re: Climate Change is Cause of Wildfires, per NWF

I used to believe that, but I've seen longleaf get to the bottle brush stage without fire. The thing is, it had no other competition and took a lot longer. The fire just reduces competition for the young longleaf.

Good points.

I have a friend that used to work for the forest service in California. Those factors don't seem to have anything to do with their lack of burning. In fact, she said the California agency active spreads false information on why they promote certain fire management practices, mainly suppression through removal of certain vegetation communities.

Basically, their idea of fire suppression is to just clear the plant communities that are most susceptible to fire.

I love how you hillbillies who've never set foot in CA know how it is out here.

It doesn't rain from April tHrough November. Hard to manage a prescribed burn when it's almost always dry AF.

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I love how you hillbillies who've never set foot in CA know how it is out here.

It doesn't rain from April tHrough November. Hard to manage a prescribed burn when it's almost always dry AF.

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So either you believe climate change has drastically altered the rain patterns in CA, or you don't believe that fire regularly ran through those ecosystems. Which is it?

Those systems functioned perfectly fine with fire centuries ago, before Europeans populated the area.

Huh.

And here I was thinking that fire was the cause of wildfires

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Those systems functioned perfectly fine with fire centuries ago, before Europeans populated the area.

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Right. And we can just ignore the billions of dollars worth of homes and businesses that those Europeans built, because they are not a factor at all in how things are managed?

Here's a controlled burn that did not go as planned in New Mexico :

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The Cerro Grande Fire was a disastrous forest fire in New Mexico, United States of America, that occurred in May 2000. The fire started as a controlled burn, and became uncontrolled owing to high winds and drought conditions. Over 400 families in the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, lost their homes in the resulting 48,000-acre (190 km²) fire. Structures at Los Alamos National Laboratory were also destroyed or damaged, although without loss or destruction of any of the special nuclear material housed there. Amazingly, there was no loss of human life. The US General Accounting Office estimated total damage at $1 billion.

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I don't have a dog in this fight, but don't make it sound like people are idiots for not doing what YOU think they should do. It's not that simple.

Who's making anyone to sound like an idiot? My issue is that an organization (NWF) is pushing an agenda.

Without knowing the facts of that situation, it sounds like they tried to burn in conditions that were not very conducive. The winds could have been accounted for. This is why burners have to fill out a burn plan in Louisiana, to reduce the likelihood of such disasters.

I also NEVER SUGGESTED that natural burns should be the norm. Of course there are human considerations in the matter. But burns are conducted all the time by trained professionals that know what they are doing in less than conducive conditions. And if burns cannot be conducted, there are other means to reduce fuel loads.

The fact is, NWF is trying to pass this entire issue off as a climatic problem, without any consideration as to whether management is an issue. Based on what I've read and been told, the proper management is not being utilized, whether that be fire, mechanical, or other means.

The fact that California and the Forest Service would rather wipe out a particular vegetation community is just one piece of evidence. Instead of managing communities to reduce fuel loads and fire potential, they are creating an unstable system.