Let Forest Fires Burn

In earlier times, farm fields actually were separated by bushes, patches of rocks, tiny rivers, whatever. Humans have flattened all of this, in order to make really huge strips of farmland that can be worked on really, really efficiently by machines. Not only has this practice destroyed the living space of small animals like rabbits or birds, but it also contributes massively to this problem as there's nothing left to stop or slow down winds :(

The line between extinguishment and containment blurs as human settlement expands.

Also, shouldn't humans just stop settling near forests altogether? Easy way to incentivize this - stop extinguishing the fires - they're supposed to burn anyway.

Yeah, sure, there's problems. But mother nature cares not. The fuel load will continue to build until it burns, unless we remove it ourselves. That's the shortsightednes of "let fires burn but...", IMO. One day it will burn, whether you like it or not, unless you're willing to pay from now until kingdom come for manual fuel reduction. The only question is will it burn on our terms or hers?

In our area, there were a number of properties that were lost, because the owners did not follow the rules about fuel control around their property, allowing boughs onto their roof and not clearing back from the buildings. I pin a lot of the policy problems on those sorts of folks. They haven't realized we have to live with fire, like the pines around us. Stopping it is a losing game.

As the Lolo Peak Fire burns 6 miles from my house it is frustrating to me that the DNRC's hands are tied by regulation that prevents them thinning and keep our forests healthy. It is both a revenue stream for our school system and an important role in keeping the woods healthy. Unfortunately both wildlife and habitat conservation has some aspects that are counter-intuitive to most folks when they ask why taking an animal or taking a tree actually helps in the long run. This isn't meant to be a pro/anti regulation stance but a call for balance.

There is also the most important factor in fighting these fires and currently that number is 2, as in we've lost 2 firefighters during this season's wild fires.

Aspen and lodgepole pine

Here is an example of this ongoing process/advise in Australia: https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/hazard-reduction...

It's really amazing to witness being performed. These places don't seem to ever have wild damaging fires like other parts of Australia, due to a lack of fuel build up, and the environment in these places always look "immaculate", almost like a freshly cleaned apartment. The smell of these slow burning fires through winter is really nice.

I've spent a lot of time on the East Coast of Australia too, where the "bush" is managed the European way, and there is a lot of problems with wild fires, invasive species (introduced) and a less healthy looking landscape.

The hazard reduction burning in Australia seems to be more about establishing parameters to protect property more than anything else?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming

  So, the "just let it burn" strategy when fires start might
  lead to a lot more property damage than a strategy of
  proactive burning.

  Also, from a carbon footprint point of view, it seems
  advantageous to mix burning and logging, so that not all the
  carbon returns straight into the atmosphere.

I think any practical land management plan that has a shot at restoring forest health requires letting many more natural fires burn, and to burn more widely. The dilemma is that things are so bad that these fires are much more dangerous than they'd normally be. But I don't see how you ever get over that hump unless you can send out an armada of autonomous, self-replicating robots to cut down the underbrush. Perhaps we'll just have to wait for that solution.

"Before the late 1960s, fires were generally believed to be detrimental for parks and forests, and management policies were aimed at suppressing fires as quickly as possible. However, as the beneficial ecological role of fire became better understood in the decades before 1988, a policy was adopted of allowing natural fires to burn under controlled conditions, which proved highly successful in reducing the area lost annually to wildfires."

"In contrast, in 1988, Yellowstone was overdue for a large fire, and, in the exceptionally dry summer, the many smaller "controlled" fires combined. The fires burned discontinuously, leaping from one patch to another, leaving intervening areas untouched. Intense fires swept through some regions, burning everything in their paths. Tens of millions of trees and countless plants were killed by the wildfires, and some regions were left looking blackened and dead. However, more than half of the affected areas were burned by ground fires, which did less damage to hardier tree species. Not long after the fires ended, plant and tree species quickly reestablished themselves, and natural plant regeneration has been highly successful."

I visited Yellowstone a decade ago, and remember seeing the great wide swathes of equally-sized small trees growing in the aftermath of the burnt-out areas. I met a few older people who had seen the park before the fire and were sad at its present state (some even said it was "ruined", though this has to be hyperbolic, as Yellowstone is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen), but to me it was a beautiful thing to get to witness the cycle of rebirth on such a grand scale.

The solution for this would be creating "clearance" area around said homes (or surrounding a town). 200m forest-free zone, additionally supported by a sprinkler system fed e.g. from a swimming pool or a huge buried water tank (fed by rainwater).

In addition, separate forest areas by cleared lines so that a fire cannot grow so huge that it cannot be contained in real emergency cases, and also that wildlife, trapped wanderers etc. can flee to safety.

The only thing this does not account for is cellphone / other RF antenna towers and power transmission lines.

It's entirely possible to do proactive controlled burns and fuel reduction near towns, and let the fires burn when they aren't threatening a town. Letting fires burn and controlling, directing, and managing the fire are not mutually exclusive.

For example, https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2016/0504/Did-fi... points out: "In order to prevent fire like this week’s, Alberta has engaged in a robust fire suppression program, says MacDonald. But because the province has suppressed natural fires that burn off underbrush ever 50 or more years, forests are full of fresh tinder.

“Alberta has engaged in a robust fire suppression program that changed the age structure of the forest,” MacDonald told the Monitor. “Typically, forests in that part of Alberta would burn every 50 to 200 years. But with strong fire suppression, there has been a tremendous buildup of fuel.”"

As a politician, would you rather say "we'll have a forest fire in the area every 10 years" or "we'll make sure there are no fires" .. and conveniently or optimistically omit the "until after I'm long gone, but then we'll have a real doozy of a blaze which will be worse than all of the little fires put together".

In addition, as that Wikipedia article points out, fire fighters came in from other provinces, the national government, and even South Africa. Do you think the local people paid for all of that? Effectively this fire fighting acts as an insurance subsidy.

It's possible to build houses to withstand wildfires, as people have done in Australia and southern California. These designs work best when fires are more frequent, because those fires are less intense, with less fuel to burn. However, these designs are also more expensive.

If people are convinced that the fires will be suppressed, they are not going to spend the money, and the building codes won't change to require better wildfire resistance. Nor is it easy for individuals to switch to safer building designs because when the fires do come they will be much more intense than it should have been without decades of fire suppression.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/pine-beetles/rosne...

> we often still let people build their houses in flood planes

The best farmland is on flood plains; good luck with holding them back.

Let's be honest for a moment: there's no place in America which is safe from every regularly occurring natural disaster. Yet we still live here.

Instead of spending money and time on controlled burns, we now spend money and time on fighting uncontrollable firestorms.

As you crank up the tightness of "exact", you'll always get more and more disagreement.

Is there any large science-based policy decision where there is 100% agreement among scientists, or where there hasn't been considerable disagreement between some of them?