Special note by The Firefly Innovations on the article:-<\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n- This is a good step but has to be managed and also the flood risk needs to be managed.<\/li>\n
- But it is only one step. There has to be a comprehensive approach. Via Head-on you can now help<\/li>\n
- Therefore we ask for your help.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n
- You can now also play a key role click & learn what happens and<\/li>\n
- how you can join \u201cClick learn and donate<\/a>\u201c<\/strong>\u00a0to reduce the wildfire impact.<\/li>\n
- and stand a chance to win an $10,000 African Safari for your fires station and<\/li>\n
- \u00a0for your family<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
California wildfires: Fighting fires with fire<\/span><\/a><\/h4>\nPINECREST \u2013 The answer to the problem of California\u2019s catastrophic megafires can be found in the ashes of this forest, where clusters of fragrant sugar pines stand strong, elegant and healthy.<\/p>\n
Bark is charred. Logs are charcoal. But a strategy of selective logging, followed by a mannerly \u201cprescribed burn,\u201d has created a forest as clean and safe as a cathedral.<\/p>\n
\u201cFire will always be part of California.The question is, are we going to burn on our terms?\u201d said ecologist Eric Knapp, on a hike through his research project in this natural laboratory at Stanislaus Tuolumne Experimental Forest, a 1,700-acre U.S. Forest Service area in the central Sierra Nevada.<\/p>\n
The alternative, say scientists, is a continued sequence of fires that start during the most extreme weather conditions, ignite dense fuel, then spread ferociously out of control.<\/p>\n
As the Delta Fire races through a swath of Shasta-Trinity National Forest and private timberland \u2013 forcing the weekend closure of a nearly 50-mile stretch of Interstate 5 north of Redding, California\u2019s link to Oregon \u2014 policymakers will look to such research to guide the state\u2019s proposed new commitment of $1 billion to reduce the risk of megawildfires across the state.<\/p>\n
The legislation, if signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, commits $165 million a year for five years to thin forests and $35 million a year for five years to fund prescribed burning projects.<\/p>\n
The majority of the forests now burning in the fast-moving Delta Fire haven\u2019t seen fire since the early 1900s, when records were first kept, according to Knapp.<\/p>\n
\nA similar fate could await other woodlands. We\u2019re far behind in forest management, according to John Laird, California\u2019s secretary for Natural Resources. About 500,000 acres of forest each year need to be treated in California; last year, we treated only half that.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA walk through almost any woods in California reveals the immensity of the problem.\u00a0 Many forests of the Sierra Nevada are two to three times denser than they were historically, when small and frequent fires were routine, say scientists.<\/p>\n
Crowded trees struggled to compete for water, especially during the two severe and sustained droughts of 1987-1992 and 2012-2017. Stress weakened their natural defenses. Populations of predatory bark beetles surged. Forest floors are carpeted with debris.<\/p>\n
About 129 million trees now stand ready to ignite.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mess of a forest,\u201d said Knapp of the U.S. Forest Service, as he hiked through thick branches of sugar pine, dubbed \u201cthe king of the conifers\u201d by naturalist John Muir, on an unthinned and unburned parcel of the experimental plots. The research forest was established in 1943 to study how different management techniques affect a landscape.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, over the past century we\u2019ve been snuffing out every spark.<\/p>\n
This absolutist attitude to wildfires initially made sense. America was stunned by \u201cThe Great Fire of 1910\u201d in Idaho and Montana, which killed 87 people and burned three million acres, including several entire towns. In its aftermath, the U.S. Forest Service promoted a \u201c10 a.m.\u201d policy, with the goal of suppressing all fires by 10 a.m. of the day following their report.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuels have been accumulating for decades now, without any intervention,\u201d said Jim Branham of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy.<\/p>\n
About 98 percent of all wildfires are suppressed before they reach 300 acres in size.![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Stanislaus-Tuolumne-.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat happens to the other two percent of fires? They escape containment and explode into \u201cmegafires\u201d in fuel-loaded forests, under often extreme weather conditions, such as heat and high winds.<\/p>\n
The consequences of \u201cmegafires\u201d are far more catastrophic than historic burns. Firefighters perish. Entire stands of trees are incinerated. Heat sterilizes the forest floor. And nearby communities are put at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem has come back to bite us in the butt,\u201d said plant ecologist Malcolm North of UC Davis, who studies the role of fire in the Teakettle Experimental Forest, near Fresno.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s sequence of \u201cmegafires\u201d has been so severe that Cal Fire says it\u2019s running out of money and needs another $234 million to get through the season. The state will likely dip into budget reserves for the eighth time in 10 years to cover the cost of suppression.<\/p>\n
Our fecund forests grow more flammable every day. The state\u2019s Climate Change Assessment report, released last month, predicts that the acreage consumed by wildfires in an average year will soar 77 percent by the end of the century. That\u2019s about a half-million acres of additional wildfires each year \u2014 the equivalent of two Carr Fires.<\/p>\n
Knapp\u2019s experimental plots use two different approaches to logging, conducted in 2011. In some, trees were removed uniformly. They stand like a regimen of soldiers, well-spaced and similar in age. In others, they were removed in groups, leaving clusters of trees ranging in age and size to remain.<\/p>\n
But logging alone isn\u2019t enough, because it\u2019s not thorough enough, say scientists.\u00a0\u201cWe can\u2019t thin our way out of this problem,\u201d said North.<\/p>\n
Following logging, prescribed burns were set to Knapp\u2019s plots in 2013. Because forests are logged, with trees removed, the fire is less intense and\u00a0easier to control, he said.<\/p>\n
Burning is a carefully choreographed dance, involving teams of 50 or 60 people, as well as fire engines and hoses. The day starts at dawn, with a meteorologist watching weather, wind and humidity. Each site has a secured perimeter, cleared of debris.<\/p>\n
Wielding a \u201cdrip torch,\u201d which drops a gas-diesel mix, crews ignite spots or stripes of the forest. Because flames want to run uphill, they do the reverse, called \u201cback burning,\u201d starting high and then dropping down a ridge. The fire ends at each strip of black char.\u00a0 Any rogue flames are quickly doused with water.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s slow and tedious work. The size of each burn is limited by how much can be done in one day; the average fire averages only 90 to 100 acres in size.\u00a0 Afterwards, crews stay to monitor and mop up.<\/p>\n
In the months and years that follow logging and fires, Knapp\u2019s team tracks the forest changes, studying plant growth and wildlife.<\/p>\n
The \u201cclustered\u201d approach to thinning sugar pines seems the best, slowing future fires. \u201cIt breaks up the stand, creating fuel discontinuity into the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Striding through a meadow of ceanothus and manzanita shrubs, he pointed out the diversity in the new vegetation, creating food for wildlife and room for species like oak, white fir and cedar.<\/p>\n
A 185-foot tall sugar pine, its canopy green and glorious, reached for the sky. Below it, tiny pine seedlings poked through the duff. Bumblebees hovered around thistle blossoms. A garter snake slithered into a hole.<\/p>\n
To be sure, prescribed burns are controversial. In 2000, a burn escaped control and destroyed 200 buildings, leaving people homeless. And they create smoke, causing breathing problems.\u00a0 Logging is also controversial.\u00a0The Sierra Club California urges the state to instead tighten building codes, better enforce rules requiring defensible space and limit development in high-risk areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we really only have two options,\u201d said North.\u201cWe can continue with what we\u2019re doing, kicking the can down the road,\u201d he said. \u201cOr we can be pro-active, putting the instrument of fire back on the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Re Blog ” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
Re Blog from<\/strong><\/span>:-\u00a0\u00a0The Mercury News<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2018\/09\/09\/megafires-fighting-fire-with-fire-could-be-the-key-to-stopping-destructive-out-of-control-blazes\/<\/a><\/p>\nBy\u00a0LISA M. KRIEGER<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0lkrieger@bayareanewsgroup.com<\/a>\u00a0| Bay Area News Group<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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Develop your innovation skills<\/span><\/h4>\nand<\/p>\n
build a better future\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_button admin_label=”Button” button_url=”http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/?p=30751″ url_new_window=”off” button_text=”Back to the innovation blog” button_alignment=”center” background_layout=”light” custom_button=”on” button_letter_spacing=”0″ button_use_icon=”default” button_icon_placement=”right” button_on_hover=”on” button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ button_text_size=”12″]<\/p>\n
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First-responder support posts<\/span><\/h3>\nClick for the support blog<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” src=”http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Boob-for-upgrade.gif” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”left” sticky=”off” align=”center” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” url=”http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/first-responders-support-blog\/”]<\/p>\n
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[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”on” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” padding_mobile=”off” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title admin_label=”Post Title” title=”on” meta=”off” author=”off” date=”off” categories=”off” comments=”off” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”background” parallax_effect=”off” parallax_method=”on” text_orientation=”center” text_color=”light” text_background=”on” text_bg_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.56)” module_bg_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0)” title_all_caps=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] [\/et_pb_post_title][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] Crews ignite a prescribed burn in California’s Stanislaus-Tuolumne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation-related"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33701,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699\/revisions\/33701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
California wildfires: Fighting fires with fire<\/span><\/a><\/h4>\nPINECREST \u2013 The answer to the problem of California\u2019s catastrophic megafires can be found in the ashes of this forest, where clusters of fragrant sugar pines stand strong, elegant and healthy.<\/p>\n
Bark is charred. Logs are charcoal. But a strategy of selective logging, followed by a mannerly \u201cprescribed burn,\u201d has created a forest as clean and safe as a cathedral.<\/p>\n
\u201cFire will always be part of California.The question is, are we going to burn on our terms?\u201d said ecologist Eric Knapp, on a hike through his research project in this natural laboratory at Stanislaus Tuolumne Experimental Forest, a 1,700-acre U.S. Forest Service area in the central Sierra Nevada.<\/p>\n
The alternative, say scientists, is a continued sequence of fires that start during the most extreme weather conditions, ignite dense fuel, then spread ferociously out of control.<\/p>\n
As the Delta Fire races through a swath of Shasta-Trinity National Forest and private timberland \u2013 forcing the weekend closure of a nearly 50-mile stretch of Interstate 5 north of Redding, California\u2019s link to Oregon \u2014 policymakers will look to such research to guide the state\u2019s proposed new commitment of $1 billion to reduce the risk of megawildfires across the state.<\/p>\n
The legislation, if signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, commits $165 million a year for five years to thin forests and $35 million a year for five years to fund prescribed burning projects.<\/p>\n
The majority of the forests now burning in the fast-moving Delta Fire haven\u2019t seen fire since the early 1900s, when records were first kept, according to Knapp.<\/p>\n
\nA similar fate could await other woodlands. We\u2019re far behind in forest management, according to John Laird, California\u2019s secretary for Natural Resources. About 500,000 acres of forest each year need to be treated in California; last year, we treated only half that.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA walk through almost any woods in California reveals the immensity of the problem.\u00a0 Many forests of the Sierra Nevada are two to three times denser than they were historically, when small and frequent fires were routine, say scientists.<\/p>\n
Crowded trees struggled to compete for water, especially during the two severe and sustained droughts of 1987-1992 and 2012-2017. Stress weakened their natural defenses. Populations of predatory bark beetles surged. Forest floors are carpeted with debris.<\/p>\n
About 129 million trees now stand ready to ignite.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mess of a forest,\u201d said Knapp of the U.S. Forest Service, as he hiked through thick branches of sugar pine, dubbed \u201cthe king of the conifers\u201d by naturalist John Muir, on an unthinned and unburned parcel of the experimental plots. The research forest was established in 1943 to study how different management techniques affect a landscape.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, over the past century we\u2019ve been snuffing out every spark.<\/p>\n
This absolutist attitude to wildfires initially made sense. America was stunned by \u201cThe Great Fire of 1910\u201d in Idaho and Montana, which killed 87 people and burned three million acres, including several entire towns. In its aftermath, the U.S. Forest Service promoted a \u201c10 a.m.\u201d policy, with the goal of suppressing all fires by 10 a.m. of the day following their report.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuels have been accumulating for decades now, without any intervention,\u201d said Jim Branham of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy.<\/p>\n
About 98 percent of all wildfires are suppressed before they reach 300 acres in size.<\/a><\/p>\nWhat happens to the other two percent of fires? They escape containment and explode into \u201cmegafires\u201d in fuel-loaded forests, under often extreme weather conditions, such as heat and high winds.<\/p>\n
The consequences of \u201cmegafires\u201d are far more catastrophic than historic burns. Firefighters perish. Entire stands of trees are incinerated. Heat sterilizes the forest floor. And nearby communities are put at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem has come back to bite us in the butt,\u201d said plant ecologist Malcolm North of UC Davis, who studies the role of fire in the Teakettle Experimental Forest, near Fresno.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s sequence of \u201cmegafires\u201d has been so severe that Cal Fire says it\u2019s running out of money and needs another $234 million to get through the season. The state will likely dip into budget reserves for the eighth time in 10 years to cover the cost of suppression.<\/p>\n
Our fecund forests grow more flammable every day. The state\u2019s Climate Change Assessment report, released last month, predicts that the acreage consumed by wildfires in an average year will soar 77 percent by the end of the century. That\u2019s about a half-million acres of additional wildfires each year \u2014 the equivalent of two Carr Fires.<\/p>\n
Knapp\u2019s experimental plots use two different approaches to logging, conducted in 2011. In some, trees were removed uniformly. They stand like a regimen of soldiers, well-spaced and similar in age. In others, they were removed in groups, leaving clusters of trees ranging in age and size to remain.<\/p>\n
But logging alone isn\u2019t enough, because it\u2019s not thorough enough, say scientists.\u00a0\u201cWe can\u2019t thin our way out of this problem,\u201d said North.<\/p>\n
Following logging, prescribed burns were set to Knapp\u2019s plots in 2013. Because forests are logged, with trees removed, the fire is less intense and\u00a0easier to control, he said.<\/p>\n
Burning is a carefully choreographed dance, involving teams of 50 or 60 people, as well as fire engines and hoses. The day starts at dawn, with a meteorologist watching weather, wind and humidity. Each site has a secured perimeter, cleared of debris.<\/p>\n
Wielding a \u201cdrip torch,\u201d which drops a gas-diesel mix, crews ignite spots or stripes of the forest. Because flames want to run uphill, they do the reverse, called \u201cback burning,\u201d starting high and then dropping down a ridge. The fire ends at each strip of black char.\u00a0 Any rogue flames are quickly doused with water.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s slow and tedious work. The size of each burn is limited by how much can be done in one day; the average fire averages only 90 to 100 acres in size.\u00a0 Afterwards, crews stay to monitor and mop up.<\/p>\n
In the months and years that follow logging and fires, Knapp\u2019s team tracks the forest changes, studying plant growth and wildlife.<\/p>\n
The \u201cclustered\u201d approach to thinning sugar pines seems the best, slowing future fires. \u201cIt breaks up the stand, creating fuel discontinuity into the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Striding through a meadow of ceanothus and manzanita shrubs, he pointed out the diversity in the new vegetation, creating food for wildlife and room for species like oak, white fir and cedar.<\/p>\n
A 185-foot tall sugar pine, its canopy green and glorious, reached for the sky. Below it, tiny pine seedlings poked through the duff. Bumblebees hovered around thistle blossoms. A garter snake slithered into a hole.<\/p>\n
To be sure, prescribed burns are controversial. In 2000, a burn escaped control and destroyed 200 buildings, leaving people homeless. And they create smoke, causing breathing problems.\u00a0 Logging is also controversial.\u00a0The Sierra Club California urges the state to instead tighten building codes, better enforce rules requiring defensible space and limit development in high-risk areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we really only have two options,\u201d said North.\u201cWe can continue with what we\u2019re doing, kicking the can down the road,\u201d he said. \u201cOr we can be pro-active, putting the instrument of fire back on the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Re Blog ” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
Re Blog from<\/strong><\/span>:-\u00a0\u00a0The Mercury News<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2018\/09\/09\/megafires-fighting-fire-with-fire-could-be-the-key-to-stopping-destructive-out-of-control-blazes\/<\/a><\/p>\nBy\u00a0LISA M. KRIEGER<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0lkrieger@bayareanewsgroup.com<\/a>\u00a0| Bay Area News Group<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Develop your innovation skills<\/span><\/h4>\nand<\/p>\n
build a better future\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_button admin_label=”Button” button_url=”http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/?p=30751″ url_new_window=”off” button_text=”Back to the innovation blog” button_alignment=”center” background_layout=”light” custom_button=”on” button_letter_spacing=”0″ button_use_icon=”default” button_icon_placement=”right” button_on_hover=”on” button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ button_text_size=”12″]<\/p>\n
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[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”on” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” padding_mobile=”off” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title admin_label=”Post Title” title=”on” meta=”off” author=”off” date=”off” categories=”off” comments=”off” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”background” parallax_effect=”off” parallax_method=”on” text_orientation=”center” text_color=”light” text_background=”on” text_bg_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.56)” module_bg_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0)” title_all_caps=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] [\/et_pb_post_title][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] Crews ignite a prescribed burn in California’s Stanislaus-Tuolumne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation-related"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33701,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699\/revisions\/33701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
A walk through almost any woods in California reveals the immensity of the problem.\u00a0 Many forests of the Sierra Nevada are two to three times denser than they were historically, when small and frequent fires were routine, say scientists.<\/p>\n
Crowded trees struggled to compete for water, especially during the two severe and sustained droughts of 1987-1992 and 2012-2017. Stress weakened their natural defenses. Populations of predatory bark beetles surged. Forest floors are carpeted with debris.<\/p>\n
About 129 million trees now stand ready to ignite.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mess of a forest,\u201d said Knapp of the U.S. Forest Service, as he hiked through thick branches of sugar pine, dubbed \u201cthe king of the conifers\u201d by naturalist John Muir, on an unthinned and unburned parcel of the experimental plots. The research forest was established in 1943 to study how different management techniques affect a landscape.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, over the past century we\u2019ve been snuffing out every spark.<\/p>\n
This absolutist attitude to wildfires initially made sense. America was stunned by \u201cThe Great Fire of 1910\u201d in Idaho and Montana, which killed 87 people and burned three million acres, including several entire towns. In its aftermath, the U.S. Forest Service promoted a \u201c10 a.m.\u201d policy, with the goal of suppressing all fires by 10 a.m. of the day following their report.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuels have been accumulating for decades now, without any intervention,\u201d said Jim Branham of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy.<\/p>\n
About 98 percent of all wildfires are suppressed before they reach 300 acres in size. What happens to the other two percent of fires? They escape containment and explode into \u201cmegafires\u201d in fuel-loaded forests, under often extreme weather conditions, such as heat and high winds.<\/p>\n The consequences of \u201cmegafires\u201d are far more catastrophic than historic burns. Firefighters perish. Entire stands of trees are incinerated. Heat sterilizes the forest floor. And nearby communities are put at risk.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem has come back to bite us in the butt,\u201d said plant ecologist Malcolm North of UC Davis, who studies the role of fire in the Teakettle Experimental Forest, near Fresno.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s sequence of \u201cmegafires\u201d has been so severe that Cal Fire says it\u2019s running out of money and needs another $234 million to get through the season. The state will likely dip into budget reserves for the eighth time in 10 years to cover the cost of suppression.<\/p>\n Our fecund forests grow more flammable every day. The state\u2019s Climate Change Assessment report, released last month, predicts that the acreage consumed by wildfires in an average year will soar 77 percent by the end of the century. That\u2019s about a half-million acres of additional wildfires each year \u2014 the equivalent of two Carr Fires.<\/p>\n Knapp\u2019s experimental plots use two different approaches to logging, conducted in 2011. In some, trees were removed uniformly. They stand like a regimen of soldiers, well-spaced and similar in age. In others, they were removed in groups, leaving clusters of trees ranging in age and size to remain.<\/p>\n But logging alone isn\u2019t enough, because it\u2019s not thorough enough, say scientists.\u00a0\u201cWe can\u2019t thin our way out of this problem,\u201d said North.<\/p>\n Following logging, prescribed burns were set to Knapp\u2019s plots in 2013. Because forests are logged, with trees removed, the fire is less intense and\u00a0easier to control, he said.<\/p>\n Burning is a carefully choreographed dance, involving teams of 50 or 60 people, as well as fire engines and hoses. The day starts at dawn, with a meteorologist watching weather, wind and humidity. Each site has a secured perimeter, cleared of debris.<\/p>\n Wielding a \u201cdrip torch,\u201d which drops a gas-diesel mix, crews ignite spots or stripes of the forest. Because flames want to run uphill, they do the reverse, called \u201cback burning,\u201d starting high and then dropping down a ridge. The fire ends at each strip of black char.\u00a0 Any rogue flames are quickly doused with water.<\/p>\n It\u2019s slow and tedious work. The size of each burn is limited by how much can be done in one day; the average fire averages only 90 to 100 acres in size.\u00a0 Afterwards, crews stay to monitor and mop up.<\/p>\n In the months and years that follow logging and fires, Knapp\u2019s team tracks the forest changes, studying plant growth and wildlife.<\/p>\n The \u201cclustered\u201d approach to thinning sugar pines seems the best, slowing future fires. \u201cIt breaks up the stand, creating fuel discontinuity into the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Striding through a meadow of ceanothus and manzanita shrubs, he pointed out the diversity in the new vegetation, creating food for wildlife and room for species like oak, white fir and cedar.<\/p>\n A 185-foot tall sugar pine, its canopy green and glorious, reached for the sky. Below it, tiny pine seedlings poked through the duff. Bumblebees hovered around thistle blossoms. A garter snake slithered into a hole.<\/p>\n To be sure, prescribed burns are controversial. In 2000, a burn escaped control and destroyed 200 buildings, leaving people homeless. And they create smoke, causing breathing problems.\u00a0 Logging is also controversial.\u00a0The Sierra Club California urges the state to instead tighten building codes, better enforce rules requiring defensible space and limit development in high-risk areas.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we really only have two options,\u201d said North.\u201cWe can continue with what we\u2019re doing, kicking the can down the road,\u201d he said. \u201cOr we can be pro-active, putting the instrument of fire back on the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Re Blog ” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n Re Blog from<\/strong><\/span>:-\u00a0\u00a0The Mercury News<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2018\/09\/09\/megafires-fighting-fire-with-fire-could-be-the-key-to-stopping-destructive-out-of-control-blazes\/<\/a><\/p>\n By\u00a0LISA M. KRIEGER<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0lkrieger@bayareanewsgroup.com<\/a>\u00a0| Bay Area News Group<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Sidebar” orientation=”right” area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ background_layout=”light” remove_border=”off”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_sidebar][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n and<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_button admin_label=”Button” button_url=”http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/?p=30751″ url_new_window=”off” button_text=”Back to the innovation blog” button_alignment=”center” background_layout=”light” custom_button=”on” button_letter_spacing=”0″ button_use_icon=”default” button_icon_placement=”right” button_on_hover=”on” button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ button_text_size=”12″]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_button][et_pb_divider admin_label=”Divider” color=”#ffffff” show_divider=”off” height=”60″ divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” src=”http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Boob-for-upgrade.gif” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”left” sticky=”off” align=”center” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” url=”http:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/first-responders-support-blog\/”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_image][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Sidebar” orientation=”right” area=”et_pb_widget_area_1″ background_layout=”light” remove_border=”off”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_sidebar][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”on” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” padding_mobile=”off” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title admin_label=”Post Title” title=”on” meta=”off” author=”off” date=”off” categories=”off” comments=”off” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”background” parallax_effect=”off” parallax_method=”on” text_orientation=”center” text_color=”light” text_background=”on” text_bg_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.56)” module_bg_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0)” title_all_caps=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] [\/et_pb_post_title][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] Crews ignite a prescribed burn in California’s Stanislaus-Tuolumne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation-related"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33701,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699\/revisions\/33701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefireflyinnovations.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\nDevelop your innovation skills<\/span><\/h4>\n
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