EISPIRATEN

This thread is for discussing any aspect of wildfires: the history, the causes and effects, what to do about them, your general view or feelings on the matter, etc. This topic tends to get political, so if you debate another forum member, please keep it polite and civil.

I'll begin with some simple history. Using the WiFire map, I looked at the last twenty years of wildfires in the San Gabriels. It appears that roughly 80-85% of the range now has burned in the last two decades. (Note that the map has not been updated for the recent Ranch2 Fire in Roberts Canyon.)



1. Sand Fire
2. Station Fire
3. Bobcat Fire
4. Curve Fire
5. Williams Fire
6. Grand Prix Fire
7. Blue Cut Fire

I labelled some of the largest fires based on memory and a bit of googling. Let me know if I made any mistakes.

The majority of Eaton Canyon and Little Santa Anita have not burned in some time, as well as much of the high country around Mt. Baldy.

Historically forests in the western USA grow, burn, and regrow. They don't require human intervention to burn, but sometimes we help the process along on purpose or by accident. Some say that wildfire is good for the forests, yet it is too often the cause of tragedy for humans and other animals living in or near the mountains.

Another basic, historical point is that even though a whole wilderness burns, this does not mean that everything was destroyed. Large and healthy trees often survive and live for centuries, and the wetter canyon bottoms often don't burn very much. Treeless slopes and ridges might be completely barren immediately after the fire, but new plants should appear soon, and after a few years the place will start looking nice again.

There's an interesting discussion of increasing fire frequency on a state level in today's LA Times:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/califo ... 0col1-main

My hope is that the speed of the current Bobcat fire will result in the beneficial kind of fire that clears out a lot of vegetation but moves on and spares mature trees that will survive and thrive.

On the other hand, my fear is that some spots will end up as a relatively permanent forest graveyard like you find on Ontario/Bighorn ridge - skeleton forest that hasn't been renewed after 40 years.

I will say that it seems like starting around 2003 or so, pretty much every part of the range has had its turn with fire. I do not know if the pockets of pine trees on north-facing slopes at lower elevations will regrow. There remain standing a few charred trunks in many places that serve as a reminder of the altered vegetation map of the range now. In addition, the natural function of many watersheds has been interrupted with dams, debris basins, check dams which often lead to dead-zone silt fields right at the mouth of what were once a critical green zones and might have served as anchors to help the vegetation start to regrow.

Of course I don't actually know anything at all about any of this - just speculatin'...

http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/new ... 412ef.html

Speaking of causes....
".....As the rangers detained him, the man began incriminating himself in connection with events beyond the rock-throwing. ....He talked about the homicide of five people up in the mountains of Big Sur at the origin of the fire.....Drug smuggling vessels, known as panga boats, have turned up along the shore. In October, a body was dumped near Big Sur businesses. Earlier this month, a woman claimed that while she was driving down Old Coast Road on tree trimming business, she was stopped by a booby trap – nails in a board laid across the dirt road – and said four armed men appeared and started yelling. She reported what happened and a SWAT team deployed to the area found not a trace of the armed men, but they did discover a cannabis grow...."

That's an interesting map, basically looks like everything has burned relatively recently. My recollection of these fires is that they were primarily front range, although that's obviously faulty. Those would be easier to contain due to accessibility, this Bobcat blaze seems to be harder to fight due to the terrain.

walker wrote: On the other hand, my fear is that some spots will end up as a relatively permanent forest graveyard like you find on Ontario/Bighorn ridge - skeleton forest that hasn't been renewed after 40 years.

This paper uses the Thunder Fire as an example to justify the need for prescribed burning.





I can't find a really detailed analysis of the dead zone on Ontario-Bighorn ridge, but it looks like a combination of old chaparral and Santa Ana winds helped the fire devastate the tree population in that area. Perhaps the fire got so hot and big along that northfacing ridgeline that it ate through the protective bark layers.

JeffH wrote: My recollection of these fires is that they were primarily front range, although that's obviously faulty. Those would be easier to contain due to accessibility, this Bobcat blaze seems to be harder to fight due to the terrain.

There are a lot of factors in containment. For Bobcat they had trouble getting resources due to the crazy amount of active fires. Then the lack of wind caused smoke and visibility issues and planes couldn't fly. Also, property and cities were being threatened on all sides, so the initial focus was on defense not containment.

Driving on 210 today toward Glendora, the sign at Foothill Blvd says "Brush fire Azusa Cyn". That doesn't sound so bad - at what point does it turn into a forest fire?

JeffH wrote: Driving on 210 today toward Glendora, the sign at Foothill Blvd says "Brush fire Azusa Cyn". That doesn't sound so bad - at what point does it turn into a forest fire?

Both are types of wildfire, so there might be some overlap in usage. My guess is that a brush fire becomes a forest fire when it enters a forested area. But since the Gabes have a mixture of brush and forest, the terms might be used interchangeably.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bi ... e-n1242671

Oct. 11, 2020, 3:04 AM PDT
By Tim Stelloh
ALAMEDA, Calif. — As California's record wildfires approached 4 million acres earlier this month, the state's top fire official compared the serial conflagrations to a pivotal event in American history — "The Big Burn" of 1910.
The century-old blaze, which tore through millions of acres in the West, transformed American wildland firefighting into the profession it is today: a force that responds to blazes with mass mobilizations of air tankers, bulldozers and "troops," as the firefighters are often called.
The official, Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, suggested that 2020 could mark another turning point.
"The science that was developed to do all those things at that point in time and carried forward 100 years — it didn't do the right thing," he said. "It didn't do the thing we needed it to do right now."
"Every acre of California can and will burn someday," he added. "We need to embrace that and become resilient to it."
Wildland fire experts have been pushing California to change some of those practices for years, but in interviews, they were skeptical that the massive fires and the smoke-choked skies of 2020 will prove to be as pivotal as 1910.
"Maybe this historic event along the whole West Coast will make us hit the reset button," said Timothy Ingalsbee, a former wildland firefighter-turned-fire ecologist who is executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. "Instead of throwing more blood and treasure at this endless, escalating and unwinnable war on wildfire, we shift the paradigm and stake out a new relationship with fire on the land."
"Coming from Cal Fire," he added, "I'll believe it when I see it."
...

HikeUp wrote: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bi ... e-n1242671

.......
"Coming from Cal Fire," he added, "I'll believe it when I see it."
...

Skeptical Jeff thinks they have a government-funded business empire to protect along with saying they care about the land.

"The science that was developed to do all those things at that point in time and carried forward 100 years — it didn't do the right thing," he said. "It didn't do the thing we needed it to do right now."

The 100-year fire? I guess a forested region turns into an apocalyptic tinderbox after a hundred years or so, especially if you focus on containing and extinguishing the majority of wildfires that start, and thus let the dead matter pile up.

Sean wrote:

"The science that was developed to do all those things at that point in time and carried forward 100 years — it didn't do the right thing," he said. "It didn't do the thing we needed it to do right now."

The 100-year fire? I guess a forested region turns into an apocalyptic tinderbox after a hundred years or so, especially if you focus on containing and extinguishing the majority of wildfires that start, and thus let the dead matter pile up.

I'll just say that the job of CalFire is to stop fires. Its the job of the forest service to set fires.
They, the FS, dont care at all about the land...see how nothing has changed in the video. Fire = bad.


Its basically a landowner who lets the vegetation grow into a jungle aka utopia, aka the permanent forest, and then blames the fire dept no matter what...how little or how much damage was done. Its beyond nonsense...but Trump signed with these idiots for us to pay for fire costs, instead of paying for prescribed fire costs.
Only good part of it is that National Parks continue to set fires.

Some aftermath from my walk up Smith Mountain.....

New growth


Smith Saddle


More new growth


Clear line of demarcation. I think since fire normally moves uphill it didn't head down the other side.