Hat Creek Fire

[Bob Loblaw]

A fire broke out last night close to Hat Creek Park on 299. it burned over Clearwater Lodge and Pit Powerhouse #1 and is heading towards Fall River Mills. Cal Fire saved Clearwater and everyone got out safe.

https://www.redding.com/story/news/local/2018/08/09/roads-closing-fire-near-fall-river-mills-spreads-critical-rate/952298002/

[cdevine]

God bless our firefighters. I've been in Norcal my entire life and I've never seen a fire season like this. Its just frightening.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I hate to say this but how many are started by someone?

[Jake O]

Per an article I read today 84% bill.

This is a bad year for sure with 800k acres burnt so far and the largest in history burning now but in. 2008 we had 1.2 million torched as of right now

I keep hearing “climate change” is the cause due to “longer fire seasons” but 84% is 84% and two of the biggest fire years in history (2008 and this year) both amassed the bulk of fires all as of the first week in august (shout out to uncle jerry)

[Bob Loblaw]

There are 129 million dead trees in California right now, killed by drought and bark beetles that used to die in the winter but don’t anymore because it’s so much warmer. Even if people are starting fires, the fact they they are getting so big so fast is 100% due to climate change.

[Ralph]

There are 129 million dead trees in California right now, killed by drought and bark beetles that used to die in the winter but don’t anymore because it’s so much warmer. Even if people are starting fires, the fact they they are getting so big so fast is 100% due to climate change.

Agreed. The human-caused ignition component has been >80% for at least the past 50 years. The fires we started in the 70's did not burn like the fires we've experienced over the past 15 years.

[OceanSunfish]

Off topic, but are the dead trees, specifically those affected by disease/beetles, have any usefulness?, i.g., lumber, etc.

I already understand the challenges regarding removing such trees......

[gitt]

Harvesting that many trees appears to be such an undertaking. Harvesters cannot obtain bank loans for expansion purposes for equipment and wages because they are not able to use the harvestable lands, which they do not own in the first place, as collateral to satisfy bank requirements to guarantee loans. Without a recoverable asset, other than timber, harvesters seem to be at a disadvantage. I read about this dilemma sometime last year and will try to find a link to that specific article and post it later. Under the current harvest rate, it would take well over 125 years to remove the existing dead trees in California alone. The harvestable timber above Groveland took quite a bit of time after the last fire, which burned around Hetch Hetchy until the forest did not sustain sufficient undergrowth to support the fire's eastern movement. The National Park Service just let it burn once the fire crossed over into the park boundaries.

[winxp_man]

The proper way to look at this fire situations is by looking at numbers.....
How many fires total?

How many started by people?

How many are started by natural reasons?

How many acres?

What is the population of people?

What’s the reason for burning bigger? Terrain or hard to access water sources and so on?


So here are a few ideas of mine to think upon.

A rough idea is as follows.

Mid 1900’s puts us at 1950’s population wasn’t a faction of what is it today. So people might not have gone to far out in the boonies to start fires. Also resources where probably more available to contain a smaller population. Because of this.

Fast forward to 2018, many more people, and many more that are not real bright going around starting fires. So if there are tens more fires vs the 1950’s wouldn’t that require a greater amount of resources????

Then again I might be looking at it differently.

[yubaman]

I was a 5 year CDF firefighter back in the '80's. In the 60's and 70's, there were far more wildland fires than today. If I remember the number today, it is slightly more than half the number of fires back in that time. The big difference I see today, is the fuel load. In areas where we had light, flashy fuels, such as grass, today, the same area is loaded up with Scotch broom, scrub oak, manzanita, etc. that is producing much hotter burning, more dangerous fire. And of course, today, there are far more homes thrown into the topography. This is all combining to create these dangerous situations.

Back in my time, when we had a fire start in these areas, you had lighter fuel load and very little population. You could make a direct attack on the fire. Today, often times the game begins with life protection first, getting the people out of harm's way, and protecting structures due to the population increase in rural areas. The direct attack in some instances cannot begin until day 2. By this time, the fire is building up to major fire status and already into the thousands of acres.

[Darian]

It seems to me that the term "human caused" isn't really descriptive enough to understand the circumstances surrounding the starting of fires. Too general. Probably the information is known professionals already but not available to the general public for whatever reason. What's the breakdown??

How many fires are accidentally sparked by someone using a lawn mower or other motorized equipment, utility lines sparking a fire or illegal campfires?? There're preventive measures that can be taken for some instances but how do we prevent naturally caused fires or an arsonist from deliberately setting fires?? Investigation/detection/conviction determines the cause and, hopefully, identifies the culprit but doesn't stop the damage. Since a single arsonist can set many fires before being identified and arrested, is there anything that can be done to prevent this or is arson in the same category as naturally caused fire??

[OceanSunfish]

I was a 5 year CDF firefighter back in the '80's. In the 60's and 70's, there were far more wildland fires than today. If I remember the number today, it is slightly more than half the number of fires back in that time. The big difference I see today, is the fuel load. In areas where we had light, flashy fuels, such as grass, today, the same area is loaded up with Scotch broom, scrub oak, manzanita, etc. that is producing much hotter burning, more dangerous fire. And of course, today, there are far more homes thrown into the topography. This is all combining to create these dangerous situations.

Back in my time, when we had a fire start in these areas, you had lighter fuel load and very little population. You could make a direct attack on the fire. Today, often times the game begins with life protection first, getting the people out of harm's way, and protecting structures due to the population increase in rural areas. The direct attack in some instances cannot begin until day 2. By this time, the fire is building up to major fire status and already into the thousands of acres.

Very interesting insight.

[John Sv]

Back in my time, when we had a fire start in these areas, you had lighter fuel load and very little population. You could make a direct attack on the fire. Today, often times the game begins with life protection first, getting the people out of harm's way, and protecting structures due to the population increase in rural areas. The direct attack in some instances cannot begin until day 2. By this time, the fire is building up to major fire status and already into the thousands of acres.

This

[Ralph]

The average California temperature is 2 degrees warmer today than in the 70's. Fire season now starts earlier and lasts longer than at any time since we started keeping records in the 1870's. Daily spikes in temperature mean little when talking about trends lasting weeks and months and entire seasons. Fuels cure faster, ignition is quicker, spread is faster, and the growth of fire dependent vegetation is encouraged by our warming climate. Many of our so called wild land fires are exacerbated by burning houses which have many fold the BTUs of any stand of brush or forest.

[BumpBailey]

I saw something recently up in Oregon and for the life of me I can't understand why we are not doing the same thing here in California. While heading east past the North Umpqua on Hwy 138 we noticed the huge piles of dead forest being piled up, mile after mile. Ridding the forest floor of a lot of that fuel. I know that there is a lot of forest out there but, if we were doing the same thing, at least in the high probability areas, along highways etc. maybe, we can prevent a few of these fires from growing at such a fast rate and we might have a better chance of controlling some of them. Seems like a good job for The CCC or for some prison work programs...

[John Sv]

This is done in CA. Lot's to do though.

[Bob Loblaw]

There are about 80 million acres of forest and open range land in California that are at risk of wildfire. We can never hope to clear even a fraction of that but we do have to be strategic and we need better forestry management to reduce fuel load and tree density. There are 129 million dead trees in the state, we can begin by getting those out.

But in CA, if you try to remove a tree that is a risk, someone will sue you. PG&E remove hundreds of thousands of trees every year that are a threat to transmission lines. Almost every time they pull a permit to remove a dangerous tree, someone objects....even communities that have had catastrophic fires like Oakland, routinely object to tree trimming and removal. People want to live in semi rural rustic areas, surrounded by mature trees, they also want electricity delivered to their home, and they want someone else to assume the liability if a fire starts and pay for a new house.

[cdccopp]

Bump Bailey, there is a program which has been in effect for over10 years called Fire Safe. It is a local community program that the community creates a council that recommends projects in their local area. This is funded primarily by a Cal Fire program. Most all of the projects that I have seen were targeted around communities. Examples up here in Eastern Shasta County projects were completed around the Western side of Cassel, both sides of the Day Road east of Mc Arthur and also on the west and south sides of Burney. Most of these projects were completed by the Intermountain Conservation Camp in Bieber. The inmates did a wonderful job on cleaning up the project areas. Some other projects were completed on Timber company lands using private contractors. The CCC camp in Magalia also has been doing projects in Butte county along with inmates from the Salt Creek conservation camp that's west of Corning. These projects are completed in the off season away from fire season.

[EricO]

The average California temperature is 2 degrees warmer today than in the 70's. Fire season now starts earlier and lasts longer than at any time since we started keeping records in the 1870's. Daily spikes in temperature mean little when talking about trends lasting weeks and months and entire seasons. Fuels cure faster, ignition is quicker, spread is faster, and the growth of fire dependent vegetation is encouraged by our warming climate. Many of our so called wild land fires are exacerbated by burning houses which have many fold the BTUs of any stand of brush or forest.

And humans have been around 1000s of years (depending on who you talk to). 150 years isn't a
good litmus test if the earth is billions of years old, as far as blaming climate change.
Guess it depends if you blame humans or not. I don't, but that's my opinion. Everyone has one.

Sure climates change...have for millions/billions of years, well before we were here.

Eric

[OceanSunfish]

There are about 80 million acres of forest and open range land in California that are at risk of wildfire. We can never hope to clear even a fraction of that but we do have to be strategic and we need better forestry management to reduce fuel load and tree density. There are 129 million dead trees in the state, we can begin by getting those out.


Sounds like a job for Elon Musk........ New venture...... "Tree-X" OOoops, too late, I should have written this down on a napkin at lunch....

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

50 years ago when in college in Sacramento a teacher told us the big problem was that we started putting out wild fires and now there is too much fuel on the forest floor. Fires were a natural thing but now we have too many nice homes out there and too much fuel in the way to downed trees and dead trees I guess.

[OceanSunfish]

Sounds like a job for Elon Musk........ New venture...... "Tree-X" OOoops, too late, I should have written this down on a napkin at lunch....

After a little research, very little...... I retract my comment........

Therefore, trees that have died and are not harvested immediately, are fire wood, literally. So, there is no economic incentive for anyone to harvest, etc.

[Bob Loblaw]

Dead or burned trees can be used for lumber if they are harvested in time. Lumber is a great way to sequester carbon. If they can't be used for lumber they can be used for manufactured wood products like particle board, or failing that they can be used for biomass power generation....if they are going to burn, you might as well burn them in a controlled environment and generate power.

[OceanSunfish]

Dead or burned trees can be used for lumber if they are harvested in time. Lumber is a great way to sequester carbon. If they can't be used for lumber they can be used for manufactured wood products like particle board, or failing that they can be used for biomass power generation....if they are going to burn, you might as well burn them in a controlled environment and generate power.

Good point. Timely fashion is what I left off my previous post.......