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Forest Fires, Air Quality, Weather Patterns, ...The World ...

Wes

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I certainly don't disagree with your comments about land use patterns or forest thinning, fire return intervals changing etc.

If you are confused go back and read what I DO disagree with.
 

wgscott

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Much of this region that burned was second-growth redwoods. If the old growth hadn't been harvested, it would have been far more fire-resistant. The fire suppression policy the right wing-nuts like to blame on the "environmentalist left" were actually put into place at the behest of the timber industry.
 
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Helicopter

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I certainly don't disagree with your comments about land use patterns or forest thinning, fire return intervals changing etc.

If you are confused go back and read what I DO disagree with.
I shouldn't have said it is a distant third. It just frustrates me that we don't hear much about forest management in the press, when we have been directing our government agencies to handle it badly for so long. We should be talking about it if we actually want to stop the American West form burning. If the public understood this part of the problem a little better, it would be easy to get out policy makers to provide more constructive direction to the USFS and other agencies.

If we don't want fires in California next year, we need to get out the chainsaws, bulldozers, skid steers, and forest scientists and get to work. I do want a healthy planet with lots of interesting wildlife for my kids, but climate treaty isn't going to do anything about 2021 fires.

Unfortunately, policy makers are fixated on climate change, which they have perverted with unscientific assertions because it is related to their agendas. The news, obsessed with ratings and sensational material, shows the worst of it; climate change deniers and imminent apocalypse radicals. Politicians obviously care much more about advancing their parties, backers, economic goals, etc., than they do about the fires. I am not talking about one side of the aisle. I can remember when I lived in Montana, local Democrats were basically against cutting any tree, unless you used a helicopter, and Republicans basically wanted to allow clearcutting of entire forests, assuming this had similar impact to soils, etc., as natural burning of the oldest stands. We are not doing any better with the forests now, though we have made some progress with carbon.
 

wgscott

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The 3 million acre fires of 1910 were not the result of either climate change nor lack of forest "management."

Things have, however, changed in the last 120 years with respect to both.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/climate-change-increases-risk-fires-western-us/

The ignition event that set off many of these August 17th fires was a freak dry lightning storm. It is hard to attribute one-off weather events to anything, but the climate change is in general increasing the frequency and intensity of storms.
 
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Wes

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re: cutting trees, unless you used a helicopter

they want to avoid the deleterious effects of roads, esp. on erosion into trout streams

"thinning from below" is known to be useful in the Inter-mountain West; data are scarce in west slope forests, redwood forest etc. but it makes sense

fun fact on redwood forests and audio - Wendell Diller (the public access guy for Magneplanar) is closely related to the the scientist who found that Spotted owls can live in second-growth redwood forests
 

Helicopter

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re: cutting trees, unless you used a helicopter

they want to avoid the deleterious effects of roads, esp. on erosion into trout streams

"thinning from below" is known to be useful in the Inter-mountain West; data are scarce in west slope forests, redwood forest etc. but it makes sense

fun fact on redwood forests and audio - Wendell Diller (the public access guy for Magneplanar) is closely related to the the scientist who found that Spotted owls can live in second-growth redwood forests
Helicopters have lots of advantages, with cost being the only real disadvantage.

Horses seem to have some advantages over dozers and skid steers too, but feasibility is questionable and they get tired after about 6 hours.
 

Wes

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I asked a USFS guy (in charge of logging effects for NEPA & Forest Plans) about horse drawn logging. It gets a lot of touchy-feely support and even had a show on how great and just gol-durn "organic" it was on the local PBS TV station.

He said the hooves caused more erosion than a tracked skidder - which makes sense due to the increased pressure.

Helos are the way to go, unless you are going to pile and burn the "dog-hair" saplings you thin out. Most of it is not merchantable anyway, tho the future use of drones could bring down costs vs. helos and their pilots.

I expect the next several years will focus on areas near houses and roads anyway tho.
 

RayDunzl

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Helicopter

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The next generation of military helicopters is not going to need a pilot to fly. They will be capable of doing dangerous missions unmanned.

Helicopters are the way to go in the wilderness if you can afford them. They use them in Alaska and Montana so I am sure California can.

I agree a lot of this is going to be tree service type work within immediate access of paved roads, so extraction will not need to be very complicated.

Makes sense about horses. I was a bit skeptical of the research supporting their use when I was in school. They are probably better with soil compaction on trails, but that is not necissarily going to carry over to trailers full of logs, places where they stand around and other parts of a logging operation.
 
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