Re: Wildfire Discussion
Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:00 pm
After 2014 and 2015 I had the expectation that we, as a community, would have a fundamental rethink of what it means to live here and how we do so.
The fact is that because of land management history, climate change, increased population, and government neglect we are left to attempt survival in an environment that is challenging at best. And apocalyptic at worst.
I agree that a lot of fire mitigation prep work has been neglected. And that applies at all levels, starting with individual homeowners and going through local governments, state government, all the way up to the federal government. Only one federal agency has substantially increased prescribed fire use in the last twenty-odd years.
In 2014 we didn't have any kind of county-wide warning system. In 2021 we did have one, it just didn't work worth a damn: I received the level 3 evacuation notice for the Cub creek fire almost an hour after it was called in (according to the 911 dispatch logs). If I wouldn't have had decent situational awareness to actually see the smoke it is unlikely the warning would have helped me at all. If the idiots who started that fire did so near Lost River or Edelweiss I suspect people would have died.
We are going to have to do a lot better if we expect people to survive and thrive here.
The fact is that because of land management history, climate change, increased population, and government neglect we are left to attempt survival in an environment that is challenging at best. And apocalyptic at worst.
I agree that a lot of fire mitigation prep work has been neglected. And that applies at all levels, starting with individual homeowners and going through local governments, state government, all the way up to the federal government. Only one federal agency has substantially increased prescribed fire use in the last twenty-odd years.
In 2014 we didn't have any kind of county-wide warning system. In 2021 we did have one, it just didn't work worth a damn: I received the level 3 evacuation notice for the Cub creek fire almost an hour after it was called in (according to the 911 dispatch logs). If I wouldn't have had decent situational awareness to actually see the smoke it is unlikely the warning would have helped me at all. If the idiots who started that fire did so near Lost River or Edelweiss I suspect people would have died.
We are going to have to do a lot better if we expect people to survive and thrive here.