Fire

[slowp]

There was a big lawsuit against the Dept. of Natural Resources here in Warshington after the Carlton Complex Fire. Folks were claiming that the DNR did not do their job and that firefighters just watched houses burn. Bear in mind that like this year, there were 50mph winds blowing that fire and nothing was going to stop it until those died down. They lost their lawsuit.

Don't know how this year's fire victims feel. This fire burned through the poorer section of the county.

It rained almost all day yesterday, and into the night. We badly needed that.

There was an article in the paper this morning that the state was waiving requirements such as asbestos inspections for residents of Malden. That's a small community that burned down. Instead, they gave volunteers that were clearing the debris where an old Masonic Temple had stood a lecture on how to work in a safer manner with suspected asbestos contaminated wreckage. They also waived inspection and permit fees. Apparently not everyone is copying CA.

 

[TBS]

There was a big lawsuit against the Dept. of Natural Resources here in Warshington after the Carlton Complex Fire. Folks were claiming that the DNR did not do their job and that firefighters just watched houses burn. Bear in mind that like this year, there were 50mph winds blowing that fire and nothing was going to stop it until those died down. They lost their lawsuit.

Don't know how this year's fire victims feel. This fire burned through the poorer section of the county.

It rained almost all day yesterday, and into the night. We badly needed that.

There was an article in the paper this morning that the state was waiving requirements such as asbestos inspections for residents of Malden. That's a small community that burned down. Instead, they gave volunteers that were clearing the debris where an old Masonic Temple had stood a lecture on how to work in a safer manner with suspected asbestos contaminated wreckage. They also waived inspection and permit fees. Apparently not everyone is copying CA.

I smell a lawsuit coming down here because some people here are getting real petty about fire crews not staying to defend their homes with NO FIRE CLEARANCE! One guy ever going so far as to bitch about a falling crew who put a knick in the retaining wall of his burned house as they were removing logs.

 

[RandyMac]

the forecast for north/central and southern CA doesn't look good, dry, windy and hot.

 

[sbhooper]

It amazes me to see all of the burned houses that have/had trees right up to the side of the house/property. How stupid! All of those small towns should have a huge fire break cut around the entire town. Stupid games-stupid prizes. State regulations have caused a lot of it, too.

 

[Stephen Meister]

It’s a shame what you guys are dealing with. Prayers sent.

 

[TBS]

It amazes me to see all of the burned houses that have/had trees right up to the side of the house/property. How stupid! All of those small towns should have a huge fire break cut around the entire town. Stupid games-stupid prizes. State regulations have caused a lot of it, too.

We've got laws that say we have to maintain a at least 30ft perimeter around a structure and 100ft around homes but enforcement is non-existent outside of a sternly worded letter, much of what I've seen comes down to one neighbor doing it as best they while right nextdoor they want to keep the pretty ferns and manzanita. One house that barely survived down the road from us was only because of the material used (metal,comp, and pavement) it was up against the overgrown forest boundary .

 

[Stephen Meister]

We've got laws that say we have to maintain a at least 30ft perimeter around a structure and 100ft around homes but enforcement is non-existent outside of a sternly worded letter, much of what I've seen comes down to one neighbor doing it as best they while right nextdoor they want to keep the pretty ferns and manzanita. One house that barely survived down the road from us was only because of the material used (metal,comp, and pavement) it was up against the overgrown forest boundary .

Who makes these laws?

 

[blades]

Idiot politicians at local , state, and federal levels as well as upper level Department of Natural Resources management and Federal Forestry department. Then you have the various environmental groups. They are for the most part 2 legged Lemmings.

 

[Stephen Meister]

Idiot politicians at local , state, and federal levels as well as upper level Department of Natural Resources management and Federal Forestry department. Then you have the various environmental groups. They are for the most part 2 legged Lemmings.

Are you still doing forest management or has that been axed by regulators?

 

[TBS]

Who makes these laws?

Office of the state fire marshal in california made the wildland urban interface code for 100 foot defensible space...One of the few california policies that uses common sense. Like blades said the fed higher ups and environmental groups make the ******* policies that don't allow for federal lands to be maintained properly, these are also the people who still think paying their firefighters 15 bucks an hour after 3 seasons is ok and still refuse to title them as firefighters unless the forest service has to buy them a coffin.

 

[slowp]

It amazes me to see all of the burned houses that have/had trees right up to the side of the house/property. How stupid! All of those small towns should have a huge fire break cut around the entire town. Stupid games-stupid prizes. State regulations have caused a lot of it, too.

Guess you need to actually be on the ground and see a fire like burned here go. You could have a "huge" fire break around town and it would still burn it. We had 50mph winds! Those were pushing the fire and nothing was stopping it--not roads, not even the Columbia River!!! The latter would surely qualify as a "huge" firebreak. And, that fire was not in tall timber. It was in sagebrush and grass for the most part. It burned the stubble in wheat fields. Can you define a huge firebreak? I've seen fire with less wind behind it easily jump a 4 cat blade wide line. That was in Lodgepole Pine. Now, imagine what a wind driven crown fire in a west side forest would do. Doug fir is a heck of a lot taller than Lodgepole.

The fires burning in Western Oregon were unstoppable what with the weather conditions. They also had strong winds and the wind was from the east. If you read up on Western WA and OR forests, you will find out that a stand replacing fire occurs around every 200 or 300 years. That's why Douglas fir was so abundant when settlers arrived. A west side fire is bad enough, but a wind pushed fire like happened there would be terrifying, and unstoppable until the wind died down.

People don't all live in town. Many live on acreage all over the valleys. Your fire break solution does not fit the situation. Another thing, large fires are not common in the temperate rain forest. We have called them asbestos forests in the past. While fires in parts of CA and east of the Cascades have historically burned every ten to twenty years, the west side is a whole different story. I've already mentioned the historical frequency for that side.

You are armchair quarterbacking. There is no easy solution. The old worn out saying works here--it was a perfect storm.

 

[Hddnis]

Fire breaks can and do make a huge difference even in a high wind event, as in a large fire break around each structure.

If a building is resistant to blown embers, and has little or no fuel around it, it is going to survive all on it's own. In such a case you are not stopping a fire, you are reducing the intensity of the fire around what you want to protect.

One of my friends had a home survive the Beachie Creek fire. He only had some very small trees in the yard, a good distance from the house. All the big trees he had cut down years ago. He kept the lawn watered, but not lush green like magazine cover. Nearest big trees were over 150' away, they all burned, raging crown fire that left black sticks over a 100' tall.

Back in 2015 we had a fire started by a downed line and driven by 40mph winds, it was burning across wheat fields that has been disked! There was a wall of flame burning stubble that would not have burned in a mild breeze. The fire got into some homes east of town, only lost a few sheds. Lots of people had wood stacked against the garage and some of those stacks caught fire. FD responded with seven engines, mutual aid brought six more, and locals responded with about another fifty engines of the makeshift pumps water variety. On top of that dozens responded with just a rake or shovel and attacked spot fires in yards and along the roads. It was all over in two hours.

If it had started a little farther west, and gotten into town proper, with all the overgrown yards, stacks of wood against buildings, taller trees, houses with shakes and cedar siding, etc., it would have been a big firestorm and probably would have burned right through town.

 

[catbuster]

Patty’s right about the fires on the west side of the Cascades in Oregon & Washington. There’s not a damn thing that will stop a crown fire in that forest when dry. It’s dry now, and the weather is extreme. SoCal is usually underbrush, meh. Nothing real big. Cut dozer line and let it burn itself out. LA/Ventura Counties have it down to a science. NorCal & into the Sierras are bigger fires but still not much compared the potential I was always terrified of when I was working around Astoria & associated areas.

The trees are big, the brush can be dense and cutting a 50 foot dozer line won’t work with a 300 foot flame length and intense radiant heat. That’s assuming you can get a dozer big enough to work some of the big, snotty stuff out of the way, and in plenty of places it’s too steep or there’s no access. So you’re into hand crews, and while those boys & girls work hard, it’s just not practical to try to get in there and construct hand line that anything wind-driven in that type of fuel won’t even notice. For those of you who haven’t seen a crown fire, and I hope you don’t have to, it’s an experience that is astonishing, humbling, somehow spiritual and terrifying all at once. It’s a moment in time that I think most of us who have seen one recognize that there are some things we simply can’t control.

I guess I’ll concede that if the brush is dry and the trees aren’t cooking off fire breaks work okay. But the fire behavior of recent weeks is not that.

 

[northmanlogging]

We've got laws that say we have to maintain a at least 30ft perimeter around a structure and 100ft around homes but enforcement is non-existent outside of a sternly worded letter, much of what I've seen comes down to one neighbor doing it as best they while right nextdoor they want to keep the pretty ferns and manzanita. One house that barely survived down the road from us was only because of the material used (metal,comp, and pavement) it was up against the overgrown forest boundary .

Theres a mentality here of its a rain forest, rain forests don't burn...
So folks build real cozy like to very tall timber, and very thick underbrush.

Every now and again a fire gets close to civilization on the west side, and things get interesting quickly, take the Sumner Grade fire last month, Too steep for dozers, I'm not even sure King county has hand crews, if they do they were busy trying to put out the east side, so all they had was a few engines and one lone helicopter on the first day or 2 of the fire.

There is often fires up in the wilderness areas here too, Snohomish county (home for me) is the size of Deleware, but most of it is mountains and wilderness, so when a fire gets going in the back country, there literally is nothing anyone can do besides keep an eye on it and let it burn out.. hopefully...

 

[slowp]

When I first moved over to the wet side, clearing was done around houses not for fire protection but to get rid of trees that might blow over onto a house or to let sun onto the house so the moss wouldn't cover the whole roof. Flooding was a bigger threat than fires.

 

[sbhooper]

Guess you need to actually be on the ground and see a fire like burned here go. You could have a "huge" fire break around town and it would still burn it. We had 50mph winds! Those were pushing the fire and nothing was stopping it--not roads, not even the Columbia River!!! The latter would surely qualify as a "huge" firebreak. And, that fire was not in tall timber. It was in sagebrush and grass for the most part. It burned the stubble in wheat fields. Can you define a huge firebreak? I've seen fire with less wind behind it easily jump a 4 cat blade wide line. That was in Lodgepole Pine. Now, imagine what a wind driven crown fire in a west side forest would do. Doug fir is a heck of a lot taller than Lodgepole.

The fires burning in Western Oregon were unstoppable what with the weather conditions. They also had strong winds and the wind was from the east. If you read up on Western WA and OR forests, you will find out that a stand replacing fire occurs around every 200 or 300 years. That's why Douglas fir was so abundant when settlers arrived. A west side fire is bad enough, but a wind pushed fire like happened there would be terrifying, and unstoppable until the wind died down.

People don't all live in town. Many live on acreage all over the valleys. Your fire break solution does not fit the situation. Another thing, large fires are not common in the temperate rain forest. We have called them asbestos forests in the past. While fires in parts of CA and east of the Cascades have historically burned every ten to twenty years, the west side is a whole different story. I've already mentioned the historical frequency for that side.

You are armchair quarterbacking. There is no easy solution. The old worn out saying works here--it was a perfect storm.

Sooooo. You are telling me that cutting trees/brush back from your property is useless. LMAO! It might not be the total answer, but YES it can and does help.

 

[Stephen Meister]

Office of the state fire marshal in california made the wildland urban interface code for 100 foot defensible space...One of the few california policies that uses common sense. Like blades said the fed higher ups and environmental groups make the ******* policies that don't allow for federal lands to be maintained properly, these are also the people who still think paying their firefighters 15 bucks an hour after 3 seasons is ok and still refuse to title them as firefighters unless the forest service has to buy them a coffin.

Gotcha, I figured it was a federal thing that stopped the proper forest management this way they could blame the fires on global warming.

 

[catbuster]

Sooooo. You are telling me that cutting trees/brush back from your property is useless. LMAO! It might not be the total answer, but YES it can and does help.

She’s not. What she’s trying to convey to you, as someone who has fought fire on the west side of the Cascades is that for the specific instance that are crown fires in that type of terrain and timber are nigh impossible to stop with the weather conditions they have been experiencing.

I’m going to ask you a few questions.

1. Do you understand what a crown fire is?

2.Do you grasp the concepts of flame length, radiant heat and how the two correlate?

3. Do you have a good grasp on the concept of fuel load and how it relates to long-term weather conditions?

4. Do you understand how weather plays a critical part in wildland fire behavior?

5. Have you ever been out to or how familiar are you with where these things are cooking before the areas burned? This question relates strongly to 3.

If you answer those 5 honestly, you should be able to understand how the fires in the western Cascades became the way they were. If you can’t answer them, then it’s much better to try to learn and listen to people who know than argue blindly with them. This is before we even begin to discuss spot fires.

In all, these aren’t grass or crop fires in Nebraska. I’ve done my fair share of that in R8/9, and it’s not even close fighting fire in R6.

 

[Blue Oaks]

We've got laws that say we have to maintain a at least 30ft perimeter around a structure and 100ft around homes but enforcement is non-existent outside of a sternly worded letter, much of what I've seen comes down to one neighbor doing it as best they while right nextdoor they want to keep the pretty ferns and manzanita. One house that barely survived down the road from us was only because of the material used (metal,comp, and pavement) it was up against the overgrown forest boundary .

I've got a good 100 feet around my house, on my property. My problem is my lot is 150 feet wide and 550 feet deep. My house is fairly close to the property line and I've never met nor even seen the adjacent property owner. I end up cutting brush back and spraying round-up on property that's not mine, and I don't have permission to do so. But I have to do what I have to do.

 

[slowp]

Sooooo. You are telling me that cutting trees/brush back from your property is useless. LMAO! It might not be the total answer, but YES it can and does help.

Nope. In Nebraska and other places it might work, although the Cold Springs fire we had here in the sagebrushy country is the fire that was pushed by 50mph winds and jumped the Columbia. All fires are not the same. All terrain is not the same. All forests are not the same. What works on flat land, like those little atvs with chains flailing to make a line does not work in the mountains.

What I learned, back in the dark ages, was that on the west side, the best fireline, other than a road, is a charged fire hose spraying water and wetting down all the duff and foilage along the edges. That was not in a big wind, either. And that is not the answer to every situation. Wind is a game changer, as is topography and all the other stuff that you need to consider.

Forestry is complicated and site specific, and most folks don't get that.