Reply to post: Re: Preventable

RIP Bill Godbout: Cali wildfire claims the life of master maverick of microcomputers

Spazturtle Silver badge

Re: Preventable

"Forestry Management is not fire management - clear out the trees and the grass and scrub take over and burn faster.

Life is a lot more complicated that you think and retweeting politicians comments is like heading to the bog and finding out there's no toilet paper."

I'm not talking about what orange man has said, ignore his self insertion into this issue, I am talking about what ecologist and other scientists have been saying for decades about California's forestry management.

For the past ~100 years there has been a push to prevent and extinguish natural forest fires which are a necessary part of the Californian environment, this has resulted in the woodlands growing larger and merging, as well as making the woods a lot more dense. The amount of rainfall hasn't increase though, so more trees in the same amount of space means the wood is drier and burns faster, and in fact rainfall has decreased so it is even worse.

The wood of the trees being drier means the fires burn faster and it is easier for the trees to catch fire. The increase in density means their is more fuel allowing the fires to burn longer and the woodlands merging means there are no natural fire breaks.

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