By Charles The Moderator,
I have lived in California all my life, the first half in SoCal, the second half in NorCal.
A funny thing happens ever year.
If we have a below normal amount of rain, in the spring we get warnings that it’s going to be severe wildfire season, because the brush is so dry.
If we have an above normal amount of rain we get warnings that it’s going to be severe fire season, because there is so much extra brush.
If we have a normal rainy season we get warnings that’s it’s going to be severe fire season, with some hybrid explanation or an allusion to a previous fire season.
With the winter season likely to be a wet one in California, see Anthony’s recent post here, I propose a contest, which begins January 1st, 2011.
The first person to identify a news story expressing one of the three options noted above and note it in this thread will win a modest prize and a hat tip for fame and glory. I suspect April or May we will see a winner.
I suggest that those that wish to participate bookmark this post to keep track. I’ll set up notifications for myself to be emailed on activity in this thread.
Rules,
You need to find a real news story (or press release), not make it up yourself. I will be the judge.
The warning needs to come from a relevant State or Federal official, or a Fire Department official. I will be the arbiter of qualification.
charles the moderator
Lost the website in previous post:
Seasonal Outlooks by Region at
http://gacc.nifc.gov/oscc/predictive/outlooks/
With all the Precipitation in CA, will they turn the water back on for the Central Valley?
There was already one of these stories back on Dec 16th:
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_fireseason17.3a402bd.html
In my years as an Airtanker pilot, I cannot count how many time the “Worst Fire Season Everrr!” was announced, either state wide or nationally. Quite often they were
right. Never flew except for water drops, (practice and proving) and had a very, very ,clean Aeroplane….
“Tell me in November how bad the season was.” -Attr.Ray Ornbaum. one of the
greatest tanker captains that ever lived….
Agree with a few mods:
“If we have a below normal amount of rain, in the spring we get warnings that it’s going to be severe wildfire season, because the brush is so dry. Then Mary Nichols, CARB Chairwoman, will say something absurd.
If we have an above normal amount of rain we get warnings that it’s going to be severe fire season, because there is so much extra brush. Then Mary Nichols, CARB Chairwoman, will say something clueless.
If we have a normal rainy season we get warnings that’s it’s going to be severe fire season, with some hybrid explanation or an allusion to a previous fire season. Then Mary Nichols, CARB Chairwoman, will say something insulting.
The fire problem in California – which is primarily was of scale and intensity – is due to fuel build ups. The native Californians used fire as their primary land management tool (for multiple pragmatic reasons) and their regular burning minimized fuel build ups. The ‘natural’ landscape which the Spanish first saw was the product of this ‘aboriginal burning’ management.
No matter how warm or dry it may be, if there is no fuel fires cannot burn.
There is a vast new body of research about this topic – which was not just a California phenomenon – but since it contradicts the ‘pristine wilderness/primitive savage’ myth that is the First Big Lie of ‘Conservation Biology’ and the ‘wilderness’ movement, it has been suppressed and carefully ignored/denied.
If it wasn’t a busy Christmas Eve I would post a bunch of references. In the meantime, just google ‘aboriginal burning’ and take it from there.
boballah beat me 🙁
A simple google news search of 30 seconds is all it took to find a doom and gloom predictions of wildfire next year by a California official.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_fireseason17.3a402bd.html
This is brilliant.
I just did search string “California record flooding wildfires 2011” and came up with real, named fire officials saying the flooding is particularly dangerous in areas hit by wildfire earlier this year.
Good luck to all. What’s the prize btw?
John MacDonald, just why does the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have a crimatologist on staff? How about a few thermodynaic engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians? No wonder NASA can’t launch people into space any more.
I think comments to posts here automatically close in 15 days or so. E.g. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/09/a-helpful-note-to-dr-eric-steig/ is accepting comments, the post before it, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/09/gore-effect-strikes-again-new-coldest-ever-december-record-temperature-in-cancun/ is not.
I don’t know if that can be changed or if you have changed it. If it can be changed, can you reopen http://wattsupwiththat.com/test-2/test-page-2/ ?
[Reply: I was able to open it. Try this: http://tiny.cc/5r1g4 ~dbs]
While browsing around on this topic, I didn’t find any brush fire forecast (yet), but didn’t find this little excerpt from the LA Times about CA’s current rain:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/21/local/la-me-1221-weather-extremes-20101221
hehe, just gotta love the “warming” reference, especially when the whole piece talks about how they can’t explain anything. Oh, but probably “warming” did it. … hahaha
I am suspecting we will have a winner long before April or May. The very idea of “wetter means more brush for fires” is already found in a couple of comment posts.
From the (cough, cough) The Huffington Post
From California Rain Storms Continue To Set Records
I don’t think it will take very long for that kind of comment to bubble up into an actual press release of some sort. I have already found several sources coming dangerously close to suggesting this, but not outright saying it yet. It’s as if they really want to, but just can’t find themselves making that big leap just yet. .. hehehe
Robert of Ottawa said: ” just why does the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have a crimatologist on staff?”
I think you meant ‘climatologist’, but it’s a good Freudian slip.
Patzert is a media mouthpiece for JPL. He serves as seemily the only ‘expert’ in southern California that the lemmings in the print and electronic media will quote after any kind of weather event that deviates in some way from the perceived ‘average’.
He seems to be a ‘luke warmer’ which explains why the press likes him. He has a good sense of humor and provides some entertainment value along with a wee bit of science. This provides good PR for JPL!
Not entering the contest, but I lived in SoCal in 1969 and remember the HUGE mudslides on January 20th (?). I recall walking up to a house in Glendora (somewhere close to Grand and Sierra Madre Ave.) where the mud was halfway up the interior walls and there was an oak tree sitting in the living room.
I wonder if anybody, anywhere, has taken a moment to say a silent thank you to those who built and paid for the LA County flood control system back in the fifties.
Reply: I grew up in West Covina and competed in track and field against Glendora High ~ ctm
We get pretty much the same thing here in British Columbia. Every camp fire was declared a provincial emergency with breathless reports from the front lines by brave reporters. Mostly on radio, as there weren’t that many real fires to put on video. They recycled a Fraser Valley fire for months, but folks started to notice and they had to use newsreel from years earlier. No mention that arson is still the leading cause of forest fires either. Usually set by those that make money fighting them. The whole panic and fear industry has become a well oiled machine.
‘You need to find a real news story (or press release), not make it up yourself.’
I hope that include lighting the fire, then calling the fire station and the local newspaper, oneself as well?
Because that would seriously cut down the crazed climate hippies trying to prove a warmer world.
“/sarc”
The reason why we get these fire warnings are the same reason we get the “we are in a drought” warnings, even in wet years. The state doesn’t want to spend money on infrastructure to add more water to their water storage systems, nor invest properly in fire abatment systems. This state has simply not invested in infrastructure properly for decades.
Ric Werme says:
December 24, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I can read the page (and any other WUWT post) just fine. There’s no comment box, so the post is closed to comments and to anyone trying to check out WordPress’ handling of HTML. I.e. the page cannot be used for its intended use.
The point of my first post was to claim that the only winner can be someone who sees a winning new story within the next 15 days. “Comments to posts here automatically close in 15 days or so.” Let me try again. Comments to a post may be made for fifteen days after a post is created. After 15 days there is no comment box.
I think this is a relatively recent change.
Reply: I’ll look into it. ~ ctm
Reply 2: I have removed the setting that closed threads after 15 days. I’ll consult with Anthony if he wants to reinstate it perhaps with a longer timeout. ~ ctm
Myself and others give SFGate a hard time in the comments sections anytime they publish an article regarding rainfall or snowfall. They almost never fail to bring up the words “drought”, “water tables”, “water inventory” or “fire danger” no matter what the low or high extent the rainfall and snowpack may be.
One poster there will even keep a tab of articles from years past at SFGate and the moment a new rainfall or snowfall article appears – they’ll post a link to one in the comments section with the tag:
“Don’t bother writing a new article columnists and editors – just repost this one from 2 years ago. It’ll fit just fine!”
=8-)
Interestingly though, they have managed to go two weeks without the FUD…so maybe (fingers crossed) folks are coming around…
can i write it myself if i am a fire official? all right, i am only an engineer, not quite an officer 😉
and the truth is, every season is potentially a devastating fire season in california. it’s really a matter of each individual fire.
so someone is going to win something!
It’s a pity I can’t deal with, “severe wildfire season” and the worst one ever, because:
(1) The Y2K Bug was really bad and shut everything down.
(2) The Killer Bees are causing people to drop dead everywhere.
(3) The Hole In the Ozone Layer has made it unsafe to go outside.
(4) Bird Flu has killed almost everyone.
(5) Global Warming….
News Media Credibility approaching ZERO.
Forehead says
————-
There is a vast new body of research about this topic – which was not just a California phenomenon – but since it contradicts the ‘pristine wilderness/primitive savage’ myth that is the First Big Lie of ‘Conservation Biology’ and the ‘wilderness’ movement, it has been suppressed and carefully ignored/denied.
————-
In your part of the world maybe. In my part of the world it’s very well known. No conspiracy here. In fact it is part off the “wisdom of the aboriginals” story which is quite popular.
Cynicism aside,
you guys do understand don’t you that to get a decent bush fire season you need lots of fuel that is dry. And to get that you need a good growing season or seasons followed by very dry windy weather.
So it all comes down to timing, with rain in spring and early summer followed a dry off.
Err, you don’t understand that????
Reply: The problem is, no matter what the conditions occur during the winter we are told every single year, without fail that this year’s coming fire season will be exceptionally hazardous for some combination of those conditions that occurred. This happens every single year. Sure, every summer and fall in California suffers from a fire hazard risk. But, when you are told year after year after year that this season will be exceptionally bad you have to point to the messenger and laugh. ~ ctm
When I lived in Marin County 30 years ago, I was told by a Muir Woods ‘gardener’ that the massive Sequoia seeds would not germinate unless fire had heated the seeds up [so tiny that it does not seem possible to grow to 250 feet + in height, let alone survive a forest fire!] and I still wonder how nature survived endless fires [lightning strikes mainly] without the massive fleets of water bombers! No SUVs and no Anthropogenic CO2 production either!
Julian Flood – what’s wrong with that?
Gum trees are destined to take over the world.
Go Ausie go.
(Sorry for that, that’s not my style at all).
But here in Australia we get exactly the same types of warnings for exactly the same reason.
If it’s wet or dry, the next summer will be a very bad fire season.
On the otherhand the warnings have been rather muted of late for some reason.
It seems all the very brave emergency crews are battling to save life and property from the ravages of flood.