The state of our forests.

[wornout wrench]

Greg and 92U, my thoughts are with you guys.
Be safe

 

[John C.]

Birken, I agree with you as it pertains to the US in some places. If you interviewed some of the people in Okanagon, County, Washington State I'm sure you will get a lot of disagreement. A lot of those fires could be blamed on bug kill and the affect of greenies preventing any type of land management. On the other hand there was still nothing that stopped the burning till the rains came down. Regardless of the cause the end result was the same as a volcano, hurricane, tornado or earthquake. Lots of people lost their homes and possessions.

I think the sticks are a lot farther out in Canada than they are in the US. One only has to look at the fires they had up there last year that took out homes and parts of towns. While there are plenty of greenies in Canada one has to wonder what affect they might have had on the causes of those fires.

 

[GregsHD]

I used to work in that field and in my opinion it is way worse than it ought to be.

Wildfire is a predictable natural event and can reasonably be mitigated. All you have to do is cut down the fuels.

Around here, there were cattle ranches where the cows chewed the brush down, they also bulldozed a lot of it. If you didn't live there you lived in a town.

Nowadays everybody has their 5 acre parcel with 4.5 acres of tinder brush that they have fallen dearly in love with, and their wood frame house in among it, on a dead end road.

If your property is properly fuel modified, fire will just pass right by. If it can't be such, maybe there should not be a house there.

Insurance companies live in the realm of reality, and are starting to figure this out.

Part of the problem here in BC is the shear size of the forest, around 149 million acres, that's 1 1/2 times the size of California (almost entirely government "Crown Land"), over half of which will never be logged.

They have always put wildfires out to protect people and property, hardly if ever do any controled burning to reduce fuel next to populated areas, combine that with a ton of bone dry beetle kill pine and spruce, and hot dry unpredictable weather. The fires get so big and hot they create there own wind, jumping rivers and lakes, they will never just pass right by.

Homes lost in these fires have nothing to do with how the private property is managed, the problem is simply the way we have managed the fires in the past, creating the perfect opportunity for these massive wildfires to spark up.

 

[Birken Vogt]

I don't mean to be argumentative but I did not state I spent some years firefighting in the PNW as well as up and down California. So I have seen plenty of forest and it is pretty much forest here too.

I agree the government does not do much with its land, which makes me wish they would just sell it to someone who cares, but my comment above there still stands: if your house is going to be too close to unmanageable gov't land, don't buy/build there. When I saw the Ft. Mac fire going looking at that land on Google I could not believe how miles and miles of unbroken forest come right up to houses. I realize it does not get to burning conditions there often, but you have to account that sometimes it will.

I ask myself, if a fire was to come through here, would the place stay standing on its own, or at most with help from me and my garden hose, if not, it is time to get the saw out before it happens.

 

[92U 3406]

When I saw the Ft. Mac fire going looking at that land on Google I could not believe how miles and miles of unbroken forest come right up to houses.

You may not have heard about Slave Lake, AB. Back in 2011 about 1/3 of the town was wiped out due to a forest fire. I believe as of today, that fire was the 5th costliest disaster in Canadian history (Fort Mac holds 1st place). Its clear that the lessons learned there were not applied to Fort Mac (or really any other communities). I mean the forest ran right up to the edges of Fort Mac, within 50 feet of homes in many cases. I still can't believe how fast that fire spread. It was something like 8-10 kilometers away from town when I headed south that morning to do a couple quick jobs. 5 hours later I'm heading back to town and I'm driving straight into Hell. The RV park is on fire, Beacon Hill and Abasand are already lost causes. I still have the odd relapse and nightmare about that day.

 

[Hank R]

Here in Princeton with a good sized fire 10kms from town into day 6 of fire there must be at least 50 to 60 white Government pickups running around town that have never left the pavement yet. But I did see 4 guys last night that were dirty from working the fires. I am sure a 12 loggers with Cats and a buncher or 2 could of had it contained on day 2.

 

[GregsHD]

Forestry/Wildfire management are now taking about how they planned/are planning this year to start creating fire breaks around the populated areas and cleaning up/burning excess fuel in the forests here in the Cariboo. At little bit late I'd say....

 

[92U 3406]

The Dunn Lake fire is up on top of the mountain now and getting out of the rocky ground. If we get the 70 km/h wind they're forecasting tomorrow afternoon and it blows north, Clearwater is in deep ####.

 

[GregsHD]

I was in Clearwater this afternoon, pretty smokey down there, 15km up rd2 it clears, sky is nasty at my place but staying way up there.

Gustafson fire is smoking bad from the wind today, they've been preparing for tomorrow's winds but only so much they can do..

 

[92U 3406]

I just went out to get a sub in Little Fort. Leading edge of the Dunn Lake fire's directly East of Roundtop Rd. That's about 10km from the south edge of Clearwater following the highway. As the crow flies its less. Guessing about 8 or so estimating off a map. I've got a bad feeling about this TBH. I'll be doing my best to get out on a water truck or something if things go sideways.