re: Talked to a buddy that did search and rescue for the Paradise CA fire (Gunsafe related)

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Under extreme conditions a fire can give off 10,000 kilowatts or more per meter of fire front. This would mean flame heights of 50 meters or more and flame temperatures exceeding 1200°C (2,192° F). No chance

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My safe is rated for 1680° for 90 minutes. I would not think that a fast moving forest fire would maintain those temps for even an hour in one spot. I could be wrong though.

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My safe is rated for 1680° for 90 minutes. I would not think that a fast moving forest fire would maintain those temps for even an hour in one spot. I could be wrong though.

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Those fires started in the forest but they weren't really forest fires when they got to the neighborhoods. Chances are, you are absolutely right and you'd be fine.

But those fires burned the houses down to the slab, melted interior appliances to almost nothing, etc. I have no idea how long it takes to burn a house down to the slab, but my guess is that as said most safes would not be able to protect that.

Its one thing for the safe to not burn down, but how is a safe supposed to keep the inside temp under 350? Its a metal shell. If the outside is 1000 degrees, I just don't see the contents surviving very long. Then you are talking about a well insulated metal box. Once the temp inside gets to say 300 degrees, I'd imagine it could take hours for it to cool down. I don't think many guns are made to be at 250-300 degrees for 4-5 hours.

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He said the main issue with the fires is that there isn't logging on public lands any longer and too much brush and fuel.


This is exactly the current issue. The environmentalists want the land to be raw and untouched by humans. Most places they would come in and do control burns or remove the underbrush and dead vegetation.

The idea that Forrest fires are new to that area is absolutely laughable. The homes are new. If you are going to build a community next to a Forrest, you have to take some precautions to prevent things like this. They didn’t.

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Yeah, but dude said logging, not fires. It's the lack of controlled burns that's the issue, not the lack of logging.

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He has lived in CA for 40 years. He said the main issue with the fires is that there isn't logging on public lands any longer and too much brush and fuel. He said it has been dry but Climate Change is a bunch of bullshite it's the environmentalist causing the problems.

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You know, the two are not mutually exclusive.

There has absolutely been poor forest management out west. There has also absolutely been prolonged droughts and higher temperatures there. Throw in some exotic species of various types (e.g. pine beetles, bushier plants, etc.) to add to the fuel loads, and you end up with massive fires.

Also, the term controlled burn is a thing of the past. They are prescribed burns now, as any fire has the potential to get out of control.

it's not that simple to do a prescribed fire out west the fuels are so thick and the urbanization has made it extremely difficult

a 40 acre prescribed burn out west can take as many as 80 (yes 80!) people to make happen

lack of logging is an issue as well as the conifers are dropping needles and adding fuel

the issue there is the remoteness of a lot of these areas and lack of sawmills within proximity it's not economical for a logger to buy a stand of trees if he has to haul them 100 or 200 plus miles to a mill which may or may not be taking lumber to begin with

some forests out west pay to have someone come in and thin the stand, pile the trees, and burn them due to this or chip the lumber into piles and burn them all good lumber but it is what it is

there are lots of issues but it is also pretty silly to build a house in some of these areas

Listened to the joe rogan/Alex honnold podcast and the talked about the pine beetle problem creating tons of dead trees and fuel for the fires. He said there was a constant stream of log trucks leaving Yosemite to try to reduce the fire hazard. Also mentioned that pine beetles are becoming more of a problem due to mild winters since more of them survive the winter than historically.

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there are lots of issues but it is also pretty silly to build a house in some of these areas

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This is also a huge part of this story. Adds the human and more obvious economic element to an unnaturally inflated natural phenomenon.

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Managed forests, generally, do not suffer out of control wildfires.

Unmanaged ones do.


Period. Full stop.

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and out of control wildfire is nature's way of managing an unmanaged forest

You have to take into account how dry and windy it is. You can have an ember float away and cause a fire. I've put out a fire in a field before that got to be 5ft high when the grass was only 2ft high. This was in South LA too. I've also put out a fire that slowly burned 1/2ac of dry lawn. There was no sign of it stopping. It's best if it is just turned over to dirt

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I would say most are rated for 30 minutes at best.

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Bingo.

Unless you build a fire room around them, it's a joke.

My current house plans a a room built entirely of drywall. Floor included.

It may burn, but 5/8 drywall with fiberglass is very fire resistant.