[ExI] California wildfires some of largest in state history

[SR Ballard]

Do controlled burns in the winter.

SR Ballard

> On Aug 22, 2020, at 8:55 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> BillK via extropy-chat
> Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2020 3:47 AM
> To: Extropy Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
> Subject: [ExI] California wildfires some of largest in state history
> 
> August 22, 2020
> by Olga R. Rodriguez and Janie Har
> 
> <https://phys.org/news/2020-08-california-wildfires-largest-state-history.ht
> ml>
> Quote:
> Lightning-sparked wildfires in Northern California exploded in size Friday
> ...
> 
> At least 100,000 people are under evacuation orders.
> ---------------
> 
>> ...California is getting an early start to the fall fire season.
> The news says that the air around San Francisco is polluted with smoke and
> hard to breathe.
> 
>> ...I hope Spike and our SF people are OK.
> 
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
> 
> 
> It's been smoky as hell around here but at the moment isn't bad BillK.  I
> live within easy walking distance of the evacuation area.  Our scoutmaster
> and his family, along with several friends over on the northeast side of San
> Jose have been evacuated at least twice, and might be out of their homes
> again.  I offered to let him come down and make our camper a temporary home,
> but they instead chose to bring in cots and camp out in his office (he does
> have a nice office.)
> 
> Friends to the south have had to take road trip to Oregon because they can't
> breathe down there.
> 
> My immediate concern is for a camping place that is on Highway 9 in Santa
> Cruz county.  My friend is an IT guy, walked away from a career at Stanford,
> bought that park and put all kindsa cool high techy stuff in there, such as
> 5G.  If you have the equipment to take advantage of it, the internet at his
> park is terrific.  Cotillion Gardens, check it out, great internet,
> beautiful surroundings.  We hope.
> 
> The firefighters were making a most heroic stand yesterday, brought in a
> thousand fellers, dozers, planes, choppers, everything they have with a
> mission: Hold the line at Highway 9.
> 
> We don't know if Cotillion Gardens stands this morning or is in ashes, but
> here's the real problem: in that familiar song about this land is your land,
> that bit about "...from the redwood forests..." is Santa Cruz county.  That
> campground and the homes up there are built among the giant redwoods.  
> 
> If you go there, you notice that the bark at the base of every giant redwood
> is charred, because those forests burn once in a while.  It's what forests
> do.  It doesn't hurt the big trees, but it slays the small ones, and it
> causes the tiny cones produced by those giant trees to open up and
> germinate.  Giant coastal redwoods are dependent on fire, as a birth-control
> device in a sense: it both starts new trees and kills off the younger
> smaller ones, thus spreading out the generations of trees and keeps them
> from over-competing with each other.  
> 
> It is a beautiful place up there.  Do go see it while you can.  
> 
> Giant redwoods like fire, they need fire, humans do not like fire.  We work
> to stop it.  Sometimes we succeed and when we do, over time, fuel
> accumulates.  Those redwood forests get increasingly eager to burn.  We
> might douse it this time, but if we do, there is still more fuel down there.
> Every time we stop the fire, it gets harder to stop. 
> 
> Fire kills some of the trees.  In the long run lack of fire kills all of
> them.
> 
> Suggestions welcome.
> 
> spike
> 
> 
> 
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