– During its review, the Commission found that California’s forests suffer from neglect and mismanagement, resulting in overcrowding that leaves them susceptible to disease, insects and wildfire. The Commission found commitment to long-lasting forest management changes at the highest levels of government, but that support for those changes needs to spread down not just through the state’s massive bureaucracy and law- and policymaking apparatuses, but among the general public as well. Complicating the management problem is the fact that the State of California owns very few of the forests within its borders – most are owned by the federal government or private landowners.
Those fires were only waiting to happen just as they have been in Canada. The spur to getting them started was the Pacific ocean phenomenon of ENSO. There are 3 phases to ENSO warm, cool, and neutral. ENSO has only been studied since 1950. In that short period of data we find that ENSO was dominated by La Nina (cool) from 1950-75 and El Nino (warm) from 1976-2000. ENSO has reverted to La Nina dominance since, though it has gone through a couple of extreme El Ninos notably in 2010. During the 25 year El Nino period Alberta had lots of rain which led to massive and unchecked forest growth. Now we have La Nina and forests have dried out bringing the perfect conditions for fires.
It didnt used to be normal for the atmosphere to be full of smoke, enough to affect the entire continent. There never used to be weeks to months of hazy, smoke everywhere- but here we are pretending nothing bad is happening.
I love to hike, and live in a beautiful place, so I’m part of a local hiking forum. It started as a way to share info about trail conditions, but over the years the topic of wildfire has slowly taken over. Because, over the years, fire has become more and more of a problem.
There are a lot of people who don’t believe there is a connection between the fires and climate change. People talk about “there has always been fire” and “mismanagement.” And while these both have some truth to them, a hotter and dryer climate is most of the reason for the out of control fires we see now.
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With only a little digging you will find many reports like the one below:
https://lhc.ca.gov/report/fire-mountain-rethinking-forest-management-sierra-nevada
Where they tell us:
– During its review, the Commission found that California’s forests suffer from neglect and mismanagement, resulting in overcrowding that leaves them susceptible to disease, insects and wildfire. The Commission found commitment to long-lasting forest management changes at the highest levels of government, but that support for those changes needs to spread down not just through the state’s massive bureaucracy and law- and policymaking apparatuses, but among the general public as well. Complicating the management problem is the fact that the State of California owns very few of the forests within its borders – most are owned by the federal government or private landowners.
Those fires were only waiting to happen just as they have been in Canada. The spur to getting them started was the Pacific ocean phenomenon of ENSO. There are 3 phases to ENSO warm, cool, and neutral. ENSO has only been studied since 1950. In that short period of data we find that ENSO was dominated by La Nina (cool) from 1950-75 and El Nino (warm) from 1976-2000. ENSO has reverted to La Nina dominance since, though it has gone through a couple of extreme El Ninos notably in 2010. During the 25 year El Nino period Alberta had lots of rain which led to massive and unchecked forest growth. Now we have La Nina and forests have dried out bringing the perfect conditions for fires.
It didnt used to be normal for the atmosphere to be full of smoke, enough to affect the entire continent. There never used to be weeks to months of hazy, smoke everywhere- but here we are pretending nothing bad is happening.
I love to hike, and live in a beautiful place, so I’m part of a local hiking forum. It started as a way to share info about trail conditions, but over the years the topic of wildfire has slowly taken over. Because, over the years, fire has become more and more of a problem.
There are a lot of people who don’t believe there is a connection between the fires and climate change. People talk about “there has always been fire” and “mismanagement.” And while these both have some truth to them, a hotter and dryer climate is most of the reason for the out of control fires we see now.