bcla
On our rugged Eastern foothills.....
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
My heart goes out to all of you and everyone suffering with these horrible fires. There really are no words.
I am wondering, however, is there aby way to possibly reduce the risk of these in the future? I remember learning way back in fourth grade when we were studying “forests”, etc.. that one thing that helps is to do “controlled” burns of the forest floor to get rid of the dry dead brush and allow for new growth. We were taught it also helps prevent wildfires.
Would this be feasible for states to implement? If they were to do smaller controlled burns in areas of high risk throughout the year, wouldn’t this help prevent some of the raging ones? I also realize the land mass involved is huge and a lot of what is burning is not necessarily forests. I also know there have been ongoing droughts which play a large part in this as well.
I guess I am just curious if there is “anything” that can be done to cut the risk going forward? It is just so horrible to see this happening year after year.
Praying the West Coast gets some relief soon.
Sure. I've been in certain areas during a controlled burn. Once I was in Yosemite when there were doing a controlled burn right in Yosemite Valley. I was driving by firefighters in those metallized heat resistant suits and they were using these things to apply fire to the brush. It was hazy as heck but frankly not as bad as the air is right now.
But what's to be done now after decades of putting out fires almost immediately? There used to be a lot more small fires where they'd take of protecting homes and lives over trying to save trees, but it shifted to putting out every little fire to the point where there's a pretty big buildup of underbrush.