US wildfires have killed nearly 20% of world’s giant sequoias in two years | Hacker News Reader

US wildfires have killed nearly 20% of world’s giant sequoias in two years

theguardian.com

40 pointsperfunctory12 comments

California, unfortunately, needs a lot more wildfires, as the state refuses to do controlled burns, doesn't allow clear-cutting, and it's hard to pass EIR processes. But 20 million acres of forests need to be removed from the state[1], and there aren't a lot of options for how to do it.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-...

You've misunderstood, from your own article:

“California’s forests naturally adapted to low-intensity fire, nature’s preferred management tool, but Gold Rush-era clearcutting followed by a wholesale policy of fire suppression resulted in the overly dense, ailing forests that dominate the landscape today.”

It doesn't say 20 million acres need to be removed, it says that's the area that needs burned. Low intensity fire clears fuels without killing mature trees, this is especially true for long lived redwood species that expect fire to clear out smaller vegetation below them. It's not about removal or clear cutting.

> It's not about removal or clear cutting.

It kinda is, given that controlled burns are taken off the table. Yes, controlled burns would be preferable, but if they are ruled out (which, in practice, they are), then we need to significantly reduce the forest size.

https://www.propublica.org/article/despite-what-the-logging-...

Controlled burns and other forestry practices need to be back on the table, clear cutting absolutely does not. I live in wildfire country, the scariest, fastest moving fires are in areas without trees, the logging industry would love to confuse/conflate forest and wildfires obviously.

So I'm not advocating for clear-cutting, I'm saying that as an emergency measure, I'd rather do it than nothing, at least to get rid of all the dead trees, which really need to go ASAP. But clear-cutting is obviously bad for erosion, ecosystem health, etc. It's not a good thing.

But don't worry, neither clear-cutting nor controlled burns will happen at anywhere near the scale that needs to happen to get the state out from serious fire danger.

Instead, California will be doomed to a future of massive fires and rolling blackouts as a result of 100 years of forest mismanagement. This will result in significant loss of life and property, as well as chronic power outages. And as the red sky hellscape descends, they will all blame global warming and shake their fists at oil companies and China. I'm not optimistic about the state's decision making.

“In 2013, the park had done climate modeling that predicted extreme fires wouldn’t jeopardize sequoias for another 50 years, said Christy Brigham, chief of resource management and science at the two parks. But that was at the start of what became a punishing five-year drought that essentially broke the model.”

More bs. Droughts have always been common and the period they are talking about shouldn’t have broken any models created by halfway competent scientists.

Better land and brush management could have easily prevented this

Not likely, cutting global greenhouse gas emissions back when it would have made a difference might have.

There is no empirical evidence that wildfire frequency or intensity has deviated from historical norms, particularly when controlling for confounding variables like overgrowth and patterns of land management over time, due to greenhouse gases.

On the contrary, it's directly correlated with reverting good land and brush management practices.

Poor governance is more accurately the reason

Poor governance might be making the matter worse, but climate change is ultimately driving the problem.

This sounds like a good thing, from natures standpoint.

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