Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen
The NY Times is obsessed with the President — it cannot report anything without taking a pot shot at him.
In this case, NY Times Climate journalist, Kendra “Gloom is My Beat” Pierre-Louis, wades into the roiling waters of Climate Change and Politics, apparently far over her head.
The article in point is “Fact Check: Trump’s Misleading Claims About California’s Fire ‘Mismanagement’”, the NY Times’ response to a Presidential Tweet. Thanks to the brilliant investigative reporting of the Times’ staff writer, we get the lede as a subtitle: “On Twitter, the president claimed that the state’s wildfire woes are a result of poor forest management. The truth is more complicated.”
Who would have imagined that the complex problem of California wildfires could actually be “more complicated” than the President could communicate in 140 characters?
What did the President Tweet?
If we didn’t have the NY Times to tell us that it’s more complicated than that, we might have thought [if we were totally illiterate utter morons] that the problem was just Bad Forest Management and could be solved by denying California federal forest dollars. /sarc
It’s quite clear you see — the most careful nit-picking reveals that:
“This is misleading.
Mr. Trump is suggesting that forest management played a role, but California’s current wildfires aren’t forest fires.
“These fires aren’t even in forests,” said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Rather, the Camp and Woolsey fires, which are ripping through Northern and Southern California, began in areas known as the wildland-urban interface: places where communities are close to undeveloped areas, making it easier for fire to move from forests or grasslands into neighborhoods.” — NY Times’ Kendra Pierre-Louis
Technically, Kendra “Gloom is my Beat” tells us, it’s not a forest fire — it is a “wildland-urban interface” fire. We can see that this is not forest:
Pictured above: Paradise before the fire.
It’s the Burger King and the church both neatly tucked in amongst the pine trees that make it “not a forest”.
So when the pine trees burn like a blast furnace fed by 50 mph winds, whipped into a frenzied fire storm, it’s not a forest fire unless it’s in an official forest — the President was misleading us all by calling it a forest fire instead of … what? Maybe he should have said “wildfire” because it wasn’t actually in an official forest? How utterly inane.
By the way, it is simply false that the Camp Fire “began in areas known as the wildland-urban interface”. The Camp Fire, which destroyed Paradise, is known to have started near Pulga, which is east and a little north of Paradise, in the Plumas National Forest. So, the fire starts in a forest — a National Forest — and driven by high winds becomes a virtual fire storm that sweeps through the “wildland-urban interface” called Paradise.
“According to the [United States Department of Agriculture] report, 44 million houses, equivalent to one in every three houses in the country, are in the wildland-urban interface. The highest concentrations are in Florida, Texas and, yes, California.” — NY Times
To be perfectly clear, if fatuous, when lots of people (1 out of every 3) build houses in a forest, it is no longer a forest but becomes a “wildland-urban interface” by definition and therefore, the Times’ informs us, any subsequent fire there is not a forest fire.
“And the most “deadly and costly” fires happen at the wildland-urban interface, because they damage houses, towns and lives. The Camp Fire has already matched the deadliest fire in state history, killing at least 29 people, and the death toll may rise.
“We have vulnerable housing stock already out there on the landscape. These are structures that were often built to building codes from earlier decades and they’re not as fire resistant as they could be,” Dr. Moritz said. “This issue of where and how we built our homes has left us very exposed to home losses and fatalities like these.” — NY Times
Well, I’m glad that’s settled (and I hope the President has learned his lesson).
And what else did the President get wrong in 140 characters? Apparently, everything according to the Times.
“What Trump said: ” Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. “
The statement suggests that California’s forest-management problems are at fault. But the majority of California’s forests are federally held.
Of the state’s 33 million acres of forest, federal agencies, including the Forest Service and the Interior Department, own and manage 57 percent. Forty percent are owned by families, Native American tribes or companies, including industrial timber companies; just 3 percent are owned and managed by state and local agencies.” — NY Times
After insisting that the Camp Fire was not in a forest (and incorrectly claiming that the fire did not start in a forest — it did), the Times insists that because the federal government controls 57 percent of California’s forests it must be their — the Federal Government’s — fault. Not to put too fine a point on this, but if one is going to insist that it was not a forest fire and did not happen in a forest — how can the Federal Government’s majority control of the forests enter into the discussion?
That’s my fact-check of the NY Times’ failed fact-check.
My question? Has the NY Times editorial staff lost its collective mind altogether?
# # # # #
I must admit I get weary of the NY Times’ absurd Editorial Narrative on the Environment and Climate Change — so many of their pieces on these topics are sophomoric and some are just plain silly — the above is a fine example of the “silly” category.
[Don’t they have real live Editors any more? — guys and gals with a lifetime of experience and a cigar or cigarette holder stuck in the side of their mouth — real life Perry Whites — who have seen it all and are tired of Cub Reporters making the paper look stupid?]
# # # # #
This story does have a serious side — and bless her heart, Pierre-Louis actually reports on it in a different article co-authored by Jeremy White. This article is the real story behind the recent California Fires:
Americans Are Moving Closer to Nature, and Into Fire Zones
The fact is that one out of every three American homes are being built or already exist in “wildland-urban interface” or in the “wildland-urban intermixed” areas.
Here’s the definitions:
“The WUI [Wildland-Urban Interface] definition in the Federal Register was developed to identify communities at risk in the vicinity of public lands. According to this definition, “the Wildland-Urban Interface is the area where houses meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland vegetation” (USDA and USDI 2001).
Areas where houses and wildland vegetation intermingle are referred to as intermix WUI.
Developed areas that abut wildland vegetation are characterized as interface WUI.
Although this definition was developed in conjunction with wildland fire policy, it does not explicitly account for differences in fire risk.
[reformatted for clarity — kh]
The Wildland-Urban Interface In The United States — RADELOFF et al. (2005)
The Camp Fire situation looks like this, in a series of images: (first one is a repeat)
The Camp Fire is believed to have started in Pulga — just east and north of the number 70 on the highway just outside of the red circle around Paradise. It is in the Pulmas National Forest, and indicated as WUI on the Silvis WUI map (second below).
Chico is a town – a city – it has houses and stores and a university. Paradise is both wildland-urban interface and wildland-urban intermix:
A close look at Paradise from the satellites:
Where we see gray and green intermixed we are looking at areas like these (repeating the picture far above):
The buildings (and the homes) are quaintly nestled into the landscape of coniferous forest — this is both intentional and foolish.
The result of this desire to get right into “Nature” is this:
Photo credit: Noah Berger/AP
And the Woolsey Fire in Malibu?
The Woolsey Fire started in the upper right hand corner, in the interface/intermix area shown (in the last image) in yellow and orange. Southern California’s infamous Santa Anna winds — the Diablo Wind, the Devil Wind — swept down from the northeast, blowing the fire south and west through the rugged chaparral-covered hills all the way to the sea at Malibu [whose point produces the famous surfing conditions there ].
Southern California chaparral “is characterized by nearly impenetrable, dense thickets (except the more open chaparral of the desert). These plants are highly flammable during the late summer and autumn months when conditions are characteristically hot and dry. They grow as woody shrubs with thick, leathery, and often small leaves, contain green leaves all year (are evergreen), and are typically drought resistant (with some exceptions). After the first rains following a fire, the landscape is dominated by small flowering herbaceous plants, known as fire followers, which die back with the summer dry period.” [source: Wiki] The chaparral is routinely destroyed — and restored — by infrequent fires (burning on average every 10-15 years).
[I grew up in Southern California — Los Angeles born and raised with university in Santa Barbara just north up the coast. I saw chaparral wildfires many times — manzanita brush can almost literally explode as the Santa Anna winds push fire through the hills and canyons — fleeing a chaparral fire in the hills is a terrifying experience that you will want to skip.]
We humans make lots of mistakes — one of them is building homes in among the trees and chaparral. We also build on crumbling sea cliffs, hurricane prone ocean fronts, in known flood plains and on sand bars/barrier islands — we build our homes in the darnedest and most dangerous places.
Fact-Check Wrap Up: The Times apparently feels compelled to denigrate the sitting President at every opportunity. He did use the language of the common man, calling these fires “forest fires” – quite correctly. In the case of the Camp Fire, they have been super-charged by decades of misguided forest management policies that have left many western forests with very high fuel loads — the result of policies that called for quick response suppression of every fire instead of letting the natural succession of fire and recovery take place. We are now paying the price. This mismanagement was almost universal and cannot properly be blamed on the Federal Government or State Government alone. State, County and municipal planners have created fire-risk nightmares all over the country by allowing homes to be built in areas that are at extremely high risk of fire. It is “more complicated” – – the situation will not be improved or corrected, nor could it possibly be, by denying California federal forest funds.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment Policy:
We have seen these same types of problems with flooding, storm surge and hurricanes. Localities have failed to protect their citizens by forbidding the building of homes and businesses in know high-risk areas — and for many years failed to enact and enforce sensible building codes for the protection of buildings in risky locations. In my youth, homes all over California had beautiful redwood shake roofing — and redwood shake siding — which would dry to tinder in the hot dry California summers, igniting at the first few sparks from distant fires. They are now forbidden, but only after huge loses of homes. It is complicated and causes and results are chaotic in nature.
Where are the codes requiring sensible set-backs from highly flammable local vegetation? And codes specifying non-flammable siding and roofing? And codes requiring adequate cleared roadside verges that won’t turn fire escape routes into graveyards?
I am blessed by living in a modern Eden — the central Hudson Valley of New York State — where we have sensible, four-season weather with few extremes, [almost] no tornadoes, no hurricanes, and no fire storms. The area is heavily wooded but receives so much rain that forest fires, involving trees, are very rare — we do have occasional brush fires. The humidity makes for a bad allergy season though. And we had six to eight inches of beautiful light white snow last night.
I am discouraged by the lack of journalistic standards in general and appalled that the NY Times has reverted to old fashioned Yellow Journalism.
# # # # #
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
it’s electricity’s fault…..no elec…no power lines to short
Close. Its Jerry’s fault, for VETOING a bill in 2016, that would have put power lines underground, in vulnerable areas.
The bill was a unanimous, bi-partisan bill, by the way.
True, but Jerry wanted the money for his “choo-choo” train.
If support was unanimous in the legislature, why couldn’t the veto be over ridden?
I suspect the large democrat majority only voted in favor of the bill with the knowledge and promise that Jerry Brown would veto it. That way they look good to their base and a termed out Brown takes the heat. I doubt they would have voted to override the veto and as the majority, they never brought it up. Typical democrat politics.
Les,
To be the Devil’s Advocate here, it isn’t always possible to put lines underground. Pulga is an old railroad ‘town’ in the Feather River canyon. It is mostly Serpentinite around there with VERY steep canyon walls. What little soil is there is typically very shallow. PG&E has hydroelectric facilities up the canyon and, to be useful, the power has to be brought down to the Sacramento Valley. To put the lines “underground” would be a major engineering project of blasting and tunneling, well above potential flood water levels, on the steep slopes.
There are transformer substations located along the river. To bury them would really not be feasible. Until we know exactly where and how the fire started, it is premature to propose solutions. However, from what little we do know, it appears that the steep canyon walls facilitated the fire moving up out of the canyon by updrafting. Inside the canyon, there are few harvestable pine trees. It is more a mix of scattered Bull Pine, oak, and manzanita. They have little commercial value and would be extremely difficult (expensive!) to remove. Besides, removing them would de-stabilize the slopes, leading to landslides on the rail line, Highway 70, and the shallow reservoirs.
Perhaps fire barriers could be built at the top of the canyon to prevent fires in the canyon from moving out into the forest. However, the real problem was flammable structures in Paradise. Notice the Burger King restaurant in the article. It appears to have a flat roof, (better to catch embers) and is probably sealed with flammable asphalt. Living in an environment like Paradise requires extraordinary measures to build fire-resistant structures. Few people did it because of all the retired people on limited incomes moving there to take advantage of the low cost of living (cheap housing!). To invest heavily in retrofitting the existing homes would have negated the advantage of (relatively) cheap housing there.
While I’m not impressed with Governor Moonbeam’s performance, I wouldn’t put all the blame on him. To quote Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and is it us.”
Is it possible to run electric power lines in conduits where burial is not possible and overhead exposure is susceptible?
“It is mostly Serpentinite”…. ohh, good source rock for Asbestos. (A naturally occurring California “resource”.)
It is pretty clear by now that the only practical thing PG&E could have done is to have de-energized the lines before the wind blew hard enough to knock a line loose or to blow something onto a line. It is impossible to put enough continuously operating wind gages EVERYWHERE in a mountainous region such as this so the only answer left is to disconnect at a conservatively low wind speed 9measured in other places. The meteorologists are pretty good at predicting when Santa Anna Winds will occur but not the exact force and direction everywhere.
in australia the powercos cut trees under and a fair disatance from lines
they even access homeowners property and will cut trees there
ive had them drive a 3ton truck with cherrypicker to cut ONE branch some idiot saw as a hazard
15ft off ground and 30ft below lines height and in no way concievable could that branch be an issue, the tree was also some 30ft away from the lines the entire thing could topple and not be a risk….
at the same time victoria still uses WOOD powerpoles!!!!
sth aus uses “stobie poles” steelbeam with concrete inserts or recently round steel ones, and majority of powerto homes where possible to retrofit or for new estates is ALL underground.
vic claims underground power..ha ha hilarious they run huge lines over my property THEN from the pole to the house, well that tiny least risk section IS buried 50 or so cm deep
Good luck putting power lines underground here:
?w=810
“PARADISE, CA – NOVEMBER 09: Fire smolders under high voltage towers in Pulga, Calif., November 9, 2018, near the reported start of the Camp Fire blaze that destroyed the town of Paradise”.
So note that this area where the fire started is not what most think of as forest but rather trees growing in very rocky valleys. The rock is not very conducive to forest growth but rather scrub growing among isolated trees. PS&E reported that the fire started in grass in the cleared area below the power line. It’s also my understanding that the area near Paradise which had been recently logged was the area where the fire spread the fastest.
As someone else has said the trees around the houses weren’t badly burned it appears that the houses were what burned the most. Embers were being carried 2 miles ahead of the fire itself, I heard one report from a family who saw the fire crest the ridge a few hundred yards away. They grabbed some things and ran to their car (the wife wanted to go upstairs to get some more things, the husband said there was no time), by the time they got in the car the house was burning! The fire spread incredibly rapidly, most likely by the airborn embers not the fire itself.
Still makes more sense than Brown’s choo-choo train. And can actually save lives and prevent property damage in the future.
The geology of that area of Northern California consists of metamorphic rock, which is very difficult to excavate for power lines. There are other causes.
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/12/30/reclosers-investigated-cause-wine-country-wildfires/
The root of the problem is that 100 years of ever-increasing technology has resulted in humans losing all respect for Nature’s power. We “think” we’re in “control.” We also seem to have a functional collective memory of about 15 years–if no major disaster has happened in that time, what the hell, build anything wherever you want! The erroneous idea we can “control” natural processes is why the “climate change” hoodwink was so easy to pull over so many people’s eyes–usually those who’ve never been outside long enough to get dirt under their fingernails.
Goldrider,
Actually the “collective memory” is shorter than 15 years. A bad fire swept through Paradise just 10 years ago!
This wildfire event shows all of us that mankind is just a tenant on this globe where Mother nature rules as the all powerful ruler. The power of mother nature’s tools; wildfires, tornadoes, winds, rainstorms, hailstorms, lightning, snowstorms, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, droughts, heat waves, killer frosts, and ice ages, show us that we will forever be at their mercy. President Trump’ tweet against California policies is on the same plane as our skeptic fight against the climate establishment on the CO2 scam which is a fight for the truth against evil forces that don’t care if they damage the structure of science itself. Our hearts go out to all the families that have lost loved ones, their homes … etc. to this wildfire.
Good article, Kip.
+ 10 Goldrider
And what kicked in this forest mismanagement thing? Can you say spotted owl? You know, the kind of owl that can’t fly from tree to tree and nest in another area. That kept the timber companies from managing the forests that provided their renewable resource that provided their income and jobs for hundreds.
Did you know the ancients put up stones along Japan’s northern coasts for hundreds of years that said [paraphrasing here] “. . .don’t build your houses any closer to the sea than this stone or a tsunami will wash you away.” Fact. But along comes selves with our seawalls and we tell people “. . .you can forget about them stones now . . .” Can’t do that on ocean shores anywhere and not expect a hurricane, typhoon, or tsunami to flatten what you live in. Or build in dry arroyos in the desert. Or forests that are known to burn.
Firebreaks and clearing power lines save lives!
Cutting down nearby gum trees saved the Sheahans’ home in Australia – when all those around were destroyed –
BUT they had been fined $100,000 for cutting down the trees –
the very firebreak ended up saving their property
when all their neighbor’s properties were lost.
https://bit.ly/2QIJd3H
Trimming trees near power lines is also critical.
In North California 17 of 21 major fires were caused by power lines, poles etc owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
http://nyti.ms/2DnozCs
From Snopes “fact check”:
What’s True
In September 2016, Governor Brown vetoed SB 1463, a bill in the California legislature which would have required the California Public Utilities Commission to prioritize areas at increased risk from overhead wires in their management of wildfires.
What’s False
There is no evidence that Brown’s veto contributed to or exacerbated the risk or prevalence of wildfires in California, and the California Public Utilities Commission provided details showing that it had already been engaged in work similar to the proposals contained in SB 1463.
Sure, no evidence – just a plenty of fires so started.
I’ve got a screenshot on my phone of a google search where the top two hits are “fact checks” on whether Amazon paid net federal taxes. First was a “Mostly True” for Bernie Sanders making the claim, and directly below was a “Pants on fire” for Trump making the same claim.
I’ve heard 70% of Americans no longer trust the MSM, and my only question is how did 30% of Americans become deaf, dumb, and blind?
Doing nothing about fires started by power lines did not cause an increase in fires caused by power lines, therefore there was no harm done by vetoing a bill about reducing fires caused by power lines.
I hope that a very serious and detailed forensic investigation is being done with regards to fires seemingly being blamed on power lines. While the lines are subject to issues due to the nature of high voltage and tree interference, sabatage would be easy and I would not discuss that on an open forum. In the case of the ‘Camp’ fire the start location seems to fairly closely identified and a fast moving fire could leave some evidence if that were the case. One would just need to know what to look for.
There are recorded insulator damage claims by PG&E, probably by shooters. Remote Transmission lines (as in the Feather River Canyon – Camp Fire start area) are expensive to maintain/repair when man caused damage has occurred. CPUC – California Public Utility Commission controls all service rate requests.
I have an aerial photo of Butte County (small area) taken by the U.S. Military 1947 or 48. Distribution electric lines have far more clearance than what is mandated today. This photo does not have Transmission lines.
Paradise was a tragedy waiting to happen. 1950 the population density would not override the existing ingress-egress. Traffic crash-in an emergency evacuation must be planned on-rapid mitigation
California in 1960 had demarcation between Urban and Wildland. Today referenced Urban-Interface (with wildland). PG&E – electric transmission and or distribution is financially under the oversight eyes of the CPUC – California Public Utility Commission. Rate increases are the components that are under constant debate.
http://www.tanc.us/transmission_qanda.html — “Underground: The higher the energy transmitted, the more heat is generated. With overhead transmission lines, the air surrounding the lines acts as an insulator and absorbs this waste heat. In underground transmission lines other mediums must be used to dissipate this heat, which to-date has restricted the under grounding of transmission lines to voltages less than 500-kV except for very short distances.”
Someone in PG&E made the decision to Not shut this fire starting line down. Or the shut down was too late. This portion of the Feather River Canyon is known for high winds at night – down canyon. Referred to as the Jarbo Zephyr, coupled with a high-pressure center. This phenomena has not been clarified scientifically. Some 1950-60’s canyon wildland fire fighters knew something was happening, not on every night fire, but some. The Big Bend is the choke point of a down canyon.
Fred ==> Thanks for the details.
A CA fire evaluation from the early 20th century showed purposeful human-caused fires were a problem back then as well.
The arsonists were called “firebugs” at the time.
Prescribed Fires
182,860 prescribed fires in Florida, Georgia & Alabama in 2017 covering 4,382,656 acres.
California only had 428 prescribed fires covering 49,522 acres!
Number of fires and acres burned due to U.S. prescribed fires in 2017, by state
https://www.statista.com/statistics/204014/highest-number-of-prescribed-fires-in-the-us-by-states/
I heard on the TV yesterday that something like 17 of the last 21 or so major forest fires in California were blamed on the power company. It makes one wonder whether they are having problems keeping their right-of-ways cleared of trees and brush. In California it would not surprise me if the environmentalists are preventing them from using Roundup and the tree-huggers preventing them from taking out trees that are too close to the lines. It ain’t pretty but at least here in West Virginia the local power company hires out that job. We’ve only been without power for more than a couple minute (during switch-overs) two times since we moved up here 20 years ago. The first was for 6 hours when a car took out a pole in a snow storm, and the second when a tree fell on a final feeder line at a neighbor’s house taking out the pole, transformer and circuit breakers. The latter was actually the neighbors fault since customers are responsible for clearing the line from the last transformer to the house. The feds only control about 45% of the California forests but the news keeps talking about how the Forest service is restricted from thinning. That won’t explain how the fires got started in the first place.
You are right, Kip. The left is so blinded by hate they can’t approach any story without focusing on the Trump Derangement angle. Here´s a thought, if California had put tax subsidies into power-line modernization´, instead of bird choppers and cookers, maybe some of this could be avoided. Only some avoided though, because some amount of fire is normal and recurring.
Yellow journalism is the new green journalism.
icisil ==> Good one!
As a great man continually tells us, “The “Greens” are so yellow that they can’t admit that they are actually red (communist) inside. Iirc…
or perhaps Red (ideology) + Green (religion) = Yellow (press)
RGB colours
I love how sensibly this article is written. I especially like the clarification that we are all implicated in the problem by our choices of where we choose to build our homes. I am personally guilty on multiple counts. I am currently building one on a hillside overlooking the South San Gabriel River in Texas with a wet weather creek that appears under my back patio during heavy rains. The task has required many hours of engineering to insure long term stability. Still…a bit risky. But darn it…so beautiful.
Stacy ==> Yes, that’s the human side of it — we just sometimes can’t resist the awe-inspiring beauty of some building sites.
My wife and I lived on our sailboat in the hurricane-prone northern Caribbean for almost 15 years … every hurricane season was a decision point — what to do this year? some years we ran to Florida (and the relative safety of modern marinas a bit inland) , some years we stayed and ran to the mangroves when storms threatened. The only time we got really hit was on a year we ran to North Carolina — took a direct eye of the hurricane hit from Hurricane Irene in 2011.
We all judge our desires, our values, etc against the risks….
Six years in the north-west Caribbean… We almost got caught once tied up deep in the mangrove of Guanaja but luckily it passed by on the north side, taking out a tall ship that had been ordered to run for Belize. Several years we just headed up the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. While spending hurricane season safe and sound there you could still run out to Belize for a few days before heading back upriver to avoid bad weather.
From the article: “The Times apparently feels compelled to denigrate the sitting President at every opportunity.”
No doubt about it.
It doesn’t matter what Trump does or says, it will be portrayed in the worst light possible by the New York Times and all the rest of the Leftwing Media. The truth in not in them, when it comes to the political opposition and that goes double for Trump because he fights back against their lies and he has been spectacularly successful at dismantling the Leftwing national agenda. They rightfully see him as their political enemy and attack him relentlessly.
And with Trump their criticism and lies are just like water off a duck’s back, he just keeps on forging ahead and making progress while slapping down their lies.
The Left sees six more years of this in their future and they are terrified that their agenda is being superseded by common-sense conservatism.
I’ve read that over 90% of the Trump’s coverage is negative.
On the other hand comedians explained that the reason they never did jokes about Obama was because he never did anything wrong.
Is it not the case that ‘privately’ managed forests are less often the site of devastating fires, due to their being ‘worked’ i.e. logged and cleaned up?
Bob==> I don’t know — if you have a source to check — let us know — much of Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina is covered with tree farms (huge areas) planted in fast growing pines — don’t know what their record is for fire.
The Northwest has a lot of timber land too.
These huge tree farms are generally clear-cut, section at a time, and replanted within a year (sometimes months). In North Carolina, I have seen them clear-cut 40 acres, push the stumps and treetops into burn pile and burn that, and re=plant all with a few weeks.
Bob,
Fires are less likely to get started on privately managed forest due to how they are managed. That said, once a fire gets rolling it can’t tell the difference between private, state or federally managed forests. One treetop pretty much looks just the same as the another at that point.
Quick example of this was the Black Crater fire outside of Sisters, OR a while back (that fire chased my parents and I out of the woods). We were camping right at the edge of the federal/private land interface and trail riding with horses in both. There was acre after acre of beetle killed trees on federal land with nary a one to be seen on privately held land. Thunderstorm passed through with lightening sparking a fire in the heavily fuel loaded beetle kill area which then spread onto private lands. Would that fire have started anyway if the beetle kill had taken care of? We’ll never know but the fire did start in the beetle kill area and all that dead/dried timber sure makes good kindling.
As soon as the fire was out the privately held land owners cleared out all the fire killed trees and replanted. Feds didn’t touched their burn area, it was being allowed to “naturally” recover which means more fuel load for the next fire…There was another area not that far away that also burned, in that one they not only didn’t remove the fire killed trees they built an overlook area beside the highway so tourist can stop to look at the devastation and watch nature recover. I’m sure in a few more years it will be used as a staging area for the next fire that rips through there.
It takes a lot of fuel on the ground to get the fire into the tree tops.
Not necessarily. Heavy fuel loading on the ground and with ladder fuels is a recipe for disaster, but large, stand replacing fires also occur in stands that are over dense with live trees, on steep slopes, and driven by winds. Fuel moisture is also very critical. Heavy fuel loading in June is not much of a problem, but come July-September, fire danger increases steadily during the typically hot, dry summers with long days.
Not necessarily. Heavy fuels, both on the ground and ladder type, are a recipe for disaster. However, large stand replacing fires also occur in overly dense stands of live trees, when live fuel moisture is low, on steep slopes, and when high and shifting winds occur. Dead fuel moisture is also important. Areas with high fuel loads can’t be burned, even with napalm, in May-June, but the fire danger increases steadily in July-August in typically hot, dry conditions, with long days.
Journalists, academics, and bureaucrats employ euphemisms to misinform and mislead. It has always been so.
Most of the “forests” and other not actively cultivated areas in California are naturally fire-adapted. Some of the trees are either fire tolerant, like redwoods, or require fire to germinate, like some pines. Some areas, like the lower foothills of the Northern Sierras, would be grasslands with scattered large oaks if the fire pattern, or grazing, was maintained.
Where it gets bad is where people try to “keep it natural”, and treat California woodlands as if they were Northeast forests, with a totally different rain pattern and different species of trees.
Tom ==> See the maps and satellite photos in the essay. The pine forest rolls right down slope through Paradise and almost to Chico. The area right around Chico is typical California Central Valley — wildgrass fields, interspersed with mission oaks etc. especially where livestock is grazed. The rest is planted in crops and orchards….
Tom, before the Europeans arrived in California the indigenous people use to burn the oak forests to clear the underbrush and make it easier for them to harvest acorns. I would guess that with their several thousand years experience they had developed a rather large pool of knowledge that has been totally lost today. I doubt they burned down their villages many times before learning to avoid it.
Joe Crawford 11-17-2018. Yes. When immigrants from the east first witnessed these California foothill acorn groves, the less than knowledgeable witnesses called these groves as a ‘parks’. I lived in a portion of one of these parks-grove 100+ years after the Maidu were forced out.
If you control the language, you control the argument
If you control the argument, you control information
If you control information, you control history
If you control history, you control the past
He who controls the past controls the future.” – Big Brother, 1984
We used to call them forest fires, now they use the scarier term “wild fire”
Steve ==> Wildfire has been in use in the English language a long time — my generation (and President Trump’s) is more used to the phrase “forest fire” — we heard it a few million times in the exhortation “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!”
Though later Smokey PSAs switched to him saying wildfires in his catchphrase.
Kip
see drednicolson November 17, 2018 at 5:22 pm below
He’s right, the slogan has been changed from Forest Fires to Wild Fires.
Steve ==> Not for me — it will always be “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” I won’t give up my version of Smokey the Bear! I won’t!……
This reminds me of how much the human animal is like some local critters which build homes nearby. Every spring I find a vole’s nest tucked nicely in my bbq. Of course, the bbq has seen no fire over the winter and early spring, but it will come. Or the birds which build nests in the rain gutter or downspout. At least these critters have a valid excuse for choosing where to build, people building in fire prone or flood prone areas have fewer excuses.
What puzzles me is why any insurance company would insure the homes and business in these fire prone areas. I couldn’t get a loan for my place without insurance.
Does the publishing of an article so counter to common sense indicate that the reporters are this challenged, or are they quite aware of the foolishness of their case, but suspect their readers are to stupid to recognize it? I suspect the latter and wonder if someday the readership will awaken to the fact.
Randy ==> My opinion on it is that the paper, the NY Times, has what is called an “Editorial Narrative” which defines how stories about “xxxx” are to be written and what “angle” or “slant” they are required to have.
In the first article in question in the essay, there is a story about the President — the Times’ Editorial Narrative on “President stories” is something like: 1) he is wrong about the facts, 2) he is probably lying, 3) he is trying to fool the public with his “alternative facts”–which are to be declared false regardless of the truth. It also is a Climate Change story, which has an Editorial Narrative: if something bad has happened, it is because of Climate Change and the President and the Republicans are causing it. It is also an Environmental story which carries an Editorial Narrative of “it is bad, really bad, and getting worse, because of humans, especially the President and the Republicans.”
See my essay on Editorial Narratives in Science.
I think they live so far inside their Blue Bubble that they literally only talk to each other–of like mind. As with The Guardian, their mirror-image across the pond, their job is to pound The Narrative. Context, facts, and counter-arguments are not what they’re being paid to print.
One reason why many people now dismiss BOTH of these papers as “reliable sources.”
I was taking some coursework on detecting deception and other social engineering topics. One of the fundamentals in this field is to observe baseline behavior and look for clusters of anomalies that vary from this baseline.
Which got me to thinking. What if this generation was fed from birth a constant diet of of propaganda, altered narratives and revised history? What would their baseline be? The Millennials grew up under the cloud of AGW and were taught nothing but that. To them, the baseline is AGW.
In fact, if lies and propaganda are the baseline and are characterized as “truth”, despite the imposition of post-modernistic thinking, then it would seem that hanging around honest people would create “clusters” of deviation from the baseline, and to the observer would be an anomaly and thus not truth.
Off thread but minus six in Katowice tonite
Lion Heart ==> POLAND?
Calling for minus 6 tonight in London, Ontario. “Unprecedented” low for this day by 2 degrees…
Dang, guess I have to put the B.Q. away early….
Kip, you ( LOL ) missed the forest for the trees!!!
…
President Comb-over said, ” all because of gross mismanagement of the forests.”
…
He’s unaware of the root cause of “all” of this….drought. Good reason to take a pot shot.
Steve ==> Respectfully,, you simply have the facts wrong. The west slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains is Koppen-Geiger climate region Csa and Csb — which is “warm temperate with dry hot (or warm) summers” — this means it is always fire season in these areas in the Fall. Paradise climate history shows that some Novembers are extremely dry (basically zero rain) and others get a little early winter rain.
Less rain means incrementally more fire risk — but these mostly pine forests are always up for a good fire in the autumn regardless “drought” declarations.
It has been a dry November in the region this year.
Thank you Kip for agreeing with me that President Comb-over is wrong when he blames “gross mismanagement of the forests.”
Whooooosh, Kip’s comment went right over your head..
Steve ==> Well, it’s not quite that simple. The fire management practices of the last 50 years have led to massive build-ups of fuel in the coniferous forests of the West — that’s the mismanagement part. It is perfectly true, fully acknowledged by fire experts including CalFire. We can’t go back and “undo” that — the fuel is there and only time will fix it — either a fire will sweep through and burn it up, or it will decay and turn to soil — unfortunately, they only real effective, long-term solution is to let it burn.
Now that we have so many homes and Walmarts and Burger Kings built in snuggled up to the trees, letting it burn means big losses, so we still fight the fires to save the infrastructure.
Kip, your patience is greater than mine. How many times does what you just said have to be repeated before some people get a clue?
So, Kip, if the fuel build up has been happening now for over 50 years, why is this year so bad?….I mean, 46, 47, 48 or 49 years of fuel build up didn’t matter, only 50 years mattered?….
…
The “50 years” excuse doesn’t cut it.
Effectively Comb-over is blaming his predecessor for this.
Mr Heins, you are about as one-note as Paul Krugman.
In Steve’s world, all that’s needed for a fire is for there to be fuel present.
As usual, his hatred of Trump is driving him to silly extremes of irrationality.
The delusions are strong with this one.
“why is this year so bad?”
A: It’s not. Try to keep up.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-fire-perspectives-20171022-story.html
http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-lb-utility-undergrounding-20160927-story.html
“Effectively Comb-over is blaming his predecessor for this.”
A: No, you don’t often find yourself getting things right, do you?
He is blaming this:
http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-lb-utility-undergrounding-20160927-story.html
&
https://naturalresources.house.gov/newsroom/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398389
That statement by Heins just may be the most absurd and uninformed I have ever read here. California burns. Always has and always will and every competent fire manager knows that poor management and urban encroachment is making it worse. And not just California. The entire Western US from the Colorado front range to the Pacific is in bad shape and it has been going on for more than 50 years. Closer to 150 years. Look up the Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889 or the Laguna Fire of 1970 or the Cedar fire in 2003 for only 3 examples in California. All 3 were larger than the Camp fire in area. There were just fewer people and structures in the way then. The sad fact that a NYT writer is too delusional and TDS obsessed to see the forest through the trees does not change the reality on the ground.
Kip, one can chip the wood.
Hugs ==> If you area home owner with an acre or two of wood lot, maybe even ten if you have the money to hire professionals, you can chip the dead wood and spread it out or cart it off for composting.
Not even close to possible for a thousand acres or rugged hills and ravines.
Kip, it’s possible and done. Drax. In large quantities. Just greens try stopping it.
DRAX wants hardwood. Cleaner and more joules per boatload.
Oh no, any crap wood can be used. Even stumps. Ask Finns who
-rake-plow forests piece by piece.Note also that slightly wet pine may burn better than dry one in an industrial boiler.
President Comb-over?
And people wonder why you have no interest in the facts of the case.
Another case of TDS.
Nobody has bothered to tell Heins that it is a giveaway that a person has no substantive argument when they resort to insults.
Also Known as Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder – ‘T.A.R.D
Thanks for the site information Kip. I have been searching the news for the most basic information like tree species burning, management history, fire return interval etc. As with everything the MSM touch, the news reports are devoid of information that would allow a person to understand the circumstances that led to this. Those of us who live in an urban interface would like to know relevant details.
BCBill ==> Try the National Forest Service — the fire started in the Plumas National Forest and their site might have the information you want. https://www.fs.fed.us/
Thanks Kip. Will do.
Kip, I totally get that the California climate (I’m not saying it is human-made or natural here) is what makes the state prone to fires.
But is does seem that this would spur the state and the U.S. Forest Service to do more management of the forests. Money is short, so it seems enlisting logging companies to do a lot of work in exchange for logging rights in agreed areas, that would become fire breaks and roads, is sensible.
Even if the logging did not reduce the number of fires, it would make fighting them easier. The roads and fire breaks would be invaluable once a fire started.
Too much commonsense there, Andy May.
Much of not most of the urban interface forests in CA are private or state land.
Without fuel to burn it doesn’t matter how dry it gets. The Indians understood this and adapted. Modern Californians want to have their cake and eat it too, i.e., a paradise with only good and no perceived bad. The Camp Fire is a parable for that mindset. Comply with what nature demands (e.g., minimize the fuel load) or she will burn down your Paradise.
icisil ==> Unfortunately, it is apparent from the aftermath photos of the Paradise fire that once the firestorm got to the more built-up sections, it was the buildings that supplied the fuel — the roofs and walls were not fire-proof, inflammable materials. Houses burned while leaving standing living trees around them.
The logical solution is to harden buildings against wildfires (both flying embers and radiant heat) and establish buffer areas so that large, hot fires can’t get close enough to combust buildings from a distance.
The problem is that when the trees are too close to the building, the radiant heat is enough to catch the house on fire, even if the outside is completely non-flammable.
When I lived in Tampa, a multi-story apartment complex that was under construction caught fire.
Across the street was a post office with a metal roof and stucco exterior. It was separated from the fire by two parking lots and a 4 lane divided highway.
It caught fire and burned to the ground.
There’s nothing unusual about the recent drought.
However had there not been gross mismanagement of the forests, there would have been a lot less fuel to burn.
Your attempt to blame Trump is amusing and inaccurate.
Heins,
It seems that you have what Kip characterized as an “Editorial Narrative.” Yes, California recently experienced an extended drought, but that drought was broken last Winter. Abundant Winter and Spring rains actually make the fire risk greater.
Basically, California sees little to no rain from late-April to early-November. Temperatures in the Sacramento/Central Valley are commonly over 100 (with very low humidity) by July 4th, with some of the hottest areas around Chico and Red Bluff. Those kinds of temperatures persist through October. It only takes a few days of that kind of heat to completely desiccate the senescent vegetation and turn it into highly flammable fuel. It happens every Summer! Drought may kill some trees, but that wasn’t the issue in the Paradise fire.
Did you used to write for the Huffington Post or the New York Times?
Steve, It’s always drought in California because the rain only comes in the winter. The rest of the year is very dry – what we called a Mediterranean climate. There is a drought every summer and fall. Then the Santa Ana winds come or whatever they call them north of where I lived, and the fires get fanned into uncontrollable conflagrations. There was no preventative burns to reduce the scrub, and any naturally or man-caused fire was extinguished before it could do the job. The brush load on the hills is now much higher than it used to be before we kept putting out the small fires. Therefore, when a fire gets started that we can’t put out quickly due to the winds, it becomes very large and destructive. I call it gross mismanagement. One side cause is letting people build in areas that should have proscribed burns. Once the houses are there, no one wants to authorize a burn because if there is property damage, people sue.
Kip, well done. Thank you.
Regards,
Bob
Just like living on the beach in Indonesia, lovely setting, until a tsunami hits without early warning.
Kip,
Great essay and presentation!
You really dropped the hammer on the NYT and Kendra Pierre-Louis. I hope she and the editors read it as it will set their pants on fire even again though they’ve already got the ‘pants on fire’ award.
Truth bombs are difficult to dodge and you dropped a big one this time. I hope this will get published widely to put the record straight. Heads exploding all around!
Maybe an op-ed with a link here @ur momisugly WUWT for the graphics if published in paper edition.
“The root cause of all this is drought”? Really? That has never happened before? Forest management includes managing for all eventualities. And drought is included. And for the record, when fires burn on federal land, the tree-huggers holler that the land must be left “natural”. Can’t replant. The property line between private and federal land is very apparent after a fire. Private land is usually replanted. Presuming that is what is desired. And also, without adequate ground cover, the hills are subject to rapid erosion.
Looks like fire has happened before near Chico but not Paradise. Just zoom in to the appropriate bit of the map. What’s the frequency of fires repeating? What are the key characteristics to identify areas at risk?
https://databasin.org/maps/new#datasets=bf8db57ee6e0420c8ecce3c6395aceeb
Son of Mulder ==> Thanks for the link to the historic fire maps.
If a town were to clearcut a fire access road /fire beak (30 ft wide?) around the entire town along it’s boundary AND a 15 ft clearing along each side of the exit roads, they could keep their trees close to the homes for “decoration” and still be a little safer ?? .. IMHO.
California firebreak width is 100 feet. It is 200 feet for controlled burns.
New York Times? What a waste of time.
Twitter limit is no longer 140 characters. I don’t know the new limit as I left twitter when I learned that conservatives were being deverified.
I am on Gab now (@protonice) 🙂
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Living in a treed landscape is wonderful. Completely natural forests are wonderful. The two don’t mix.
If people are going to live in the woods, we have to manage the woods properly.
The other thing is building codes. There is a wonderful magazine called Fine Homebuilding. Over the years it has covered the aftermath of disasters with regard to which houses survived and which didn’t. Here’s an article that covers the 1993 Laguna Beach fire storm. Fire resistant architecture isn’t a mystery. I would never suggest hunkering down in your house if a forest fire is coming. I would evacuate early and far. Having a fire resistant house would mean that I would have a much better chance of not losing it.
Looking at the pictures above, we see generous overhangs on the Burger King. That’s a big no no because overhangs trap heat. I’m guessing that Burger King also missed lots of other details.
We have to treat the inhabited woods as human habitation and we have to treat the buildings built in the woods as if they are built in a fire area. Any other approach is literally crazy. /rant
That is not nit-picking. That is a complete falsehood.
Basically the gloomy abyss of a reporter builds it’s argument from ignorance; i.e. ‘Argumentum ad Ignorantiam’; marking Kendra as a bubble raised fool.
NYT is nit-picking when they expect any President to tweet expansive explanations in 160 byte messages.
Which again, identifies the nit-pickers as utter fools.
According to the NYT, once any dwelling is built in a forest, the forest becomes a “wildland-urban interface”. Fairy stories will have to be rewritten: “One upon a time there lived a witch in a cottage deep in a wildland-urban interface…”
Is Kenji a better journalist than Kendra?
Technically it is or should be an urban interface forest fire (or wildfire or wth you want to call it).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143622813001446
To make my point clearer – an urban interface forest fire as opposed to, for example, an urban interface housefire. An urban interface fire is not a kind of fire.
Because, as far as I know, the urban interface is not flammable as it is only a concept and not a real thing.