Which is more expensive:brush removal or prescribed burn?

[Roger Feeley]

I read about all these fires in the west and it made me wonder. Say you have the political will to be proactive. Your choice is to remove the flammable materials or se a fire yourself and try to control it. If you do a prescribed burn, you have to have a lot of people to keep it from getting out of control. If you remove the material, you have to stash it someplace.

would anyone know the economics?

[Brian Holcombe]

We have this either-or approach going on that just strikes me as being pretty short-sighted. Either the place is clear-cut or it’s protected both have negative impacts. It would seem a moderate path of cutting the oldest growth in the forest annually would keep the inventory down.

Rrmoving the largest growth opens up the canopy allowing new growth to Form and occupy that space.

[mike stenson]

Economics aside, I live about 2 miles from the edge of a ~180,000 acre fire that occurred in June/July of this year. The area's about 95% impossible to get to with equipment, and about 65 to 70% is impossible on foot (the people complaining that the firefighters weren't going into these areas to put it out was incredible, but I've spent a lot of time in the area on foot). The geographies many of the fires are occurring in make both impractical choices.

The area here is also a mix of chaparral, grassland, desert, pine, and oak forest. A good chunk of it had burned about 10 years ago. I do not believe you can keep ahead of it when you have 15-20 year drought.

[William Chain]

"rake the forest" Haha. Wasn't that the "solution"?

Seriously though - wasn't one of these new ones set off by an idiot with their super critical gender reveal party going awry? Step 1 is stopping the stupid *&&#.

A thinning of the forested areas may be a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure anything is going to help the tinderbox conditions out there at this point. One can imagine the firebreaks and cut lines in the managed areas, but in some spots the winds are to the point that no gap in the vegetation is going to help.

I'm not sure there are economics to fix such a huge area.

[Roger Feeley]

Yeah, a big fire was started when they set off a pink/blue smoke bomb. I’m really naive about the dry brush situation but I don’t see how they did it. Maybe they had too many mimosas and didn’t notice something smoldering?

[mike stenson]

Yeah, a big fire was started when they set off a pink/blue smoke bomb. I’m really naive about the dry brush situation but I don’t see how they did it. Maybe they had too many mimosas and didn’t notice something smoldering?

Dry grass will literally take seconds to get out of control. It's actually better tinder than newspaper for starting a fire.

[Roger Feeley]

Dry grass will literally take seconds to get out of control. It's actually better tinder than newspaper for starting a fire.

i guess I was just raised differently. Any time we shot off fireworks, the first thing we had to have handy was a hose to pre-wet the ground and a bucket of water for the duds. If we were out in the country, my dad wouldn’t let us shoot anything unless it had rained. Often, that meant waiting for the next weekend. Sometimes it meant going to a lake and shooting over the water. But we were always aware of where the fireworks were going to go.

hmmm... maybe the safety rules for fireworks aren’t all that different from using tools and machines. I never thought of it that way.

[mike stenson]

i guess I was just raised differently. Any time we shot off fireworks, the first thing we had to have handy was a hose to pre-wet the ground and a bucket of water for the duds. If we were out in the country, my dad wouldn’t let us shoot anything unless it had rained. Often, that meant waiting for the next weekend. Sometimes it meant going to a lake and shooting over the water. But we were always aware of where the fireworks were going to go.

hmmm... maybe the safety rules for fireworks aren’t all that different from using tools and machines. I never thought of it that way.

Yea, this to me would have been considered 'common sense'.. but we've had a forest fire here that was caused by a trained federal agent using reactive targets for a gender reveal, in the middle of dry grass, too. So, I guess that sense isn't so common. Either way, I don't see this drought ending any time soon (we've had a complete bust of a monsoon season this year). So the west is going to suffer from these fires more often.

[Lonny Rowley]

Again, it's too little too late. Forest management is appalling or should I say forest mis-management. The wind event we had here in Oregon was truly out of the ordinary. I live close to the Columbia Gorge and we're no stranger to wind but have never in my 66 yrs. experienced that high of wind that time or year and coinciding with recently ignited forest fires. It was a deadly mix of events. We have had the last 5 yrs. of hottest years on record for Oregon. Idiots are out intentionally setting fires as well. Just yesterday the arrested a man for setting a fire. He had just been released from jail for setting a fire a week earlier.

[mike stenson]

Well, the 100 years of fire prevention forest management policy sure didn't work out. Did it. Combine that with a record drought, and every year being hotter than the last.. and poof.. the west burns.

[Mike Soaper]

"Once the topsoil is gone, there's literally nothing to save."

My guess is that much of top soil comes from the fallen leaves, pine needles, branches and trees that some folks want to, or need to, clean up.

When I was digging holes for my home I was struck by how thin the topsoil layer is, 6-10", compared to the diameter of the planet and considering how long the woods in this area have been living.

[Stan Calow]

To the original question of which is more expensive, I think the premise of the question assumes that there would be equal outcomes. Thats probably dependent on too many variables to make generalizations. But it doesn't really matter as the American public is too short-sighted to spend tax money on preventive measures of any kind, for any disaster. We'd much rather pay higher insurance rates and fund charitable bailouts than prevent developers from building in danger zones.

[mike stenson]

To the original question of which is more expensive, I think the premise of the question assumes that there would be equal outcomes. Thats probably dependent on too many variables to make generalizations. But it doesn't really matter as the American public is too short-sighted to spend tax money on preventive measures of any kind, for any disaster. We'd much rather pay higher insurance rates and fund charitable bailouts than prevent developers from building in danger zones.

The scale prevents either. Which is ultimately the point.

[Lee DeRaud]

The scale prevents either. Which is ultimately the point.

^^This.

I think sometimes people east of the Mississippi (or, more to the point, in Washington DC) lose track of the kinds of numbers involved. The fires in California total out to more than the size of Connecticut. One of them (the August Complex) is larger than Long Island NY.

Could be worse, I guess: it could be like Australia, where an area the size of Indiana burned.

[Malcolm McLeod]

True, we are short-sighted. I am not a forester, but from reading I understand that the under-story (mid-level) trees can enable a fire to get to the canopy of an old growth forest - and so spread catastrophically. Without that middle layer of fuel, a fire can burn the detritus 2-3 feet off the ground and never seriously impact the larger trees. If this happens periodically, there is limited opportunity for un-controlled fire conditions.

We forget that fire is a natural part of any ecosystem. It is so easy to blame climate change, but at some point you have to look in the mirror and re-consider the impact of your land management practices.

As example, mesquite is a plague on Texas ranchers (et al.). 100 yrs ago, it was largely unknown; today you'd think it was the state tree. It is an invader over much of the state, consumes massive amounts of water, and shades out grasses that dominated the plains for millennia. It was held in check by lightening-caused fires. Then humans built houses and fires had to be fought. Now mesquite has taken over. In many areas where/when wind conditions allow, ranchers will do controlled burns of their range. Grasses burn as low as 3-4 inches off the ground, kill the mesquite, and the grass is back in 6-8 weeks. Many areas have even had surface water (magically) re-appear - and streams flow. An alternative is root-plowing (bulldozers), but is expensive and less effective.

I am going to guess that CA has applied similar absolute fire control practices for the last 100 yrs or so. Look at old photos of an area. Was it grass, or brush, or trees 150 yrs ago? (Watch the 1956 movie "Giant", filmed near Marfa TX. Look at the range land in the film. Then go visit the area. You won't think they filmed anywhere near Marfa.)

Any way you look at it, humans have altered their environment. We can either stay out, leave it alone, and allow it to return to its native state - fires and all, or learn to live with the results of our land management practices; and maybe concrete houses.

Edit.....
Sorry. Just realized this is very 'either-or' sounding - and not my intention at all. I thought it might be obvious we could adjust our land management practices to some middle ground too. Maybe it was obvious; maybe not.