Not just about safety but also intensity. Super-hot fires sterilize the soil, and total-destruction fires destabilize hillsides & dramatically change microclimate (no shade -> hot & dry). Both can delay recolonization decades or centuries.

You didn't actually present this take so I take responsibility for how I interpreted it, but...

Why does it seem like this is presented as a bad take? What's wrong with ecological changes and corrections taking centuries, or longer?

Too often I see environmental advocates wringing their hands over changes which absent humanity would be just a chance for other subsystems to adapt or related ecology to evolve while the initial system rebuilds itself.

Just because humanity "depends" upon the later results or effects of these processes (or just because humanity caused them) doesn't mean any anything, really.

Consider from the environment's perspective:

This, too, shall pass.

The rate of change.

There's a climate science "gotcha" which is that the Earth's average temperature has been much higher in the past than it is now. No one disputes this. The problem is not so much the absolute level as the rate of change, which gives less time for everything to adapt.

Bingo. Rapid temperature changes of only a few degrees can become mass extinction events. Of course, the natural world has eventually recovered from every mass extinction - but it can take millions of years to get back to the same level of biodiversity as before the extinction.

Thank you, this gives me some perspective regarding humanity's effect. I won't claim to understand it all, or agree/disagree with it, but it definitely helps me account for scale.

And also who is profiting from causing these changes which harm other people.

Perhaps some people dislike the fact that in many cases these quaint "ecological changes and corrections" that "would be just a chance for other subsystems to adapt or related ecology to evolve" also just so happen to be cases of a very small group of people profiting immensely from the inconvenience, suffering, and death of very large groups of people.

Hearing that very small group of people (or researchers and political advocates funded by that very small group of people) paint a quaint picture of humans as one tiny part of Gaia might make some people uncomfortable.

It’s pretty bad news for the creatures and plants in that ecosystem. Maybe in evolutionary terms it’s not a big deal, but it will mean the wiping out many populations and even species.

At a personal level, the extinction of the giant sequoias or the spotted owls doesn’t seem like a very desirable outcome.

that is the weakest form of nihilism. of course the state of the world has no deeper meaning. of course something will happen.

if you value things, then you have wishes and desires. if you consider people to be responsible for choices, you can assign value to actions and consequences.

some people don’t like devastation of the natural environment. if you understand yourself as part of the world, it feels a lot like self-harm.

In many cases because it’s ugly, or destroys the value of currently valuable property, or gives us unpleasant emotions at the destruction of something we considered beautiful.

It’s natural to want to stop it, same as someone wanting to not have their wallet stolen, or a house they love destroyed and replaced with an apartment complex.

What is recolonization in this context? Does it just mean growth of a new forest?

Well yes and no. If the soil's been sterilised the entire thing needs to be rebuilt from the grasses upwards, forests don't spring up out of nowhere they build up from precursors.

Thanks, I was imagining the smaller stuff as being part of the forest but I suppose maybe the plants that arise first don’t necessarily stick around for the entirety of the forest lifecycle?

Exactly. I don’t remember the exact cycle but basically you first get grass type colonisers, then you might get shrubs, then possibly trees densifying to a forest. Even the tree presence would change as the forest builds up as some essences don’t like being crowded (so won’t replace themselves once the forest densifies) while others prefer shade (so won’t appear until there’s a canopy proper).

It is called "secondary succession" (primary being colonisation from scratch on bare rock)

Perhaps a new forest, but plants in general (current conditions may favor grassland, or something else). It's "re" because there was an ecosystem there before, and now it's returning. Contrast with, say, a brand new island that is the result of volcanic action. Then it'd be just plain old colonization by way of wind-blown seeds, or seeds that survived a bird's digestive tract.

Also frequency. Burning the same area too often will destroy seed banks because the plants cannot reach seed maturity fast enough to rebuild the bank.

Presumably in the meantime its also vulnerable to landslides and then coverage by invasive species of plants.

Are we? Since the 1990s as a school child I thought we already came around on this. But in recent years I am hearing that is not the case, or that we are only now coming around. Did we do a 360?

We've known since the 60s that letting forests burn is healthier for forest ecosystems. But we've known about a lot of good environmental practices since the 60s and just ignored them.

All it takes is one person building a cabin in the middle of a forest, and all of a sudden it's a fire that threatens property and can't be allowed to burn. We can let remote areas of the national parks burn, but it's going to take a lot of political and social change before it becomes acceptable to let people's vacation properties burn, Or to prevent development of large regions of forest so it can be allowed to burn.

There are a lot of small private holdings within public lands. They should receive some property tax relief, in exchange for understanding that the forest around them is going to be managed naturally.

That doesn’t mean that their property won’t be defended as much as possible, just that stopping the entire fire itself won’t be the goal.

Why relief, and not a higher tax for the additional work required to stop their house from catching fire?

Why should only the wealthy not only get to have remote cabins, but also the full might of the government to prevent natural forest fires from damaging their property?

Raising taxes to fix things is always the most regressive solution- the wealthy, and only the wealthy, will be able to afford it.

Instead, treat it like a rural flood plain, acknowledge that the land is simply worth less because it is prone to natural damage, and leave it at that. Fire coming? Issue an evacuation order and let nature take its course.

That’s a good way to get voted out if the people in the area all want to have their little cabin some day, is why.

And that's why nothing will ever change. Everybody can't have their own little cabin some day, and nobody ever wants to be the one who has to tell people that.

Well, if all the cabins burn down one year due to it becoming a wildfire nuclear apocalypse, and therefore nobody wants to build cabins - I guess we might get a short window until everyone forgets about it? Usually <= 5 years from what I’ve seen. Though <= 2 years might be more realistic now a days.

And California seems to be heading in that direction, though not there yet.

I think the national park service fully accepted the idea that we should let fires burn around the lsat great Yellowstone fire, maybe 1990ish.

I don't know that they speak for the US Forest Service though. Between the different national level parks and forest services and then the state level ones, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are still a lot in the active suppression camp. Then there are municipalities where people can basically live in the WUI and the idea of preserving only structures is further complicated.

It’s less about the US Forest Service and more about local jurisdictions and smoke from prescribed burns being a ‘nuisance’.

This talk is by someone who works for the US Forest Service.

https://youtu.be/O6Vayv9FCLM

Traditional nature conservation came around years ago and hasn't changed.

Popular conservation, which tends towards absolute preservation, has not come around.

Communities living next to or within forests also tend to prefer we put fires out.

You can do smaller controlled burns in those areas instead of letting the fuel pile up into an emergency.

Sounds like work, it’s no surprise it doesn’t happen. A lot of these areas struggle to rub two nickels together to get safe water.

An awful lot of encroachment into forests is from high end subdivisions that should not have been built.

When the state allows construction and utility connections and so forth, it should also take up responsibility for fire management.

The way I’ve heard it described is that other priorities that are also important, like spare the air days or budget concerns, kinda edged out control burns in the recent past.

Yeah I have heard the same. And it makes sense with communities burning. They will always be the hardest places to coordinate controlled burns because of the concentration of interests.

It would be interesting to correlate forestry management practices and population density.

Perhaps we just need constant awareness. Smokey Bear's website also includes a small section regarding the Benefits of Fire: https://smokeybear.com/en/about-wildland-fire/benefits-of-fi...

The Longleaf Pine episode on Smarter Every Day was also educational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJWG7raBlT8

Yeah I learned about this forever ago, but as usual, its money that talks. People don't like their houses burned, and so fire suppression policy is dominant. Only now that we are having super-fires that people are opening up to it.

Wildfire management organizations' budgets have been so skewed to remedial action from preventative that indigenous "Cultural Burners" in British Columbia have complained that when they've sought agreement to do controlled burns in spring and autumn they are met with plans for batteries of firefighting equipment on standby. It is a colossal mismatch of scale, since the Cultural burners tend to limit their focus on their own local, ancestral territories. Thankfully the B.C. authorities are now doing a rethink in favour of the Cultural burner concept.

I think it varies by region at this point. https://www.outsideonline.com/podcast/future-fire/

"Only you can prevent forest fires" lays the wrong mindset that humans are the only causes of forest fires. I grew up with that mindset, took some education to realize that nature (lightning) creates fires as well, and that fires have occurred throughout history for the benefit of the ecosystem.

Should also be noted that much of the California natural landscape evolved for several centuries (if not millennia) under the influence of human-initiated burns by the native tribes.

Exactly. Said another way, since fire is inevitable the ecosystem adapted to it, and the species that survived are those that actually benefit from it.

I'd love to see a future where we build houses with the expectation that wildfires will rage nearby. Put up some huge heat-resistant walls around civilization, let the fires burn next door. Wildfires feel like the last area where we feel entitled to destroy nature's evolved processes, just because humans want cheap land.

We dabbled in heat-resistant walls with Asbestos and didn't turn out too well for our health.

I remember one of the national parks I visited a while ago (I think it was Redwoods NPS in California but not sure) where the Ranger told me that one of the tough decisions sometimes they'd need to make when a wildfire is raging is to whether to put it out or just keep it spreading naturally to the benefit of health and biodiversity of the forest. In an extreme case, he mentioned that for a few occasions the Park Service even may need to ignite the wildfire and they have done it a few times before. This all was pretty surprising to me considering all these wildfires news I've been reading recently.

There are plants (including tree's) that depend upon fire to propagate. Pyrophytic plants and some examples covered here: https://www.britannica.com/list/5-amazing-adaptations-of-pyr...

And other plants that can't survive this conditions. If you want water you need to promote the second ones

Why we should want water? because is a strong temperatures buffer, protecting people and providing a more stable local climate so we -should- aim to store as many water as possible in the forests.

And because all our economy is centered in water supply. A few months without absolutely no water and our big cities would collapse and be quit in mass.

And because putting the water in the ocean, and this is the main result of wildfires, will help to raise the sea level where the '90%' of the big cities are situated and would destroy zillions in people's property instead. We are risking more than a few forest cabins here.

Some conifers need fire to multiply yes, but this technology is easy to provide so is not a big problem. And those conifers are also a symptom; they are survivors that live only where the other plants can't. If you have only a sea of pine trees it means that the soil is too poor or the climate is too cold or harsh for the other trees.

To keep drying the area and destroying this soil is not always the better solution.

The bigger wildfires are a sign of a changing equilibrium (for example hotter temperatures, no surprise).

Smaller regular fires burn at lower temperatures and they clean up basic debris. If we fail to let the lower temp fires clean up debris the debris tends to grow. When there is more of that the fires burn at hotter temperatures and cause more damage. To avoid the hotter temperatures the debris needs regular cleaning. The natural method of that is fire.

That's what numerous articles written on the topic from experts have said.

Or forest mismanagement.

I was in a northern california campground a few years ago and was kind of blown away- great piles of dead trees and "no collecting firewood" signs.

I worry that we may committing a historical fallacy. Fires were good, back when the climate was very different. Can we extrapolate that forward given rapid changes in climate. Maybe there are other ways to accomplish similar effects. Logging gets a bad name, but maybe in today’s ecosystem and the ecosystem as it will be in future years leaving it up to fire to do naturally is longer optimal. We are no longer in the garden of eden. Some things do change.

I don't see why climate change would affect the positive aspects of fire.

Logging generally does not have the same effect (logging takes big trees and leave small stuff, fires leave big trees and kill small stuff. Also the heat from fire is important for the germination of some types of trees)

Climate change brings invasive species, so fire behavior can be very different (and regrowth post-fire can be very different).

One thing is clear - it is impossible to stop fire in these areas. So either it happens on a small scale in a semi-controlled fashion, eliminating fuel when it won’t destroy everything and the like, or it happens catastrophically and in a uncontrolled fashion when some random event happens - often destroying everything in it’s path, and sometimes being so intense it sterilizes the soil and destroys everything.

So the point you’re making is kind of besides the point I think?

There is no apparent option where we don’t have fire. Lightning, utility failure, random people smoking, a trailer with a flat tired (that happened), prescribed burns - it’s inevitable it happens at some point.

Just responding to this statement:

> I don't see why climate change would affect the positive aspects of fire.

... since it has a strong effect on the fire and the forest, both pre and post fire. It changes a lot of calculus, including the relative benefit of letting things burn out.

We could have a really long discussion on the best wildlands management practices, and the tradeoffs. Prescribed burns, in recent history, have only covered a very very tiny fraction of land. Scaling that up would be logistical difficult, expensive, and probably politically infeasible. Letting things burn is also problematic, as the species mix is no longer well adapted for fire in many places. Suppressing every fire is equally problematic, kind of like plugging the vent in a pressure cooker. Fire breaks, logging, prescribed burns, and other means of fuel load reduction are all traditional fixes that we can use tactically (around cities, etc), but are only going to go so far. In my opinion, we've backed ourselves into a corner in the US west, and with climate change there isn't necessarily a good option going forward.

(disclaimer: I study wildfires as part of my work in a Climate & Energy R&D group, though by no means an expert)

FYI, I think you meant to respond to the comment I was responding to?

We have essentially never been in the garden of eden. Humans have been shaping the landscapes that they live, hunt, gather and farm in for at least 10s of thousands of years.

The fallacy is thinking humans can prevent fire in forests forever.

Logging is such a different process that I can't imagine this working well. As one example, certain seeds require extremely hot temperatures from forest fires in order to germinate. Forest ecosystems are so complex, trying to micro manage them is probably impossible.

Well, our current choices may be between 2 fallacies.

First one is the one you described, and the second one is that given the changes in climate that it's even possible to contain these wildfires using mechanical means, such as trenches and water drops.

It may not be.

The question then is which one is the lesser evil.

The article mentions that climate change only has a small effect, and that with or without it, natural management works to improve forest ecology as well as reduce the impact of fires.

Loggers make big waste piles and then burn them.