West Coast Smoke, UGH!

[ericm979]

I worked doing habitat mapping in one of the wilderness areas burned by the '88 Yellowstone fires. The NPS had a program of letting natural caused fires burn if they were seemed "safe". Unfortunately in '88 a number of those fires combined to make a complex and it burned a lot more than expected. The political backlash set that program back a generation.

My state has lately gotten the message about doing control burns. A lot needs to be done but it's a start. But the feds own the majority of forest land in California. They need to get busy too. Some individual forests are working on it but the entire California USFS region (and really the whole west coast where it's dry in summer) needs to get going.

The build up in fuels due to fire suppression was well known when I was studying this stuff and working for the USFS in the '80s. What's lacking to fix it is political will and money. Maybe these fires will light a fire under some politicians, if you'll pardon the phrase.

After packing to evacuate due to a near by fire and taking a fresh look at the local forests, my plans for clearing our land have expanded.

 

[Diggin It]

I personally believe Zoning and building location restrictions could play a big role. Why are people building mansions in among 100' torches?

 

[Aquamoose]

I personally believe Zoning and building location restrictions could play a big role. Why are people building mansions in among 100' torches?

This!

 

[grsthegreat]

still sucks here. has gotten worse since yesterday.

 

[GeneV]

Who do you think are better stewards of the land/timber, loggers or a bunch of greenies? View attachment 669595
View attachment 669596
The top is what we would normally do in a Douglas fir thinning the bottom picture is of the greenie style thinning on public ground.

Alls I could add to this is we got a stretch of woods leading into our "subdivision" or whatever it is, basically we got a private road with something like 13 homes in a woodsy area, it's real nice here. But anyways, a conservation group bought that stretch of woods, which is good coz everybody was worried some business would have bought it and cleared it out, put some mart on there, that would suck. The bad though, they cleared it of invasive stuff like buckthorns, and now it sorta looks like your bottom pic. I liked it before when it was thick and woodsy, I call it chernobyl now coz it looks like a nuclear bomb went off in there.

 

[oosik]

Doesn't seem to make much difference which way the wind blows. I'm right in the middle, more or less, of all this mess. Also - it doesn't make me any happier - - CV-19 or wildfires.....I'm still inside, looking out.

Since this morning - it has gotten worse this afternoon.

 

[Skeans1]

Alls I could add to this is we got a stretch of woods leading into our "subdivision" or whatever it is, basically we got a private road with something like 13 homes in a woodsy area, it's real nice here. But anyways, a conservation group bought that stretch of woods, which is good coz everybody was worried some business would have bought it and cleared it out, put some mart on there, that would suck. The bad though, they cleared it of invasive stuff like buckthorns, and now it sorta looks like your bottom pic. I liked it before when it was thick and woodsy, I call it chernobyl now coz it looks like a nuclear bomb went off in there.

The bottom picture is from government ground it was a thin we did to their specs and it burned during these fires. That said we told them going into it with their prescription that it would be a fire waiting to happen, this job also required all roads to be removed or made impassable.

 

[dragoneggs]

Doesn't seem to make much difference which way the wind blows. I'm right in the middle, more or less, of all this mess. Also - it doesn't make me any happier - - CV-19 or wildfires.....I'm still inside, looking out.

Since this morning - it has gotten worse this afternoon.

The wind picked up to about 0.4 with gusts up to 2mph! It ain't clearing anytime soon and the bit of rain that was forecast today didn't materialize. Now they are saying our best hope for moisture isn't until Friday at 60% maybe amounting to a whopping 0.08in. Then more dry calm days for another week or so!

 

[Diggin It]

Smoke Plume image, east through New Jersey, New York and well out into the Atlantic:

https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/hms/fire-events/imgs/20200825_1800_US_Smoke.png

(Very large image, over 5M)

 

[RidgeHiker]

One of the fires in Oregon is about 5 miles from me. The air quality is currently measuring over 500. Even healthy young people are hacking and coughing. Our governor says she is directing OHSA to enforce work place air quality safety. I'm really curious to see how this works out.

Are you referring to the Phoenix - Talent fire? Is it still burning?