating more fuel and improving access access to arsonists and careless people needs to be accepted and changes need to be made.

Development, building permits, and expansions all need to include compliance with fire mitigating/prevention measures before being allowed.

FIre prevention education programs need to be first restored after cuts were made, then expanded.

Incentives for compliance with standards need to be looked into and applied.

Just a start.