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Comment by hodgesrm | Hacker News Reader

The problem with controlled burns is they don’t always stay controlled. [0] In California at least you would need to get buy-in from people living in the area to break through the gridlock. The concerns of people in say Susanville or Lake Berryessa are not unreasonable. Or you have to move people away from those locations. I have not seen a proposal that explains how to do this that is politically feasible.

[0] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-12/anger-bu...

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.. like this ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Grande_Fire

Precisely. I was submitting from my iPad which is like typing with mittens. There are other examples. [0]

I really want this problem solved, because it's preventing us from managing forests in a way that's provably more sustainable than the current regime of putting everything out until there's a fire that destroys the entire forest ecosystem. It would be ironic if high insurance prices turned out to be the lever that restores a semblance of ecological balance. [1] Maybe there's a deal to implement sane forest management in exchange for reasonable insurance rates.

[0] https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/...

[1] https://apnews.com/article/paradise-camp-fire-california-hom...

Would that be truly ironic, or logical? People make decisions on the margin, rising insurance rates seem a fairly humane way to incentivize people moving out of dry rural wooded locations.

Folks that really don’t want to move can pay the elevated public backstop options or if their house is paid off, run the risk of total loss. The longer people wait to leave the worse off they will come out because their property values will go to zero. I’d be in favor of public funding to help people relocate.

If we get through it all, recreation and tourism can bounce back with lightweight infrastructure that doesn’t need to be defended, and some better engineered permanent infrastructure.

Am I way off base?

and there is more - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calf_Canyon/Hermits_Peak_Fire

To avoid liability the USFS lets fires in the summer burn since they won't be responsible for it if it gets out of hand. Watch out for statements like "we can't find it" (said after a fire tower had sighted it directly) or "the terrain is too steep" (when retirement-age locals had walked right up to it). They'll only start fighting it if it starts to move near communities. Just a couple of years ago near me the fire they let burn suddenly blew up in a wind event and killed 5 people. Last year I nearly had the town I live near get burnt up because of the same tactic, had there been a sudden wind event (common here in Fall) I probably would have lost my house.

The state doesn't like these tactics from what I've heard, but they really dont have much say since it's Federal land.

Something else I found out by living in fire country is that the USFS will say anything to make themselves look better. I mean complete lies. They'll greatly exaggerate the number of helis working on a fire, when they're working and how many loads they'll drop. The fire containment line they just set up was actually a contentious logging job they'd been trying to get through the past year, which cut resilient old growth and was never used as a containment line. The firefighters will rob your house too and USFS will help keep it quiet.

/rant

In my limited experience dealing with the USFS on backcountry trips the org is choked with bureaucracy and completely ineffective at basic management. I remember one trip to Mt Adams where we had to register at least 3 different ways for a climb, including one that required internet access from the backcountry ranger station with virtually no connectivity. You couldn't just go up to the ranger sitting at the window doing nothing and handle the registration directly.

> had there been a sudden wind event (common here in Fall) I probably would have lost my house.

You should have. You're the reason for the problem. Stop building houses out of flammable materials in forests that need to regularly burn!

Depending on your state, there may not be many houses not vulnerable to forest fires. The 2020 fires in Oregon cery well could have burned their 2nd largest city.

Also consider that many of these forests are only here now because of modern forestry practices.

>Something else I found out by living in fire country is that the USFS will say anything to make themselves look better. I mean complete lies.

Unfortunately that seems to be the standard for government agencies in the US these days. The machine protects itself.

try the book "Scorched Worth" by Joel Engel. pointers to more documented cases welcome

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