Hacker News Reader

Is it really? We got into this mess because we'd initially assumed that wildfires were "bad" and that we needed to stop ALL of them. However, we later found out just how beneficial small fires can be for the long-term health of a forest. If we can actually allocate funds and people towards this, it won't be an issue anymore.

View on HN

I see it as a concern because (1) a large portion of wild lands are burning within a short span of time. I would guess (no evidence, just a hunch) that burning was more dispersed in time before modern fire prevention. I also feel that (2) climate change makes these fires much worse, and forests will have a much harder time rebounding.

Don't hold me to it, but I seem to remember seeing a study showing that prehistoric California had roughly 10x the current burn acreage.

Probably, but megafires sterilize the soil. Low intensity fires recover much more quickly. Ideally we'd be able to gradually reduce the burn backlog without letting it all go in a few really, really big years.

Yes, there’s an assumption by lots of folks that things will ‘recover’ and return to a similar state as the past, but that’s not what usually happens with megafires, especially with a warmer, drier climate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com