Off topic: talking fire (video)

Hearing what’s going on in Jasper right now is pretty mind blowing. It’s almost surreal to see, and brings back memories of Fort Mac.

The weather app on my computer includes fire maps and, when I zoom out, it’s amazing to see just how many fires there are right now. All along the west coast and the west central US states, there are fires, and the line of fire continues through BC and into Alaska. The fires spread across the north through the territories and the northern areas of the prairie provinces, reducing somewhat across northern Ontario, but increasing again in Quebec.

In other words, the boreal forest that covers much of Canada.

Of course, you’re going to hear an awful lot about why fires happen, as happens every year during fire season. This video looks at the data, and makes some very good points.

In another lifetime, before my husband became permanently disabled, he was an IT guy and part of a team contracted with Alberta’s Sustainable Resources department (I don’t even know if it exists anymore). He worked on the software used in forest management, and got to talk to a number of the scientists involved directly, to know what they needed out of their software.

They were very aware of the need for prescribed burns, and continually recommended them. That they weren’t being done was cause for a great deal of frustration.

As is mentioned in the video, it isn’t a matter of if this would happen, but when.

Unfortunately, a lot of forest management practices are not allowed because of ignorance within the powerful environmentalist lobby. In the end, they cause more problems, more damage, and too often, cost lives. Thankfully, not in Jasper. However, this is going to keep happening until the powers that be get serious about reducing the fuel levels. That is going to mean more prescribed burns, but also allowing more logging. These are incredibly important to maintaining a health forest, but also to reduce the risks of forest fires.

Where we live, we are in a transition zone between boreal forest and open prairie. It’s open though that we are more likely to be threatened by wildfires rather than forest fires, but have just enough pine trees to make forest fires a risk, too. We have a spruce grove right in our yard, and spruces are basically big resin filled torches. Clearing out the dead trees and underbrush around us it not just about aesthetics. It’s a matter of safety. Wanting to have grazing animals for the areas we can’t mow is another part of that. While we have had issues with flooding in the past, and excess rain this spring, drought is the more normal state of things.

Something we keep in mind as we work on clearing up and improving the section of the property we are responsible for.

The Re-Farmer

13 thoughts on “Off topic: talking fire (video)

  1. I’ve been saying this for years also. Remember my repost of a ProPublica article about how preventable California’s fires are? My grandfather was deputy state fire marshal of California in the late 70s; #2 fire fighter in the state. He worked his way up from the ground floor also. I could go on, but the point is I’m speaking from real experience and imparted wisdom from a legitimate source also.

    An acre can only support so many trees, and all that undergrowth fast turns into tinder.

    So many people are trapped in a false duality (all or nothing) of thinking though (on numerous subjects). “If we allow forest management, that means clear cutting”, which is the farthest thing from the truth.

    California is the most reprehensible of any part of this situation, because all this started by caving to both the extreme fringe of the environmental movement and Pacific Gas & Electric. Let the forest get overgrown, block any efforts at clearing dead trees, etc… and keep taking campaign contributions from PG&E, ignore their utter neglect of the state’s utility infrastructure, cover for them when they blow up and burn down entire counties, and then blame it all on climate change to cover up all the corruption in business and government.

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  2. Some of it makes it out, but the masses are just blindly trained to shout “climate denier” when they’re told their government is screwing them. In the meantime, my mom who lives in the foothills goes weeks without power due to rolling brownouts because that’s cheaper for PG&E than actually making their power lines safe. Weeks when it’s nearly 100 degrees no less.

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