Paradise
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A recent paper from the Forest Service predicts higher costs for fire fighting. The title: Economic Risks: Forest Service Estimates Costs of Fighting Wildfires in a Hotter Future. The Climate Financial Risk report published by the White House Office of Management and Budget provides some estimates. A middle-of-the-road estimate is a 42% increase in suppression…
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The Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, was an urban blaze driven by high winds. Photo George Wuerthner A new paper, “Wildlands-urban fire disasters aren’t a wildfire problem,” published in PNAS, challenges traditional approaches to wildfire management strategies. The researchers note that most of the large blazes that destroyed homes, including Lahaina, Hawaii, Talent and…
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Logging lodgepole pine on the Deschutes NF in Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner Across the West, the Forest Service and logging proponents continue to mischaracterize forest health by the standards of the Industrial Forestry Paradigm. Under this logging juggernaut paradigm, any natural evolutionary agent that kills a tree, such as a drought, wildfire, insects, or…
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Remains of a home burned in the Camp Fire which destroyed 19,000 structures in the town of Paradise, California. Photo George Wuerthner State Farm Insurance Company announced it would no longer take on new insurance clients in California due to the rising cost of fire-related losses. The company cited “rapidly growing” catastrophe risks like wildfires,…
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Active forest management is viewed as a solution to large blazes, but fails to acknowledge that climate is driving wildfire. It is true that if you completely remove forests, you won’t get a forest fire. Photo George Wuerthner Proponents of “active forest management” or logging as a means of reducing large wildfires are looking in…
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The aftermath of the Las Conchas Blaze in 2011 in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. Photo George Wuerthner An excellent overview of wildfire issues was published in the Revelator. https://therevelator.org/wildfire-archive/ I encourage folks to review it. I especially appreciate the linkage of recent large fires to drought and warming temperatures. That is…
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Recently it was announced by Montana Senator Steven Daines that he plans to introduce a bipartisan bill with Senator Diane Feinstein of California to protect communities from wildfire. The senators are concerned that wildfire season is getting worse and large fires are a threat to communities. On both counts, the senators are correct. However, the…
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The recent wildfires in California make me feel even more worried about the fate of anyone whose homes are built in the woods. California has experienced the 9 of the largest fires in its history in the past two decades, but large fires have occurred in many other western states during the same period. What…
