Absolutely. It's a misinformation-driven system. Interesting to watch, as our forests in the West hit densities that guarantee crown-fires (total burn) from here-out.
Let's not forget those PSPS power outages! They used to just be a California thing, but now everybody is jumping on. Hey why spend millions on system maintenance when you can just turn the power off. Avoided cost, right?
Right? We're now seeing that behavior in Colorado as a result of the Marshall Fire. In our case, we pissed off the power company and now they're showing us what happens when we get what 'we' asked for ... wild times!
So I did some looking, it appears every State from the Rockies West are doing PSPS outages now, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, west to the ocean.
It seems to me, Wes, that you have portrayed well the current state of affairs. But the suppression of Western fires by humans began many decades before the current phase of intense development. I spent a lot of time long ago as a kid in and around the Roosevelt National Forest. Among much else, knew a woman who for decades spent a lot of time in a fire tower up on Deadman Mountain. Trying to help find fires so they could be suppressed.
You're absolutely right -- fire suppression started as soon as European-descended settlers started building in the region. Fire suppression in these fire-dependent environments has ramped up bigger and more sophisticated than ever, and with more resources, as more people press against these fire-dependent environments. Instead of these old fire look-outs, we now have satellites spotting ignitions (see, GOES-R), and we have a panoptic surveillance of the landscape with large numbers of people with eyes on it and with the ability to communicate quickly. We've taken the old systems and amplified them. Those building in and against the WUI create more demand for fire suppression, more sophisticated technologies as the threats get harder and harder to manage. And through it all, there's a society-wide misunderstanding of the relationship between human structures, beliefs, and the dimensions that drive wildfires -- and the importance of wildfires in the West as a core ecosystem function. It sounds like you get it, which is awesome. Thanks for reading!
Definitely. That's because of the damage to human structures (houses, cabins, stores, etc), and the costs of activating advanced fire crews for fighting these fires. The financial costs of these fires to taxpayers are astronomical -- especially when they enter the human domestic space. Wildfires tear through wildlands in the West all the time, but they don't make the news if towns and homes aren't threatened. They charge people like crazy for starting fires all thanks to their activation of this endemic feature of the West's environment -- the propensity to burn quickly, easily, and gladly.
Ugh, decades of mismanagement, suppression of natural fires, ya can’t make this stuff up!
Absolutely. It's a misinformation-driven system. Interesting to watch, as our forests in the West hit densities that guarantee crown-fires (total burn) from here-out.
Let's not forget those PSPS power outages! They used to just be a California thing, but now everybody is jumping on. Hey why spend millions on system maintenance when you can just turn the power off. Avoided cost, right?
Right? We're now seeing that behavior in Colorado as a result of the Marshall Fire. In our case, we pissed off the power company and now they're showing us what happens when we get what 'we' asked for ... wild times!
So I did some looking, it appears every State from the Rockies West are doing PSPS outages now, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, west to the ocean.
It seems to me, Wes, that you have portrayed well the current state of affairs. But the suppression of Western fires by humans began many decades before the current phase of intense development. I spent a lot of time long ago as a kid in and around the Roosevelt National Forest. Among much else, knew a woman who for decades spent a lot of time in a fire tower up on Deadman Mountain. Trying to help find fires so they could be suppressed.
You're absolutely right -- fire suppression started as soon as European-descended settlers started building in the region. Fire suppression in these fire-dependent environments has ramped up bigger and more sophisticated than ever, and with more resources, as more people press against these fire-dependent environments. Instead of these old fire look-outs, we now have satellites spotting ignitions (see, GOES-R), and we have a panoptic surveillance of the landscape with large numbers of people with eyes on it and with the ability to communicate quickly. We've taken the old systems and amplified them. Those building in and against the WUI create more demand for fire suppression, more sophisticated technologies as the threats get harder and harder to manage. And through it all, there's a society-wide misunderstanding of the relationship between human structures, beliefs, and the dimensions that drive wildfires -- and the importance of wildfires in the West as a core ecosystem function. It sounds like you get it, which is awesome. Thanks for reading!
What is interesting is the arrest of countless individuals charged with arson after every major fire.
Definitely. That's because of the damage to human structures (houses, cabins, stores, etc), and the costs of activating advanced fire crews for fighting these fires. The financial costs of these fires to taxpayers are astronomical -- especially when they enter the human domestic space. Wildfires tear through wildlands in the West all the time, but they don't make the news if towns and homes aren't threatened. They charge people like crazy for starting fires all thanks to their activation of this endemic feature of the West's environment -- the propensity to burn quickly, easily, and gladly.