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Comment by Johnny555 | Hacker News Reader

We need to apply Phos-Chek from ground based units

Phos Chek is not great for the environment, especially to aquatic life. So ideally there'd be some solution that doesn't use more of it.

agricultural level irrigation at the ready

The fires are exacerbated by California's long term drought, if there's large quanties of water laying around, then they probably wouldn't have such a bad fire season.

Inhabited locations in fire prone areas

I think there should be a re-evaluation of whether or not to let people build or rebuild in especially fire-prone areas.

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> I think there should be a re-evaluation of whether or not to let people build or rebuild in especially fire-prone areas.

This is already happening, not by government, but rather by the insurance markets. My friend has lived in a fire-prone area of Southern California for years. His home owners insurances rates have more than tripled in the last few years. He just recently moved (yep, Idaho).

Does the government subsidize fire insurance? I'm always taken aback when I see people rebuilding from a hurricane with subsidized wind and flood insurance. I understand why its nice for those that need it but has perverse incentives.

It does, although indirectly, through municipal fire departments. It's not "insurance" in the strict sense of the word, but it is an abatement mechanism designed to help minimize losses that would otherwise be borne by private insurers.

In California, if you can't get fire insurance through the private market, you generally have access to the FAIR Plan (https://www.cfpnet.com/about-fair-plan/). As the about page points out, it's not taxpayer funded - instead, companies writing home insurance in the state are required to contribute towards a share of risk in the plan.

>I think there should be a re-evaluation of whether or not to let people build or rebuild in especially fire-prone areas.

I expect large swaths of the Sierras will soon be uninsurable for all practical purposes. Anybody with a mountain home with a mortgage will be SOL.

Why not make it clear that people building structures in fire-prone areas are on their own, and should design appropriately?

Entire towns are burning down. This isn’t just people out playing settler in the forest. South Lake Tahoe (currently under an evacuation order) has hotel towers.

Yeah, suburbs of Santa Rosa burned down in the Tubbs Fire of 2017. It burned down suburban neighbourhoods. This isn't people out in the middle of nowhere.

I'm not sure there's an appropriate design for something to survive a major forest fire.

That’s right. Most people have not ever seen large-scale fires and don’t know how powerful they are. As a fire grows larger, it grows in intensity and spreads faster.

A campfire needs tending or it goes out. A bonfire will just burn until it runs out of fuel. A house fire will quickly turn into an inferno. Forest fires are hopefully like nothing you’ve ever seen—the sheer power of them is staggering.

A very recent (Oregon) fire was so bad it was creating its own weather system.

"Normally the weather predicts what the fire will do. In this case, the fire is predicting what the weather will do."

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/20/an-oregon-wildfire-is-so-in...

I’ve been in small wildfires before. But yesterday I saw the Caldor fire from a plane… And the shear size of it was shocking. Photos and news clips don’t do the scale justice.

Although that said, this article goes into how they defended the Sierra-at-Tahoe resort buildings: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Sierra-at-Tahoe-...

Spoiler: it turns out that if you have a multi-million dollar insurance policy, the insurance company sends over guys to spray everything with fire retardant gel.

Plus, not everyone has a bunch of snowmaking machines laying around that they can use to blow water on their structures.

1. Phos Chek is probably better than the long term effects from a wildfire. I would recommend looking more into consiquentalists ethics. 2. The mountains have excesses of water in the spring which could easily be sequestered for wildfire season. 3. I own land and live in a wildfire prone area. I will not be moving out to live in a human shit ridden city. I am prefer nature over close human habitation.

So you're more of a "Let's sacrifice the fish before I'll sacrifice my lifestyle" person?

Yes, I would sacrifice the Sacramento River Smelt for more water for agriculture and humans. Again, I'm more of a consequentialist. I'm for forest management, which means cutting down some trees. Many modern environmentalist deontologists will call me a racist for suggesting we need to cut down some trees for the greater good.

Your last sentence appears incoherent. Got links?

Are you willing to move out of fire country for the greater good?

Is there an argument to be made for just letting the fires burn? Don't the fires have a positive effect on the soil?

They do. Many species of conifer seed don't even begin to germinate until exposed to the heat of a wildfire. Fire's are a part of the natural lifecycle of a west coast forest. Unfortunately the over suppression of fires over the last 120 years has over fueled these forests and we are witnessing the consequences now.

In some areas too much fuel has accumulated, causing fires to burn so hot that they kill the trees and destroy the seeds. After that it can take many years for the forest to recover.

https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/your-national-fo...

Yes, fire is an essential part of these ecosystems.

Anyone else enjoy the dissonance in this comment between the consequentialism reference and refusal to relocate?

Your nature may be (re)turning into a desert, unfortunately.

Wildfires have many transformative and beneficial effects for an ecosystem when they happen naturally and haven’t been made unnaturally large by 100 years of eager suppression.

Wildfires burn up all the dead brush and make way for new growth, along with fertilizing the soil.

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