Forest Management

A place to explore the natural setting (geology, flora & fauna), people, constructed infrastructure and historical events that play and have played a part in shaping the Sierra Nevada as we know it today.
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Wandering Daisy
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Re: Forest Management

Post by Wandering Daisy »

My post is not meant to be defeatist. I just wanted to point out that "managing" the impact is reactive. Managing the root of the problem is pro-active, although much more difficult; requiring worldwide cooperation and significant sacrifices. Both need to be done, but just doing the former is not enough. Historically, significant changes have not been made until we are on the cliff of doom. Governments as a whole are not too good at looking ahead and sacrificing for something that seems distant. So yes, I am not too hopeful about that.

As for building codes, it is the rural more conservative areas where there is significant opposition to "government control" in spite of the need for it and that it really would help them. I do think that the concept of "safe space" around your house is easier to sell and more rural people would go for it if they just got a bit more funding and help.

Although it may be just "feel good", I am not just throwing up my hands; I am actively reducing my personal carbon footprint smaller.
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rlown
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Re: Forest Management

Post by rlown »

Carbon footprint reduction is overrated. We humans are who we are and there will never be a real reduction. Takes fuel to make stuff we all have.
We'll never have a global approach. Let the forests fix themselves because money won't fix it.
See the dozers they're using in the Caldor fire and the trucks they are loaded on? Carbon footprint bigtime. Even the CH-47's gulp 329 gallons/hr. The DC-10's burn 2550 gallons per hour when fully loaded. It is time to start thinning the forests a bit more. The lumber industry did more to clean up the forests before the environmentalists shut them down.
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SSSdave
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Re: Forest Management

Post by SSSdave »

Most wildfires are below public lands like NFS or BLM and that is why in such private blue oak savanna,digger/yellow pine, and chaparral they most often human caused start there. Places backpackers visit tend to be at higher elevations where nature has thinned forest naturally. The below map shows our state fire history with a year date slider atop vegetation types. Under the Layers icon window top right, Select Fuels...Surface Fuels and Fires...Historical Fires

https://firemap.sdsc.edu/

A similar more flexible caltopo map without date sliders:

https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=37.7268 ... mbh&a=fire

Given the recent decade of enormous fires, there is now much online information on fire safe building and construction though large numbers of Earth monkeys are resistant to doing anything, rather spending their time and money on usual inane activities with head down in a hole in the ground. IMO people ought not be allowed to build with wood in any of the hazard zones but rather concrete, steel, tempered glass or a list of other hi tech materials.

https://firemap.sdsc.edu/

https://ucanr.edu/sites/CentralSierraLi ... struction/

https://www.sfgate.com/california-wildf ... 102417.php

This map shows fire hazards in the state. Huge areas where people live in the red hazard zone incredibly vulnerable including much of the San Francisco Bay Area mountainous lands abutting urban areas like Los Gatos. Drive up the back streets in such residential communities and one will see large numbers of expensive mansions overflowing with vegetation landscaping. Don't want to as a minimum clear fuels around property? Then don't cry to the rest of us expecting bail outs when it burns.

https://ucanr.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View ... 5ec9f77506
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rlown
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Re: Forest Management

Post by rlown »

And that is why their insurance policies will not be renewed.
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dave54
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Re: Forest Management

Post by dave54 »

Chad Hansen's views on forest management are 30 years out of date. The notion that we should just walk away and let forests burn whenever and wherever they occur is long gone, and wishful thinking will not bring it back.
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rlown
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Re: Forest Management

Post by rlown »

Describe your perfect solution.

Mine would be clear out trees too close to each other, cut the bottom limbs of those trees left so as not to create a ladder fuel, more logging. Then, prescribed burns.. More fire roads as well in prep.
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c9h13no3
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Re: Forest Management

Post by c9h13no3 »

rlown wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:09 pm Describe your perfect solution.

Mine would be clear out trees too close to each other, cut the bottom limbs of those trees left so as not to create a ladder fuel
As a skier, I think we need to widely implement this change :derp:
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