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Hello from smoke-choked California!
Since our wildfires are starting to crack into national news, here's a quick quick primer on forests and fires here and what you need to make sense of the headlines 1/
Since our wildfires are starting to crack into national news, here's a quick quick primer on forests and fires here and what you need to make sense of the headlines 1/
FIRST:
Burned does not equal killed. In redwoods, for instance:
-high tannins retard flame
-thick bark insulates living tree-flesh
-high crowns stay clear of low flames
Early reports suggest a lot of the redwoods inside Big Basin will survive.
2/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/historic-buildings-destroyed-at-big-basin-redwoods-state-park/
Burned does not equal killed. In redwoods, for instance:
-high tannins retard flame
-thick bark insulates living tree-flesh
-high crowns stay clear of low flames
Early reports suggest a lot of the redwoods inside Big Basin will survive.
2/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/historic-buildings-destroyed-at-big-basin-redwoods-state-park/
The footage of a fire burning inside a tree looks apocalyptic.
In fact, it's so common that we have a word for the hollow space it leaves behind: "goosepen" (because early anglo settlers used the natural hollows to shelter livestock.) 3/ https://twitter.com/RandyVMedia/status/1296860138079260672?s=20
In fact, it's so common that we have a word for the hollow space it leaves behind: "goosepen" (because early anglo settlers used the natural hollows to shelter livestock.) 3/ https://twitter.com/RandyVMedia/status/1296860138079260672?s=20
Here's an old-growth goosepen that's burned multiple times over the life of this redwood. The tree is still alive.
These forests evolved with regular fires clearing scrub and making room for big trees to get bigger.
4/
These forests evolved with regular fires clearing scrub and making room for big trees to get bigger.
4/
Turns out, our trees are much more flammable when we turn them into buildings than when we leave them standing.
Here's a great explainer on why you often see images of houses reduced to cinders surrounded by trees that still have leaves and needles. 5/ https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-camp-fire-lessons-20181120-story.html
Here's a great explainer on why you often see images of houses reduced to cinders surrounded by trees that still have leaves and needles. 5/ https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-camp-fire-lessons-20181120-story.html
BUT, our forests are in a far from natural state:
-Most are second-growth: smaller trees, closer together, lower crowns, more fire-vulnerable
-Climate change = forests that are already heat- and drought- stressed... 6/
-Most are second-growth: smaller trees, closer together, lower crowns, more fire-vulnerable
-Climate change = forests that are already heat- and drought- stressed... 6/
...
-A century of fire-suppression means lots of fuel build-up, which means hotter, more damaging fires.
Here's a primer on what the state's doing about that: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/23/california-fires-state-feds-agree-to-thin-millions-of-acres-of-forests/
(TIL: the average annual area burned here is still less than half the pre-gold rush average.) 7/
-A century of fire-suppression means lots of fuel build-up, which means hotter, more damaging fires.
Here's a primer on what the state's doing about that: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/23/california-fires-state-feds-agree-to-thin-millions-of-acres-of-forests/
(TIL: the average annual area burned here is still less than half the pre-gold rush average.) 7/
("Thinning" is a fraught concept - especially b/c the federal government's always under pressure to send in logging companies to do it, but the type of thinning that's the most ecologically-helpful is generally unprofitable). 8/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-save-the-redwoods-scientists-debate-burning-and-logging/
It's useful to think of forest fires not as a forest problem, but a people problem:
-to the extent they're ecologically bad, it's because of things people did (logging, fire suppression, climate change) to f* up the forests. . . 9/
-to the extent they're ecologically bad, it's because of things people did (logging, fire suppression, climate change) to f* up the forests. . . 9/
...
-to the extent they're a policy problem, it's because they threaten lives and property, not wild trees.
Those are explicitly the priorities that determine where Calfire deploys resources: protect lives first, then property.
Which means...
10/ https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2020/08/20/cal-fire-resources/
-to the extent they're a policy problem, it's because they threaten lives and property, not wild trees.
Those are explicitly the priorities that determine where Calfire deploys resources: protect lives first, then property.
Which means...
10/ https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2020/08/20/cal-fire-resources/
... you can also think of every sprawling development pushing into the fire-prone Wildland Urban Interface as a strike against the state's other fire planning, a potential drain on firefighting resources. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-06/california-ignores-science-homes-wildfire-zones 11/11
