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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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The environmental factors that determine the fuel moisture of a fuel particle are:
Air Temperature
Moisture content of the air
Solar radiation (as modified by cloud cover)
Rainfall (amount and duration)
None of which have anything to do with climate change.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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"immanent" you say?
Spell check is a wonderful tool.
"ive also well proven.."
No, you haven't. I saw where you tried. You failed to prove any such thing.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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Once again your perception of reality is askew and your uninformed, arrogant insistence that you know what you are talking about turns an otherwise interesting topic into absolute rubbish. Enjoy!
Forests should absolutely be "treated." But that doesn't mean the effects of climate should be ignored. Personally, I'd like to see more Rx burns and mechanical treatments with low pressure equipment. I know from experience this equipment has very low soil compaction. Less ground pressure than a human foot print. Seems to be the way to go.
http://www.timberlinemag.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=110
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Ron... Good post.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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you'd probably continue to stew in your own ignorance.
v you are welcome. sorry a little slow this am... didn't sleep until 7am, got up a 10am.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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a million regenerated trees in one winter.
I thought the idea was to reduce fuel loads and mimic a more natural balance. A million regenerated trees in a winter is not natural, nor does it reduce fuel loads.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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khanom, I have no idea who wrote that. It was just the first article that popped up when I searched for Rottne CTL Holland. But I have worked with Jeff Holland and he is a good guy, doing good work that needs to be done.
Ron, please explain the natural process associated with fires that tills the soils and generates "a million trees" over winter.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Many fires are located in vegetation with no commercial value and /or near populations with no tolerance for controlled burns. Thinning is too laborious to do on any large scale. I've thought a lot about this and conclude that really nothing will be done aside from some improvement in isolated pockets here and there.
In timber old-growth stands are the most fire resistant-- Logging circa 60s-80s pretty much took care of those however. Logging slash is the worst / heaviest fuel for fires.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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The properly thinned areas look exactly like a paper company long term lease.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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TGT, that is because you are a idiot and have no idea what you are talking about... specifically size-class distributions, soil cover, and soil compaction.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Most pulp from paper comes from south eastern forests that grow like weeds. Pretty sure they are straight up feller-buncher operations in rotating crops.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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Dingus, how do you propose we get rid of the built up forest fuels that used to naturally burn every few decades?
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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^ improper size-class distribution and undoubtedly excessive soil compaction. I'm sure you guys did the best you could, but they can do better nowadays. Looks like many of the ~50 year old scars you can find all over the NF in the area... and nothing like areas than burned naturally.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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And build that nice comfortable home of yours in suburbia USA.
I think you mean "and ship raw logs (and jobs) harvested on public lands to Asia for substantial private profit"
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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I hear ya Dingus, and agree. Current thinning/sales (at least in Tahoe) have pretty well established prescriptions for size-class distribution, "habitat trees", decaying logs (for soil quality), etc. My job used to be making sure those were implemented properly. Cutting for fire management involves thinning out many of the smaller trees... which doesn't provide much useful produce for the timber industry. There are efforts to stream the product into biomass energy facilities, but there ain't too many of those around.
The LTBMU now offers a permit to collect wood from certain burn piles around the Basin... free firewood!
Much of the soil in that pic is actually volcanic rock. Hawkins pk in the back ground.
No sh#t sherlock... volcanic soils are more susceptible to compaction than coarse granitic soils. Trust me, I've analyzed more than my fair share.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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I wasn't referring to Eastern timber plantations, but to NE Arizona.
Back in the 1980's my folks retired to Show Low Arizona. At the time there was still an operating paper plant, complete with a narrow gage rail road for log transport.
Driving around, you always knew just by the condition of the forest if you were on, Indian reservation, USFS, or timber lease.
The reservation land was completely brush choked and dying, USFS somewhat better, and the leased areas, healthy and properly thinned.
Then in the late 80's the paper mill shut down and the entire forest reverted to a brush choked unhealthy state. The result was the Rodeo Fire.
the only places the fire laid down and burned in a healthy manner were a few remaining logging leases along the Salt River. Everywhere else was incinerated to bedrock.
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
California
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my dad's house is about 5 miles from a paper mill. when the wind blows from the south it smells like a nacho fart. not many people want to smell perpetual nacho fart. not to mention it's way cheaper to produce paper from malaysian rain forests than anywhere in north america.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Clear cuts and logging don't help because of the logging slash-- fires rip through that stuff. I'm not saying we don't need timber for building or whatever but the idea that logging prevents fire is absurd.
Thinning is a ruse-- what it actually does is leaves more slash on the ground and opens up the canopy to allow more sun on the forest floor, thereby drying fuels more quickly. At the same time mature, fire resistant trees are removed to pay for the thinning.
Controlled burns- not viable beyond isolated pockets. I worked on a hotshot crew in a community that suffered major loss of life and property the prior season. The FS tried to do a controlled burn and the locals were up in arms about smoke! Saw the same public reaction again and again. Also, they are not as effective as people might think and burn downed logs and snags necessary in a healthy forest.
If anyone is worried about fire they should provide a 100 foot defensible space around their house and use non-combustible materials for the roof, etc. I'd set up a sprinkler system.
It is naive to think the forests can be "managed" to prevent major fires on any kind of scale- the acreage and inaccessibility alone forecloses that option. In any case, massive "catastrophic" fires occurred long before our current parade of smokey the bear / beetle / suppression horribles and will occur regardless of what we might do.
I think that was my longest supertaco post evah!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Ron, since nature is so variable there is very likely a time period in the past when there was at least a 100 year hiatus in wildfire and the forests naturally developed into a state like the one we find now. And presumably very disruptive fires, insects and disease had their run ending that natural "imbalance" restoring "balance" to the forests.
That's the way things go, we don't have a natural "garden" stable for long periods of time, variability is a fact...
Given that, the main interest in the current imbalance has to do with human intervention and human outcomes... preventing forest fires preserved forest resources for commercial use after WWII when the technologies and the workforce became available to suppress wildfire. Now allowing a natural restoration of the forests is untenable because of the habitation in those forests.
As untenable as letting the fires do their thing is, that is going to happen anyway, and there will be property destroyed. Assuming a very conservative approach where people are required to be evacuated from their homes in the face of wildfire, the position of the firefighting organizations cannot be that firefighter lives can be exchanged for property.
In some sense, these fires can be usefully employed to set the balance back, just as they have done in the past. While devastating to humans, it most assuredly has happened in the past "naturally." Why attempt to change what is natural?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Its misguided eco groups and false info campaigns against anything with the word LOG in it.
Complete bullsh#t. Your opening post likewise paints over what went on earlier with a wash of similar bullsh#t. The real story is that states and logging companies used early 'thinning' programs to log the largest trees on the tracts. It would have been really difficult to come up with a more 'thinnly' veiled campaign of total bullshit - the exact opposite of the fantasy picture you paint.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I absolutely believe that all firefighters who have lost their lives in fires do it because they want to serve to help people.
My question is: should we put them in the situation where they can loose their lives?
It's not at all clear to me what the answer to this question is...
...sorry to bring the cloud known as "The Chief" into this thread. He is stalking me on the STForum, apparently, and will post disruptively in response to my posts.
Perhaps the Forum management might do something about that...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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as for your protest that the forests have never been in this state, it would be interesting to hear why you think that Ron...
...you know that there could never have been a time and a place where such a state occurred naturally?
If so, please state the case for that...
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abrams
Sport climber
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Posting signs in areas that need to be thinned out that say
'Free Fire Wood' 'No Limit' would be a low cost way of reducing fuel load.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Here is a study for anyone that cares:
http://johnmuirproject.org/documents/Hanson%20White%20Paper%2029Jan10%20Final.pdf
The gist is that a lot of assumptions about what we see now and what we think happened historically are incorrect.
Regarding Yarnell / Granite Mt. IHC-- those desert fires either rip or don't burn. There really is no creeping ground fire like you see in timber. Also, the fuel load is more seasonal than anything, meaning: wet winter + warm spring + low relative humidity = busy fire season. There are not 50 year accumulations of seasonal grass.
Even if they just let fires rage though their communities the brush comes back within a few years. South Canyon and its sister accident in the same area in the 70s in the same fuel were both re-burns.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Free wood? Go walk around the Big Bar district on the Klamath NF and get back to us on how well that would work.
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abrams
Sport climber
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Do tell? Big fire possibility there?
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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DMT...see definition of insanity...exercises in futility...etc.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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I'm not getting into the consent decree issues.
All I am saying is that people point to simple causes (suppression / fuel accumulation) and remedies (thinning / logging / controlled fires) that are often not correct or feasible. I also think the problem--if it's even a problem--is far more complex and intractable than some may realize.
Ron I'm sorry you knew someone that died at South Canyon. I was a hotshot when that went down and jumped out of the BLM spike base in Grand Junction a year or so later. One of the guys in GJ was the one that made it to the top of the ridge and survived--the skin had melted off of his hands. Pretty sobering.
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command error
Trad climber
Colorado
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Ah yes The Rube Goldberg method of solving forest fire suppression.
Government think tanks and endless meetings planning the agenda's of future meetings and bureaucracy piled upon bureaucracy.
Reducing costs of suppressing forest fires with a Let 'em Burn policy
except when my home is in danger.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Sport Lions are neither.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Don't argue with a dendrolator.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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so the oldest trees are 1000 to 2000 years old?
and the last ice age ended 14,000 years ago...
seems to be a gap in the tree ring data so cited...
anything longer ago?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Some speculation,
If catastrophically hot fires were the norm there should be geological evidence in the soil layers.
If frequent laid down fires were the norm there may not be any surviving record.
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Aug 28, 2013 - 10:49am PT
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:03am PT
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Breath tiger
I was referring to this:
But the remaining stands out there are fueled just like the rim fire area, with up to 150 yrs worth of growth dead fuels and overstocked acres. THOSE are the ones we either use and treat or loose and weep.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:18am PT
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I'm afraid Ron may be largely right about many forests being gone for a very
long time. The beautiful Chiricahuas burned in about '92 and when we were
there last spring there was zero evidence of anything coming back except
for weeds and scrub brush. I was greatly saddened.
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squishy
Mountain climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:29am PT
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The natives use to burn this land for nearly 20,000 years. We have a responsibility to burn it.
LET IT ALL BURN!!!
In fact, go light it!!
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squishy
Mountain climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:31am PT
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Then i will show you entire mtn ranges that lost FOREVER their timber. Changed the soil and area climates along with it. 120 yrs later no trees.
If you think 120 years is a long time you are extremely naive...and I doubt anything is forever, maybe forever in light of your short life. Maybe more responsible forest managers will come along in future generations and relearn what the natives knew thousands of years ago. By using terms like "invasive weeds" I can see that you do not view the changing natural word as natural. Hell even our influence on this land is "natural", and healthy is completely subjective. Who are we to say that changes are not suppose to take place?
Your ego is simply astounding by the way, have you thought of starting a cult or a country yet?
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:40am PT
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I think about this topic every time I climb at Phantom Spires
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squishy
Mountain climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 01:18pm PT
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I think about this topic every time I climb at Phantom Spires
Just think of the climbing possibilities being "uncovered" right now near Yosemite..
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atchafalaya
Boulder climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 02:14pm PT
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What "fuel reduction program" (logging/thinning) occurred in CA prior to the early 1900's?
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Aug 28, 2013 - 04:01pm PT
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I'm trying to catch up here. Fires do ravage soils, rendering them useless. Think about the balds in the southern Appalachian mountains.
What exactly are we arguing about?
Ron wants smaller government but increased preventative measures by the USFS?
NIMBYs don't want prescribed burns, but get pissed when their homes burn?
Defensible space?
Wolves are going to invade the spaces that wildfires create?
I'm so confused.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Aug 28, 2013 - 08:56pm PT
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Brandon's questions are pretty good ones, Ron. I think he was being genuine.
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giegs
climber
Tardistan
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Aug 28, 2013 - 09:43pm PT
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I don't think anyone has mentioned it, but what can be done about the fuel load management in wilderness areas? I've done a bit of thinning work removing hazard trees within falling distance of allotment fencing near Blue, AZ. With a crosscut. No chainsaws, can't have those pesky motors in the woods! Cutting that swath took months and who knows how many man hours, even with us ignoring areas that were too difficult to safely work in. Imagine applying that same approach to fuel-choked wilderness areas for thinning purposes. Never gonna happen.
Even doing selective low-impact thinning with chainsaws and volunteer labor to move logs for extraction and create burn piles is horribly inefficient and really only appropriate for small areas, generally privately owned and funded in part by grants, etc.
Commercial logging isn't all bad. Sometimes, probably often, it's going to be the best tool we have if cuts are closely monitored and discretion is used. I don't know many of the details of the work done off Lake Mary Road outside Flagstaff, but I know it was done quickly, seems to be recovering well, and looks great.
We've got dense fuel loads, beetle kill, dying tamarix stands (a good thing, sort of), access issues, local and national politics, commercial interests, NIMBYs, and who knows what else in play here. I'd love to see a management plan that even attempts to come up with a "solution" that can actually be implemented and keeps interested parties somewhat satisfied with the outcome.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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Aug 29, 2013 - 01:38am PT
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What "fuel reduction program" (logging/thinning) occurred in CA prior to the early 1900's?
Well, the Washoe used to burn the meadows they had occupied every fall as they left the Lake Tahoe Basin... and just let it burn into the hills. It kept the conifers from encroaching into the meadows (currently a pretty big deal), stimulated the growth of medicinal and culinary plants, and probably looked cool as shit!
Fire ecology is a complicated issue. Many ecosystems have evolved over tens of thousands of years with fire as a key component in the system. Some seeds won't germinate unless they have been burned. The common lodgepole pine is a fire dependent species that "lives to die by fire." Google "fire ecology."
Problems arise when fire is excluded, fuels build up, and sh#t burns much hotter than the organisms have adapted to handle. Seed obliteration, loss of organic matter, soil sterilization, soil hydrophobicity, etc... can all result in irreversible conditions outside the natural range of variability and completely alter the ecosystem.
Natural ecosystems are a mosaic of "subecosystems" scattered across the landscape. The effects of fire are determined by the spatial extent and the burn severity. Saying "fire is good" or "fire is bad" or "fighting fire is good" or "fighting fire is bad" is stoopid.
"Super fires" are just another result of humans fuking with a key ecosystem component... like the loss of top soil in the dust bowl, like anthropogenic climate change, like removing key predators, etc. Just another mess we leave for future generations.
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squishy
Mountain climber
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Aug 29, 2013 - 11:59am PT
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And Squishy.. GFYS What you know about Forestry could be balanced on the point of a dressmakers pin.
Now go away little phat boy. Brandon that goes DOUBLE for you.
While I agree my knowledge of forestry is mostly historical and limited compared to those in the industry, you may be surprised to know I was once very interested in it and I completed the ROP Forestry program in Livermore when I was in school (complete with pot smoke filled bus trips to the Valley). All I truly learned was that it was a field I did not want to enter.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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Aug 29, 2013 - 12:14pm PT
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Logged areas will burn like a mofo just like everywhere else, maybe worse in the slash or re-prod. Log if you must, but I call b.s. on the idea it deters fires. I ain't no scientist but I've fought fires in logged areas in every western state that has logging.
I know that small scale stuff can be done that may improve a stand, but that's not really going to solve the big problem (nor is anything else).
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Aug 29, 2013 - 02:18pm PT
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VERY LITTLE help from our govt.
hahahaaa... the FS isn't the govt? Money to fight those fires wasn't collected from tax payers and funneled through the FS?
There is a huge difference between traditional logging and fuels reduction. HUGE.
You people are ridiculous... just like the Tea Baggers who are ruining this country. Bitch and moan about the problem, yet offer NOTHING in the way of solutions. We have a situation; we need to deal with it.
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