Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60%

Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by karaterobot on Saturday November 11, 2023 @01:22PM (#38232970)

It's cool to do research and put some hard data and numbers behind common sense. But I feel like there's this weird phenomenon going on where people are pretending this is new information. I'm in my 40s, and I remember hearing about controlled burns when I was a little kid: I was told that we tried to stop all forest fires, but this had the unintended affect of making wildfires more common and harder to control in the end. This was at least 35 years ago, and common enough that a non-scientist (my dad) would tell it to a little kid. Lately I've been hearing it like it's some kind of new discovery.

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by Clubber on Saturday November 11, 2023 @01:43PM (#38233185)

>Lately I've been hearing it like it's some kind of new discovery.

I guess it is to some people. Every time there is a wildfire in California they want to use GW as a scapegoat. That might be part of it, but really they just don't do controlled burns; why I don't know. I think the "eureka" is for politicians to save face.

The Indians were doing controlled burns well before the Europeans landed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by karaterobot on Saturday November 11, 2023 @02:55PM (#38233903)

I assume that anybody who had a lot of land would figure this out pretty quickly. Certainly in the era where many generations grew up on large pieces of managed land surrounded by unmanaged wilderness (which is to say, most of history), you'd expect people to notice the difference. There's so much received wisdom about agriculture that comes down through the centuries, and this basic fact about forestry is (supposedly) a 21st century discovery?

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by mistrial9 on Saturday November 11, 2023 @03:13PM (#38234060)

in California, it takes 2 years+ and $15,000+ to submit a plan to change the forests on your land, including controlled burn permits.. last I knew

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by jaredhallen on Saturday November 11, 2023 @08:52PM (#38236497)

I think part of the reason it's not as prevalent as it once was is just because there's so much stuff out there these days that we don't want to burn. It's not as easy as it used to be.

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by cultureswitch on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @05:11AM (#38261364)

Wildfire damage has very little to do with global warming. Spain and Greece have very similar, extremely fire-prone climates yet Greece spectacularly burns every year whilst Spain just manages its forests with regular controlled burns and artificial clearings.

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by lispisok on Saturday November 11, 2023 @02:34PM (#38233684)

Same. I've been hearing fire suppression was a mistake my entire life yet every year I see this come up in the news and especially HN as some kind of revelation.

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by thegiogi on Saturday November 11, 2023 @05:32PM (#38235250)

I’m guessing it may have been common enough knowledge at some point, but it is counterintuitive if you don’t spend some time on the problem. So I guess we are seeing a new generation discover this - and posting about it.

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Re:Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60% by jaredhallen on Saturday November 11, 2023 @08:35PM (#38236416)

I live in a rural area on the West slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains. There is a long history in this area of running cattle up in the high country during the Summer months. I've been told that when they were driving the cows out of the mountains in the fall, the old timers used to drag burning ropes behind their horses.

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