Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
Bob, if that doesn't sum it all up in one post, nuthin' does.
Falling pics 11/25/09
- Thread starter Burvol
- Start date
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Our crew, and others, and 3 dozers plus assorted line people sat in the puffy dust on our butts for several hours waiting for an ID team ('ologists and specialists) to discuss the visual effects of a 3 dozer wide line.
They were in the office having a meeting about that.
By the time they made a decision that it would be OK, the fire blew up at the usual time. It was a Monty Python Run Away, Run Away, moment.
We sure spent a lot of time (futile) trying to save bug killed lodgepole.
They were in the office having a meeting about that.
By the time they made a decision that it would be OK, the fire blew up at the usual time. It was a Monty Python Run Away, Run Away, moment.
We sure spent a lot of time (futile) trying to save bug killed lodgepole.
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
No good thieve'n zombie bastards! LOL
Stealing ain't cool, but neither is destroying equipment, in some cases, donated to the fighting of a fire.
Have a state auction and give the money to schools, or kids with cancer or sumthin'.
I just heard, not two weeks ago, that a newbie state rep of ours asked how many vehicles the state owned. Not one person had an answer, so he ordered an immediate inventory of all agencies across the board.
He said there will be no new 2011 anything, and they'll use and maintain what they got, and drive it till the wheels fall off. . . That state rep clicked up a notch in my book.
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
:hmm3grin2orange::hmm3grin2orange:
forestryworks
Addicted to ArboristSite
That's the way it should be.
Sport Faller
Gate Pimp
it's a great notion and a most valiant effort, but you know he'll probably get shot down somewhere along the line
forestryworks
Addicted to ArboristSite
Silly ass government agencies. I think I'll quit school, drift, and cut timber.
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
Sounds like Yellowstone in '88.
Sure...go right ahead. And the rest of us, who did quit school, did go on the drift, and are still cutting timber and logging as a result will gather you amongst us and beat you severely
with old choker bells and broken suspenders.
Goodness, you have to put up with bad stuff in just about any job.
I saw a bit of country working for the silly ass govt. agency. There were some very good people working too. It is mostly in the PNW, which happens to pay better, but has extreme politics that one can go crazy. California is bad too. Arizona was like stepping back many years, we were The Forestry and got some things accomplished, until discovered by the enviros. Then the law suits began.
There's good and bad...like when we were on a fire in very good timber, in Western OR and our division boss brought us cold pizza. He apologized for not being able to bring beer. Or getting a sight seeing tour in a helicopter, flying over the North Cascade peaks, before getting dumped out to find a plot. It can be an adventure as well as being a pain. Just like most everything.
Now, go and contemplate. There will be a shortage of foresters unless they turn everything into National Park. Then you can wear one of those hats. :msp_tongue:
Speaking of hats.....?????
David (saltas)
Addicted to ArboristSite
I visited Yellowstone in 1995.
I was told the the reason they let it burn was because it was started by lightening and was there for a natural event and that they only put out fires that start from unnatural causes.
I Said you what.
The parks guy told me again straight faced an all.
I made some remark about what low IQ posterior roosterhead came up that male bovine manure.
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
Still happens all the time. Look up Glacier National Park, and Bob Marshall Wilderness. If a fire sparks off in Glacier, it's only fought if buildings are threatened, and not at all in the Bob.
forestryworks
Addicted to ArboristSite
Well I guess Mother Nature got mad at 'em for stopping her fires, letting it grow up thicker than a thicket, and not logging or thinning.
Can't have it both ways.
Can't have it both ways.
smokechase II
Addicted to ArboristSite
change
"I visited Yellowstone in 1995.
I was told the the reason they let it burn was because it was started by lightening and was there for a natural event and that they only put out fires that start from unnatural causes.
I Said you what.
The parks guy told me again straight faced an all.
I made some remark about what low IQ posterior roosterhead came up that male bovine manure."
==========
that may be the policy now but it wasn't in 1988 when yellowstone really burned.
Yes, some of the fires were let burn but basically half were fires that they tried to stop but couldn't.
An important consideration is that we cannot stop these large fires from occurring, we just delay them.
- - - - - - - - -
This is really odd.
I used to be a smokejumper years ago and I had 7 trips to the interior of Alaska. Got to jump a couple times north of the arctic circle and one in the Brooks. But they quit that for a couple decades and let things burn. Especially the North Slope stuff.
Now they've done a turn around because of carbon sequestration and they're 'probably' going to be attacking North Slope stuff more than ever.
Turns out one environmental panic might just override the last panic.
Crazy.
"I visited Yellowstone in 1995.
I was told the the reason they let it burn was because it was started by lightening and was there for a natural event and that they only put out fires that start from unnatural causes.
I Said you what.
The parks guy told me again straight faced an all.
I made some remark about what low IQ posterior roosterhead came up that male bovine manure."
==========
that may be the policy now but it wasn't in 1988 when yellowstone really burned.
Yes, some of the fires were let burn but basically half were fires that they tried to stop but couldn't.
An important consideration is that we cannot stop these large fires from occurring, we just delay them.
- - - - - - - - -
This is really odd.
I used to be a smokejumper years ago and I had 7 trips to the interior of Alaska. Got to jump a couple times north of the arctic circle and one in the Brooks. But they quit that for a couple decades and let things burn. Especially the North Slope stuff.
Now they've done a turn around because of carbon sequestration and they're 'probably' going to be attacking North Slope stuff more than ever.
Turns out one environmental panic might just override the last panic.
Crazy.
I was at Yellowstone in '88, as were a lot of people. If I remember right there were three rather minor lightning strike fires that came together and then it took off like a freight train.
There were so many different governmental agencies on that fire, arguing with each other, passing the blame, and jockeying for control, that it was basically a big circus.
There were so many different governmental agencies on that fire, arguing with each other, passing the blame, and jockeying for control, that it was basically a big circus.
I did not go to Yellowstone. The way I heered it was that they were going to let it burn. It got big. The public started hollering to save it...you can't stop a big fire in dead lodgepole. So, they started throwing things at it for political purposes. Like so many large fires, it went out when Mother Nature decided to put it out. 
Joe46
ArboristSite Guru
I was there in 89. It flat looked ugly. Started back again in 01, and have been back every year since. Sister and my late BIL lived at Henry's Lake, Id. which is about 20 miles from West Yellowstone. Trees have pretty much all grown back, but all the dead snags still show.
smokechase II
Addicted to ArboristSite
more fire stuff
"On a windy day in July a woodcutter discarded a smoking cigarette in the Targhee National Forest, less than 200 yards west of the park. This was the start of the North Fork Fire, which entered Yellowstone within hours. It burned over 400,000 acres in the park and threatened West Yellowstone, Madison, Norris, Canyon, Tower, Mammoth, and Old Faithful. On September 7th, a firestorm raged toward the Old Faithful area, nearly incinerating the entire site. Instead, at the last minute, the wind shifted slightly, blowing the body of the fire just south of Old Faithful’s main developed area.
Crown Fire by West Thumb in Yellowstone
A fire that started by Flagg Ranch just outside the south entrance started by a power line that was blown down by 60 mile per hour winds, in this single day this fire burned ten thousand acres."
=============
The above fires were not let burn.
There is no smoking woodcutters and/or powerlines are natural provision in any national fire policy.
Several lightning fires, that also were not part of a let burn package, burned together or into the fires above or let burn fires and increased the overall acreage.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The point I'd like to make, is that in a fire ecosystem like Yellowstone, large fires cannot be stopped from occurring.
If one delays this inevitable cycle then more fuel is built up and the resulting fires are more destructive. Where this is the worst is at higher elevations because recoveries often happen in slow motion.
=============
There is more to this cycle stuff.
Most of the 3 million acres that burned in the 1910 fires, which were much more significant than Yellowstone, reburned in the 1930's. Those snags mentioned above will fall over and combined with the new growth make a superb fuel bed for the second round of fires THAT WILL HAPPEN.
Usually life is in three's:
1) Insect or disease,
2) First Fire,
3) Second Fire.
Then we start over. Not now.
=============
Where we have screwed up is with this Euro idea of stopping the evil fire.
By doing that we have actually increased the destructive level of these fires by 'nuking' the soil with too much heat for a decent recovery between stages.
Fire fighters make things worse for fire fighters.
============
Told you those stories to tell you this one:
Get ready for Yellowstone to burn again sometime in the next dozen years because its time for #3.
Regardless of our fire suppression policy its going to happen.
"On a windy day in July a woodcutter discarded a smoking cigarette in the Targhee National Forest, less than 200 yards west of the park. This was the start of the North Fork Fire, which entered Yellowstone within hours. It burned over 400,000 acres in the park and threatened West Yellowstone, Madison, Norris, Canyon, Tower, Mammoth, and Old Faithful. On September 7th, a firestorm raged toward the Old Faithful area, nearly incinerating the entire site. Instead, at the last minute, the wind shifted slightly, blowing the body of the fire just south of Old Faithful’s main developed area.
Crown Fire by West Thumb in Yellowstone
A fire that started by Flagg Ranch just outside the south entrance started by a power line that was blown down by 60 mile per hour winds, in this single day this fire burned ten thousand acres."
=============
The above fires were not let burn.
There is no smoking woodcutters and/or powerlines are natural provision in any national fire policy.
Several lightning fires, that also were not part of a let burn package, burned together or into the fires above or let burn fires and increased the overall acreage.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The point I'd like to make, is that in a fire ecosystem like Yellowstone, large fires cannot be stopped from occurring.
If one delays this inevitable cycle then more fuel is built up and the resulting fires are more destructive. Where this is the worst is at higher elevations because recoveries often happen in slow motion.
=============
There is more to this cycle stuff.
Most of the 3 million acres that burned in the 1910 fires, which were much more significant than Yellowstone, reburned in the 1930's. Those snags mentioned above will fall over and combined with the new growth make a superb fuel bed for the second round of fires THAT WILL HAPPEN.
Usually life is in three's:
1) Insect or disease,
2) First Fire,
3) Second Fire.
Then we start over. Not now.
=============
Where we have screwed up is with this Euro idea of stopping the evil fire.
By doing that we have actually increased the destructive level of these fires by 'nuking' the soil with too much heat for a decent recovery between stages.
Fire fighters make things worse for fire fighters.
============
Told you those stories to tell you this one:
Get ready for Yellowstone to burn again sometime in the next dozen years because its time for #3.
Regardless of our fire suppression policy its going to happen.
smokechase II
Addicted to ArboristSite
cold fronts
The worst days of Yellowstone were Cold Fronts.
The 1910 fires, South Canyon in 1994, the big burns of the late 1800's were all cold fronts. The wildland fires that killed the most fire fighters and citizenry in the US were cold fronts.
Non fire fighters think that temperature is the most influential weather item on fire behavior.
Not true.
Humidity is the most influential and combine a good dry cold front with its wind you get September 7th, 1988.
Most summer/early fall cold fronts should be thought of as dry fronts.
That is from a weather/fire behavior manual put together about 50 years ago.
========
Next story.
I never seen so many cold fronts as this late winter-spring here in central oregon. I know that NO ONE can predict fire seasons, so take that with a big grain of salt.
(Trivia: the 1909-1910 winter was unusually wet with a high snowpack.)
The worst days of Yellowstone were Cold Fronts.
The 1910 fires, South Canyon in 1994, the big burns of the late 1800's were all cold fronts. The wildland fires that killed the most fire fighters and citizenry in the US were cold fronts.
Non fire fighters think that temperature is the most influential weather item on fire behavior.
Not true.
Humidity is the most influential and combine a good dry cold front with its wind you get September 7th, 1988.
Most summer/early fall cold fronts should be thought of as dry fronts.
That is from a weather/fire behavior manual put together about 50 years ago.
========
Next story.
I never seen so many cold fronts as this late winter-spring here in central oregon. I know that NO ONE can predict fire seasons, so take that with a big grain of salt.
(Trivia: the 1909-1910 winter was unusually wet with a high snowpack.)
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