
A Trailblazing Plan to Fight California Wildfires - prostoalex
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/a-trailblazing-plan-to-fight-california-wildfires
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jefftk
This part was especially depressing:

 _> The California Air Resources Board restricts prescribed burns to days when
pollution is at acceptable levels and the weather likely to disperse emissions
from fire. In practice, this means that burning can occur only during a few
weeks in the spring. In summer and autumn—the seasons when forests would burn
naturally—the state’s air usually falls foul of the Clean Air Act. These are
also the months that are most prone to uncontrollable wildfires, whose smoke
is far more damaging to human health than that from prescribed fire. But,
perversely, because wildfires are classified as natural catastrophes, their
emissions are not counted against legal quotas._

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fjabre
That they are still taking about the same prevention techniques for decades is
depressing. You would think a state home to some of the worlds best and
brightest engineers could come up with a better solution to this than the same
old tired argument of forest fire prevention and prescribed burns.

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martinmunk
I volunteer in the Danish national emergency service. A year ago we and
Multiple other countries went to Sweden to help out with massive forest fires.
I'm talking speeding for an hour in varying levels of smoke and not be half
way through our area. I've never experienced fires like that, mainly since we
dont have forests like that, but it became pretty clear to me how much the low
vegetation meant for the life of the fire. The fire could be burning slowly
through the ground vegetation and everybody would pretty much ignore it. But
if it hit bigger bushes and spread to the treetops all hell broke loose.
Others trucks were written off as a loss and personnel airlifted away on that
account. As for a newer approach they stragedly cut down parts of the forest,
both for wood production and to vary the age of the forest. This seemed to
have great effect when trying to contain the fire.

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burlesona
It’s surprising and a little disappointing when articles like this don’t
include photos. It was a really interesting read, but I had a hard time
visualizing the “healthy” forest that the writer described at the end.

Meanwhile it is interesting how many of the problems we face are principally
cultural in nature. Just as the “dense, dark European forest” isn’t actually
healthy in California, there are a great many other aspects of contemporary
life in the US, especially in the Southwest, that are not healthy, but are
cling to by most people as part of their cultural narrative. Monoculture grass
lawns and parking lots at every destination come to mind, but there are many,
many examples.

I wonder if and when we’ll ever learn effective ways to bring about culture
change when called for. It seems like being able to and interested in moving
in small increments would be key, but often times the scale of change that the
scientists / visionaries / leaders are calling for don’t translate into
incremental change in obvious ways. Further, the people leading the charge
generally want to see sweeping paradigm shift, and often oppose incremental
change as “half-measures.”

These are tough problems to solve, but I’m optimistic that some of the lessons
that have become widely known in software world (agile, etc) will be able to
productively translate into the broader society.

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bigtrakzapzap
I'm sitting in Paradise, CA right now with only one neighbor's home left
visible among dozens. There are about 1/3 as many tall trees (mostly pines
30m/100 ft tall) as before since the loggers have monetized them, P&GE didn't
want to take any risks when rebuilding the power grid and the
city/county/state motivation for future fire remediation. (IMO, the haphazard
removal of trees is quite ugly and unnatural.) The policy of putting out all
fires quickly set the stage for tragedy, leading to what was feared most.
Living at the urban-wildlife interface needs resilient, prepared dwellers who
safeguard their structures and allow fires to burn around without threatening
lives or property.

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spenrose
Pairs well with today's discussion of multi-stakeholder coordination on a US
military airplane:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20792427](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20792427)

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fjabre
What is trailblazing about this? A state home to best and brightest engineers
on the planet and they can't figure out how to put out a fire. But they can
make self driving cars, rockets to mars, uber scooters, and delivery drones.

The answer to this isn't the forest service or the state government. The
answer to this is in the private sector.

Instead of making the next facebook how about saving the state from fires that
could wipe out its offices?

Is this really the best California can come up with? Does anyone know of any
ventures in this space that are up to the challenge?

There is nothing trailblazing about the plan in this article. It's more of an
iteration on the same failed policies of the past that got us here in the
first place. The forest service is ill suited for this challenge.

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nerdponx
What in the world are you talking about?

You can't throw 10 Elon Musks at a megafire and expect it to put the fire out.
The thermodynamics of putting out a huge fire don't make sense. The logistics
of preventing any such fire from starting are impossible.

 _There is nothing trailblazing about the plan in this article. It 's more of
an iteration on the same failed policies of the past that got us here in the
first place. The forest service is ill suited for this challenge._

The article is very clear on how we got to this point, and on how this plan is
different.

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fjabre
My comment was clear. I am talking about throwing 10 Elon Musks at the
problem. Heck let's throw 50 Elons at it.

The article spends more time describing the Californian landscape and history
of fire fighting than what it proposes as a solution. Good luck keeping up
with the super blooms. California is a large state with lots of unreachable
areas. Where and when these things start is clearly unpredictable.

Mediocrity at its finest.

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gamblor956
_I am talking about throwing 10 Elon Musks at the problem. Heck let 's throw
50 Elons at it._

We're trying to prevent the huge wildfires, not give some narcissistic idiots
platforms for personal aggrandizement while they burn the entire state to the
ground.

Prescribed burns work. The problem is that the season is too narrow and the
area required too big for existing resources to handle. Private enterprise
won't solve that. It will just make everything more expensive and result in
less fire prevention activity.

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fjabre
Prescribed burns work. Agreed. It's a partial solution we already know about.

Would love to hear some new ideas in 2019 however, but maybe that's asking too
much.

