California IS Dreaming

[_Jersey Girl]

well, comma....because the occurrence of wildfires is not necessarily "a bad thing", especially with regards to wilderness management. However, the only reason we are inundated with California wildfires is because of the destruction of man-made property...
when you notice that California has similar acreages of forest as many other states but dwarfs other states with almost 3x the households that are "at extreme risk"....which is where the policy-management criticism is valid.
So yeah, while "drought" conditions certainly increase risks for fires, the devastation to human habitation as always been the concern.

Who is arguing that damage to human habitat isn't a primary concern? I sure as hell didn't.

Yes, wildfire is a natural thinning agent in the wildnerness. We're not talking about wilderness areas or natural thinning agents, but rather areas populated with human beings and structures. The state is probably not in a position to dictate forest management to homeowners, though sure as hell their insurance companies are going to start dictating and when homeowners can't meet the criteria due to out of pocket expenses, they'll lose their insurance at least temporarily until they can find a company that will cover them and when they rebuild, they still won't be able to clear their property of burned or dense live trees for at least a decade.

You'll be happy to hear that I really don't need any advice or information from you regaring forest management. I live in a forest and have engaged mitigation practices for nearly 30 years. I've worked on reforestation projects essentially restocking forests post wildfire and have gone through wildfire myself. I'm also trained and educated by the Project Learning Tree organization funded by the American Forest Foundation to develop and deliver environmental education to children preschool through grade 5. That includes mitigation awareness.

So far as I am concerned, you are ill equipped to particpate on this topic or most any other topic in this forum beyond anything more than troll level and in light of the fact that in California lives, human habitat, and thousands of acres of forested land and animal habitat has been lost I think that you should take your cavalier comments and go “F” yourself.

But that's only my opinion.

[_Jersey Girl]

Trump has signed off on disaster funding for CA. I'm not entirely sure what this will cover--I'm guessing fire fighting efforts, perhaps equipment to cut fire breaks, clearing roads of trees and debris, that sort of thing.

As I indicated in a previous post, homeowners will face ongoing hardship. FEMA doesn't cover fire damage to private homes and structures. Homeowner's insurance (for those who had it and enough of it) will cover rebuild however, it will not cover removal of burned trees or thinning of live trees while at the same time, most insurance companies will demand that homeowners remove or thin trees creating a defensible space of 15-30-100 feet with specific criteria for each zone.

This is going to happen after the fact. And only after, gas lines and water lines have been tested and all power and utilities restored before the rebuild process can begin.

What that means is that perhaps a majority of homeowners will be dropped by their insurance companies for failure to comply with clearance objectives. Insurance policies cover up to a certain amount of landscaping only. Removal of trees isn't part of the package.

In our area, it takes at least $200 to drop, limb, chip, or stack and/or remove ONE tall pine and/or grind the stump. On our property alone it took all day to work on 14 trees with a crew of 10 men. Do the math in terms of time and money.

What homeowners will be facing, more likely than not, is a good decade of work and hardship in ahead of them. That's after they recover from the trauma of evacuation, loss of property and loss of life if they ever recover at all.

Did I forget to mention that going forward, when it does rain in these areas, homeowners and businesses will face flash floods due to soil erosion?

We haven't even addressed the plight of first responders, the level of trauma they experience, the danger to their own lives and how many of them are likely to commit suicide during their efforts or shortly thereafter.

No one should be making light of this tragedy and that is why someone like subhuman deserves nothing more than the back of the hand on a thread like this.

[_cinepro]

I recently listened to this podcast and was surprised to learn that there are relatively simple steps that homeowners can take that seriously reduce the risk of their homes getting burned down by a wildfire. It's not a "wall of fire" that destroys most homes; it's the floating embers.

Built to Burn

The houses were not burning because a wall of flames was racing through the community, destroying them. It was something else: embers. As wildfires burn, they generate embers that are lofted downwind ahead of the main body of the fire. And Cohen realized that most of the houses that burned had one, extremely problematic feature in common: the embers were accumulating in the crevices around their dry wood shingle roofs, and setting fire to the houses from above.

Across the street, in a development without wood roofs, most of the houses had survived. The problem was that some houses were built to burn.

It wasn’t a huge revelation that wood roofs were flammable — people had known that for ages. But for Cohen, it was a big moment. Because when he shifted his focus to the design of the homes, suddenly he found himself wondering if we were framing the whole problem of wildfire in the wrong way. Cohen wasn’t the first to have that thought, but he was the first to do extensive research into exactly how homes burn in wildfires.

I'm surprised insurance companies aren't mandating "fire resistant" building practices in any area of fire danger. I live in an area with moderate fire danger, so I'll actually be spending some time in the next few months implementing as many of these recommendations as possible.

[_canpakes]

I recently listened to this podcast and was surprised to learn that there are relatively simple steps that homeowners can take that seriously reduce the risk of their homes getting burned down by a wildfire. It's not a "wall of fire" that destroys most homes; it's the floating embers.

This is an excellent point and often overlooked.

I cannot remember offhand the name of the fire that ripped through several CA neighborhoods last year, but one of the causes of so many structures catching fire was the intrusion of embers into the attic venting system of those homes.

[_Jersey Girl]

You have it exactly right, cp. The fires typically start on the ground via man made causes. They travel up the trees climbing ladder fuels and once the wind catches them on top and the fire crowns, the wind spreads the fire. The embers catch under the vents and eaves of the roof (down chimneys in some cases) and also mulch spread around the landscaping as well as patio furniture/umbrellas which creates more embers flowing up to the roof.

If you know of a way to build a fire proof roof, I'd like to hear it.

In California, some homes have roof sprinklers. In our area, for example, that wouldn't have helped evacuated residents since all of our homes are on electric well systems and the power was shut down during the fire. (In winter during power outages we have no running water out here.)

When I became aware of a wildfire, I was lucky because I had a good 3 hours heads up. The first action I took (besides informing JB) was turning on our hose sprinklers, and moving them around the house in 30 minute intervals while we packed in an effort to drench the ground. I'd like to believe that it helped but I can't say for sure.

You'll notice, too, that in drought ridden areas, water is hard to come by. Responders do have ways of bringing in water however, I'm assuming in a situation as what I'm seeing in CA, it looks damn near impossible to set up temporary resevoirs of water to literally truck in water due to the magnitude of the event though they are lucky as hell to have the benefit of the super tankers. Even so, there's only so much they can do and it takes such an enormous effort it's almost beyond our ability to comprehend it.

I wanted to mention something else regarding insurance and fire mitigation. While homeowners will be instructed to mitigate around their homes (burned trees or live) in that series of 30-50-100 zones, if they have undeveloped property adjacent to theirs no matter how much they mitigate, they are still crap out of luck because the lot owners won't have to mitigate their property.

[_subgenius]

I recently listened to this podcast and was surprised to learn that there are relatively simple steps that homeowners can take that seriously reduce the risk of their homes getting burned down by a wildfire. It's not a "wall of fire" that destroys most homes; it's the floating embers.

Oh, its not the gun that kills people, it is the bullet....great point!

I'm surprised insurance companies aren't mandating "fire resistant" building practices in any area of fire danger. I live in an area with moderate fire danger, so I'll actually be spending some time in the next few months implementing as many of these recommendations as possible.

Um, California has incredibly detailed laws and ordinances with regards to fire resistant building practices...everything from exterior materials, overhang dimensions, building adjacent vegetation, setbacks, etc.
The real burden for "fire resistance" comes from the regulations and management practices we have seen in California over the past several decades. The data shows that number of fires has decreased but intensity and spread of fires has increased. This latter being a direct consequence of the absence of controlled burns, absence of waste lumber burns, and other various environmental regulations that are proving to be more harmful than what they sought to "regulate". Add that to the over development of and intrusion into these same fire prone areas and you get - voila! California heads in the sand.

[_canpakes]

I recently listened to this podcast and was surprised to learn that there are relatively simple steps that homeowners can take that seriously reduce the risk of their homes getting burned down by a wildfire. It's not a "wall of fire" that destroys most homes; it's the floating embers.

Oh, its not the gun that kills people, it is the bullet....great point!

I'm surprised insurance companies aren't mandating "fire resistant" building practices in any area of fire danger. I live in an area with moderate fire danger, so I'll actually be spending some time in the next few months implementing as many of these recommendations as possible.

Um, California has incredibly detailed laws and ordinances with regards to fire resistant building practices...everything from exterior materials, overhang dimensions, building adjacent vegetation, setbacks, etc.
The real burden for "fire resistance" comes from the regulations and management practices we have seen in California over the past several decades. The data shows that number of fires has decreased but intensity and spread of fires has increased. This latter being a direct consequence of the absence of controlled burns, absence of waste lumber burns, and other various environmental regulations that are proving to be more harmful than what they sought to "regulate". Add that to the over development of and intrusion into these same fire prone areas and you get - voila! California heads in the sand.

Fascinating. First you argue that the homeowner or builder shares no responsibility for how and where they build their house, and what they do to mitigate their risk in the surrounding argument, then you go on to suggest that a nanny state government should be imposing an unnatural cleansing of deadwood at public expense in every forest environment in an attempt to make all potential fires somehow less ‘intense’ for the folks that want to live in that environment.

Conservatives are a funny lot these days.