wolf1moon t1_it4o1uu wrote on October 20, 2022 at 10:19 PM

Reply to comment by bloodfist in YOU SHOULD KNOW: While the smoke has been very bad, Washington’s 2022 fire season has been the mildest in a decade by ClimateChangeC

Ah, my bad, California has been doing them but we only restarted recently (there's a website with the burns listed https://www.dnr.wa.gov/prescribedfire). For California, article https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01/why-isnt-california-using-more-prescribed-burns-to-reduce-fire-risk/

bloodfist t1_it4vho1 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 11:15 PM

Thanks for that link. I knew we'd restarted it, but hadn't seen that list of upcoming burns.

FYI that's for state-managed lands, federal is it's own program, and private is anyone's guess but the state assists usually.

The thing I've seen from CA and federal is that while there's a lot of good intentions at first, they often get canceled, cut short, underfunded, and/or underplanned. It ends up barely making a dent, and as soon as one gets out control - something we have to assume will happen sometimes, especially with poor planning and staffing - the next several get delayed indefinitely. It looks really bad for politicians to have a fire they "started" get out of control.

I don't want to badmouth WA's program because I don't know and it's still relatively young. It's a step in the right direction at least. But until I see some real successes I still hesitate to say we fixed anything. We're starting to try, but we probably need at least a decade of good successful prescribed burning to even come close to "fixed".

wolf1moon t1_it4ye8m wrote on October 20, 2022 at 11:37 PM

If there's one thing I agree with local conservatives on, it's that the feds have no clue when it comes to our lands. I don't want them to stop being reserves, but man I wish they were under western control. I don't trust a New Yorker or Floridian to govern our land.

bloodfist t1_it50h4o wrote on October 20, 2022 at 11:53 PM

Eh, it doesn't really work that way. My dad worked for the BLM for almost 30 years and I was on a wildland crew for them for a few years too. There are definitely high-level decisions coming from Washington but most of the people making day-to-day decisions are locals who really love that land.

It made me a big believer in our public lands, and I just don't know that I trust most states to do much better. Here, probably and a few others, but state land where I worked was a mess.

Not to say that federal agencies are doing a good job, but change happens slower at that level so it's a lot harder for a few corrupt individuals to open up mining, allow ATV use, sell off parcels, etc. The last administration did a lot of damage but it could be so much worse.

But it's definitely an interesting thing to consider. I'm happy with whoever makes sure we have trees in 100 years.