[env-trinity] The Mercury News: The reason that California wildfires are worse than ever

Mon Aug 6 14:50:08 PDT 2018

"And the beat goes on"...My heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one
and/or lost a home...The monetary and social costs of dealing with the
problem as an emergency far exceeds the cost of coming together and solving
the problem proactively. The solution lies in a compromise between timber
policy, environmental policy, water policy, and social policy.  First we
need to enforce existing law and kick the squatters and non-compliant
growers out of the forests and rural communities.  This is not a local
problem, it is a national priority.  Next we need to develop a system of
tariffs and market incentives that will allow timber companies to harvest
at a profit, and in a manner that meets reasonable demand for timber and
forest products, along with environmental goals and maintains water quality
along with a healthy forest. Next we need to provide sound requirements for
defensible space, sound construction requirements, and fuels management
requirements appropriate to the structure/activity location.  Criminal and
civil penalties, along with tax incentives need to be put in place to
insure compliance.  Any structure that cannot be insured must be vacated
until the risk is mitigated to allow insurability, or until the owner shows
proof of ability to cover all eventualities.

While it's easy to blame each other and avoid sound solutions, we as a
nation can no longer endure the consequences.  How easily could the Carr
Fire have been prevented with adequate fuels management, shoulder
construction and vehicle barriers adjacent to the highway right-of-way?
Who was responsible for first response this close to an established
recreation area?  Did the motorists in the immediate vicinity have. Minimal
fire-fighting tools and equipment, or any training or instruction to allow
them to address the issue?  Sometimes the difference between a few feet of
burnt vegetation and a major conflagration is an old blanket and a few
gallons of water, along with someone informed and appropriate action.

We have suffered the catastrophic loss of multiple innocent lives and
multiple crushing blows to our economy, not to mention the bleak future for
a once beautiful part of our homes.

We are a nation that won a world war and put men on the moon!  Let's stop
bickering and casting blame and get this problem to a manageable place
again.

Bob Cunningham

On Aug 6, 2018 12:41 PM, "Trinity Journal" <trinityjournal at dcacable.net>
wrote:

> I don’t know, is it selfish to live in Southern California and strip the
> Owens Valley and the Colorado River of their rightful water?
>
> Is it selfish to live in the Bay Area crisscrossed by earthquake faults?
>
> As pointed out, Redding and Santa Rosa are cities adjacent to wildlands
> (as all cities are, unless they lie adjacent to the ocean). So while there
> is issues to be discussed about WUI, this is not a selfishness issue. Rural
> towns are needed for a variety of reasons — water, timber, agriculture. How
> they interface with the adjacent wildlands is worthy of discussion, but you
> can’t play the blame game for them being there.
>
> -Wayne Agner
>
> P.S. You are welcome for all the water we ship south.
>
>
>
> *From:* env-trinity <env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> *On
> Behalf Of *Peggy Berry
> *Sent:* Monday, August 06, 2018 8:30 AM
> *To:* Kier Associates <kierassociates at att.net>
> *Cc:* env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us
> *Subject:* Re: [env-trinity] The Mercury News: The reason that California
> wildfires are worse than ever
>
>
>
> Thank you Bill Kier and Denise Boggs for shining the spotlight on the
> truth:  Humans who demand to build their homes wherever they want  —
> inaccessible forest lands, ocean cliffs, etc. because they think they are
> entitled to THEIR OWN wishes.
>
>
>
> I mourn the firefighters who are then expected to save them and their
> homes - and sometimes unselfishly give their lives - so others are able to
> get what they want  based on selfish desires and demands.
>
>
>
> Something besides money and profit need to redefine “entitlements!”
>
>
>
> Peggy Berry
>
> On Aug 5, 2018, at 8:25 PM, Kier Associates <kierassociates at att.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Trinity environmental list-ers
>
>
>
> For what it’s worth *State* gov’t leadership has been trying to
> discourage this building in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) for well
> more than 50 years.
>
>
>
> We had some very dry winters in the early ‘60s and some terrible wildfires
> immediately thereafter. When I joined what is now the CA Natural Resources
> Agency in early 1964 we were going around to various local gov’ts, groups,
> etc., with a film that showed, for example, homes built at the top of
> canyons in the Santa Monica Mtns, with huge jutting redwood decks from
> which to view to the ocean, catching the 1,000 degree F.-plus canyon
> updraft and literally exploding.
>
>
>
> There’s been a too-subdued policy discussion for decades about the ‘State
> Responsibility Lands’, those not served directly by a local fire agency or
> federal land mgt agency.
>
>
>
> As the cost for serving these lands with State fire protection grew over
> time the State finally instituted a modest annual fee (like $150) on
> property-owners to help support fire prevention/ suppression on these
> so-called ‘State Responsibility Lands’
>
>
>
> This fee has become, not surprisingly, a whipping-boy for CA’s
> mostly-rural conservative politicians – it’s playing heavily into the
> current legislative discussions about the 2017 wildfires and into the 2018
> election cycle
>
>
>
> For those of us living in urban areas who are paying what we hope is our
> fair share for fire prevention and suppression services, we – I, anyway –
> find ourselves 1- aghast at and saddened by the enormity of the Carr Fire;
> and 2- wondering when the cost of unbridled residential incursion into the
> WUI is going to become a sufficient issue in California that the rest of us
> may see some relief from subsidizing it.
>
>
>
> ‘Best,
>
>
>
> Bill Kier
>
> Kier Associates, *Fisheries and Watershed Professionals*
>
> 15 Junipero Serra Avenue
>
> San Rafael, CA 94901
>
> Office:  415.721.7548
>
> Mobile: 415.306.6123
>
> kierassociates at att.net
>
> www.kierassociates.net
>
> GSA Contractor GS10F0124U
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* env-trinity [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us
> <env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us>] *On Behalf Of *Denise
> Boggs
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 05, 2018 6:26 PM
> *To:* env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us
> *Subject:* [env-trinity] The Mercury News: The reason that California
> wildfires are worse than ever
>
>
>
> The National Forests aren’t the problem. It’s people living in areas they
> shouldn’t be. Interesting stats on CA and the wildfires throughout the
> state over time. Some of these areas have burned multiple times and people
> keep rebuilding in the same place. The state’s landscape is prone to fires
> and they are going burn regardless. Climate change only makes it worse.
>
>
>
> “The Carr Fire burning in Shasta County was started by a single spark from
> a towed trailer on a road in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. It then
> quickly raced into high-end new residential subdivisions such as Lake
> Redding Estates, where it destroyed 65 upscale homes.”
>
> *The reason that California wildfires are worse than ever*
> The Mercury News
>
> As California grows, people are moving into the rural edges of cities
> where we weren't before -- creating an "expanding bull’s eye’ effect" of
> higher wildfire risk, according to a new study by geographer Stephen M.
> Strader of Villanova University. Read the full story
> <https://apple.news/AO3JyVOhZQvS4W7C_ou3raQ>
>
> Denise Boggs
>
> Www.conservationcongress-ca.org <http://www.conservationcongress-ca.org/>
>
>
>
> "Some of them were angry at the way the Earth was abused; By the men who
> learned how to forge her beauty into power; And they struggled to protect
> her from them, only to be confused; By the magnitude of the fury in the
> final hour."
>
> 'Before the Deluge' Jackson Browne
>
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>
>
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