On 12/5/2013 12:21 PM, sf wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Dec 2013 11:51:59 -0700, "Pearl F. Buck"
> > wrote:
>
>> On 12/5/2013 11:47 AM, sf wrote:
>>> On Thu, 05 Dec 2013 11:11:47 -0700, "Pearl F. Buck"
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 12/5/2013 11:03 AM, sf wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks, that could be a very expensive proposition considering the
>>>>> cost of city water these days and how it its increasing.
>>>>>
>>>> You had a major wildfire threat to your own municipal water supply this
>>>> summer, that had to be a bit tense.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It was touch & go for a while.
>>>
>> I would think that there is an opportunity for prescribed burns to
>> reduce future threats in the area of that one reservoir which was in danger.
>>
>> Has that happened, or did enough material burn naturally to reduce
>> future risks?
>
> It is surrounded by national forest, so they're doing whatever the
> powers that be have decided is supposed to happen fires in a
> national forest. I think how forests are managed is still
> controversial. If they aren't letting timber companies come in to
> clear cut, they will let fires in remote areas burn out naturally.
The Yellowstone stratagem, natural but wildly unsafe also with
overcrowded forests.
> Unfortunately, the Rim Fire area was too close to Hetch Hechy,
> Yosemite Valley and other populated areas to let it burn out
> naturally. Don't expect proactive burns in this day and age of
> Republicans strangling the budget, which results in layoffs and
> skeleton staffing of National Parks. We're lucky the Republicans
> haven't been able to sell off forestry land and they still exist.
The park staffing is less an issue as they do not fight fires.
As for the national fire budget:
http://www.accuweather.com/en/featur...deple/17587645
The U.S. Forest Service has already exceeded its firefighting budget by
$178 million, as more than 100 active wildfires rage on at the start of
the season's peak.
This marks the sixth year the wildfire budget has been exceeded since 2002.
After rescissions and the national sequester, the U.S. Forest service
had $922 million available for wildfire suppression in 2013. This
included $510 million in appropriations from Congress, $113 million of
carryover from prior years and $299 million in the FLAME fund.
The 2013 budget has decreased by approximately 5 percent from 2012.
I do not believe the Republicans are "strangling the budget", any more
than I believe they created the Sequester.
> http://blogs.kqed.org/education/2013...-forest-fires/
Key quote:
"After the nation faced massive devastations from unwieldy fires such as
the Peshtigo Fire and the Great Fire of 1910, the forest service began
implementing strict policies stating that all wildfires were to be
quickly suppressed. This practice continued until the 1960s, when
policies towards fire suppression were changed as a result of new
studies that recognized wildfires as a vital process for forest
regrowth. Now, nearly a century later, many of our national forests have
become dense with growth. This increase in forest density allows
wildfires to burn at a higher speed and intensity, resulting in greater
overall devastation to the area."
We're paying the price for decades of improper management and fuel
growth, and that is not the fault of any one party.
http://perc.org/sites/default/files/...in%20Smoke.pdf
> http://sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=711
So this kind of answers my question about future wildfire threats,
they're still the
"Approximately 1% of total Hetch Hetchy Reservoir watershed was within
the fire perimeter, and based on initial field assessments significantly
less area has actually burned. The northern watershed, where most of
the annual inflow originates, was still outside the fire perimeter."
> http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/0...m-fire-update/
> http://www.motherjones.com/environme...mite-explainer
Good coverage, especially the NASA imagery.