It's sort of the trolley problem. Prescribed fire might get out of control sometimes and kill a few people and damage property, but overall it should save way more.
According to one article [1] there were 6 deaths from prescribed burns between 1963 and 2013 (and 201 deaths from undesired wildfires). While looking this up,I was also surprised to learn that the #1 cause of death when fighting wildfires is vehicle accidents, and the majority of those are plane crashes
1.) Everyone in California got rid of their gas vehicle in July and drove an electric vehicle. Fires still burned in August-October.
2.) No change, gas drivers kept their vehicles and no fires happened.
The emissions in California would have been the _same_.
If it were Oregon option 1.) would have been _worse_ than option 2.)
That’s how much co2 is being emitted from these fires. Of course we want to do calculated controlled burns to not let them explode uncontrollably.
https://qz.com/1903191/western-wildfires-are-producing-a-rec...
My question was: are they enough to stop the huge emissions from forest fires, or are we as a species already over that point, and even with the best available methods air quality will get worse every year?
I'm asking because I have vasomotor rhinitis and I'm extremely scared that I won't have any place on earth to hide from air pollution.
Let'ssstarts with pollution, smoke and particals. There will always be emissions from fires. Smaller fires spread the emissions out over several years, while this large fire is many years at once. However smaller fires don't burn as much of their emissions, so the total over a large number of years is greater. However the earth is better able to absorb them when spread out over time. If you live next to the fire it is better to evacuate every 20 years than live next to the smaller fire every year (Small means you don't need to evacuate) for the rest of the world though the small fire means the pollution doesn't reach you and so smaller is better.
If you are worried about CO2, then smaller fire leave a bit more unburned charcoal (sequestered carbon) behind every year and contribute to a long term global cooling. (it will take thousands of years to make up for one year of the rest of what we do, so don't get excited).