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Comment by pfarnsworth | Hacker News Reader

It's a terrible tragedy, but forests recover very quickly after forest fires. Although we as humans hate seeing such beautiful places get destroyed, it's a perfectly natural part of history and without these types of fires, we don't get a proper cycle of nature.

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https://imgur.com/exSaGup

I took this photo not long ago (in Oregon, not California). The burn scars in the background were burned in 2002 and 2003 (https://imgur.com/wBQhXn3). The tree canopies that were there, that now remain only as burnt, denuded toothpicks in the landscape, have been replaced by chapparal, which will burn again just as hotly. In the intervening almost 20 years, there's nothing growing more than a few feet above the ground and there's still a lot of barren earth.

Many species do benefit from wildfires of a particular intensity. The megafires that we are seeing today are so hot, so big, and so intense, that no species are benefiting from them. These fires are simply destructive. There is no magical renewal afterward. For these burn areas -- and there are more and more appearing around the western states now -- life creeps back in, slowly, from the edges, and when you're talking about 50,000 acres of destruction, that takes a very long time.

I don't want to be frustrated at you specifically, but comments like this one keep getting repeated by people that heard it somewhere once. Our forest management practices must change immediately, and the common belief that all wildfire is totally natural and totally good for the ecology is preventing the critical mass of public support required to make that change happen.

I'm not sure how long you think it takes to repopulate a forest, but 20 years isn't a very long time. As a human, with a lifespan of 80 years, it might seem long but to nature it's just a drop in a bucket. I'm pretty confident that the forest will regrow, just not in a time frame convenient for you. And from your picture you can clearly see that the forest is regrowing.

> I'm not sure how long you think it takes to repopulate a forest, but 20 years isn't a very long time.

I really dislike this sneering tone that's so common on HN. Just come out and say "I think you're a moron". I have some notion of geological time scales, thank you.

Doug fir grows at approximately two feet per year. Do you see a lot of 40 foot tall trees in those burn scars? It's the tree that most commonly repopulates a burned area in this region of Oregon. This article has further reading on fire ecology in Douglas Fir forests: https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/management/firemanagement_fir...

Note that the article makes several distinctions between varying fire severities.

As it turns out, you were wrong, and all the ancient redwoods survived. I suggest being a bit more introspective and open to the idea that you could be wrong.

I think you're probably just a troll, you sure sound like one. But just in case you're not, and on the tiniest, merest chance that there's any point at all to this: (a) I made no statement about all the redwoods, only "a number of the larger trees", a statement for which I provided ample photographic evidence and by which I still stand; (b) the only reports so far are from an AP photographer, who is not an arborist; (c) it will be difficult to assess the full extent of the damage until at least next Spring, so I'll be waiting until then before being convinced of anything either way; (d) you do not have the grace and skill to make suggestions that anybody would follow.

Bye now.

This is simply not true anymore. Modern fires are far hotter thanks to the accumulation of decades of brush as we've refused to do prescribed burns. Modern fires destroy forests. There's nothing natural about them.

No, this is simply not true. There's nothing special about these "modern" fires. Some people like to think that it's different because we're around to see things, but we're not. 1000 year old trees are nothing compared to geological age. Most importantly, you have no idea how hot "ancient" fires burned so how could you possibly compare them to today?

If you're expecting that within a couple of years there's no new growth in Big Basin, and that it will remain some sort of dead desert, then you're sorely mistaken.

Define “very quickly” for trees that grow for 1000 years.

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