Wildfires

Point to ponder. States forests generally in higher average temperature climate zones so presumably grow more each year. More natural "droppings" to compost. Presume part of climate zone is precipitation? Maybe? So maybe it's droppings rate vs moisture driven composting rate = if "dry", fuel buildup. Don't know how the race balance has been affected in the north/Canada. Need a botanist to explain the workings of that balance. In the face of rising average temperatures and more extreme weather (weather system energy). Is it as simple as more heat = more dry? Definitely a puzzle. Maybe more % lightning strikes per storm? IIRC more intense storms = lightning.
 
Bart_ said:
Point to ponder. States forests generally in higher average temperature climate zones so presumably grow more each year. More natural "droppings" to compost. Presume part of climate zone is precipitation? Maybe? So maybe it's droppings rate vs moisture driven composting rate = if "dry", fuel buildup. Don't know how the race balance has been affected in the north/Canada. Need a botanist to explain the workings of that balance. In the face of rising average temperatures and more extreme weather (weather system energy). Is it as simple as more heat = more dry? Definitely a puzzle. Maybe more % lightning strikes per storm? IIRC more intense storms = lightning.
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State forests are silviculture miss managed nightmares. Very fire prone mono cultures favoring conifers, and Doug fir as a dominant. (In WA and OR).
 
Maybe what is meant by management is re-plantation practices after 100% deforestation during timber harvesting. Southern Ontario used to have hardwood forests, got stripped out so bad the soil changed to sand dunes (underlying glacial morraine). In the case monoculture conifer was the only thing that would grow to re-establish soil. When dirt biking in one of these forests about 20 years ago I came across one guy with a mini logging operation and when chatting pointed out that slowly the hardwood saplings were returning to the thinned out conifer stand. On a deforested mountian slope theres still soil and stumps. IDK how that affects replanting choices.

By the way, one hazard of dirt biking was smashing your toes on the footpeg on a short stump when switching between neatly planted rows of trees. When you transitioned to deciduous forest the soil changed to black clay and loam. Total leaf carpet come fall.

They used the term managing the forest for their selective thinning.


AI google scraped this which seems right:
"The boreal forest is mainly made up of coniferous softwoods and a few deciduous hardwoods, dominated by black spruce, white spruce, and balsam fir. Tree diversity is low, featuring needle-bearing evergreens that survive cold northern climates alongside resilient broad-leaf trees."
 
Bart_ said:
Maybe what is meant by management is re-plantation practices after 100% deforestation during timber harvesting. Southern Ontario used to have hardwood forests, got stripped out so bad the soil changed to sand dunes (underlying glacial morraine). In the case monoculture conifer was the only thing that would grow to re-establish soil. When dirt biking in one of these forests about 20 years ago I came across one guy with a mini logging operation and when chatting pointed out that slowly the hardwood saplings were returning to the thinned out conifer stand. On a deforested mountian slope theres still soil and stumps. IDK how that affects replanting choices.

By the way, one hazard of dirt biking was smashing your toes on the footpeg on a short stump when switching between neatly planted rows of trees. When you transitioned to deciduous forest the soil changed to black clay and loam. Total leaf carpet come fall.

They used the term managing the forest for their selective thinning.


AI google scraped this which seems right:
"The boreal forest is mainly made up of coniferous softwoods and a few deciduous hardwoods, dominated by black spruce, white spruce, and balsam fir. Tree diversity is low, featuring needle-bearing evergreens that survive cold northern climates alongside resilient broad-leaf trees."
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It always come back to soil neglect.
 
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Bart_ said:
Maybe what is meant by management is re-plantation practices after 100% deforestation during timber harvesting. Southern Ontario used to have hardwood forests, got stripped out so bad the soil changed to sand dunes (underlying glacial morraine). In the case monoculture conifer was the only thing that would grow to re-establish soil. When dirt biking in one of these forests about 20 years ago I came across one guy with a mini logging operation and when chatting pointed out that slowly the hardwood saplings were returning to the thinned out conifer stand. On a deforested mountian slope theres still soil and stumps. IDK how that affects replanting choices.

By the way, one hazard of dirt biking was smashing your toes on the footpeg on a short stump when switching between neatly planted rows of trees. When you transitioned to deciduous forest the soil changed to black clay and loam. Total leaf carpet come fall.

They used the term managing the forest for their selective thinning.


AI google scraped this which seems right:
"The boreal forest is mainly made up of coniferous softwoods and a few deciduous hardwoods, dominated by black spruce, white spruce, and balsam fir. Tree diversity is low, featuring needle-bearing evergreens that survive cold northern climates alongside resilient broad-leaf trees."
Click to expand...
I don't know about there...but in NW Ohio, the sandy soils wouldn't grow anything except pine trees, so that's what got planted. Before settlement, most of the area was forest. Most of that was cleared for agriculture (which most of it still is), but there are pockets were stands of trees were planted. In a few stands I've been involved with, the whoever planted listened to the WI and MI foresters too much and planted a lot of Red pine. Today those stands are crashing. Adjacent White pine stands planted at the same time and same soil types are 2x the DBH and generally doing well.

All that to say...maybe the hardwoods were planted (or allowed to grow back on their own) in different soil types than where the pines were planted in Ontario too???
 
I suspect that if the understory recovers enough, bird squirrel or wind seed transport starts the new hardwoods in the nicer soil. On the single track trail the bikes would break through the compost layer and hit pure sand. I'll bet the deciduous soil layer was simply thicker and more robust. The deciduous trail was typically in more small ravine, slope, off camber (hence not logging stripped) vs the gentler terrain that was logged out and pine replanted. I don't recall understory growing well in the pine dominated sand. Maybe a ph hurdle there too.

There's a section of Toronto that got stripped and re-created from sand dunes as I was told by an old lady who saw it happen. Many truck fulls of topsoil brought in. 95 yrs old - married 18 = 77 years, 2026 - 25 years = 2001, 2001 - 77 years = 1924 estimated date of soil recovering.
 
When I was in college, we visited a site in the Piedmont region of Virginia. This area is known for gently rolling slopes and red clay soil. We visited an old homestead site from the 1600s IIRC. Because that's where the old house was (now fallen apart and overgrown by the woods), it was never cleared for farming. 6 FEET of black top soil before hitting that red clay. Is that what the whole region was like before it was tilled???
 
Ever see the dirty 30's pics and vids? Like snowstorm blizzard drifts of dirt. My grandfather tilled into the early 70's pitch black topsoil. Lucky he didn't lose it. There were tree breaks scattered around the fields that might have helped. They were still clearing land for more tillage into the 70's around there. That's when air seeding and leaving the stubble started.

I bait clicked a few civil rights vids and then youtube served up this Minnesota fire breaks vid. View other topics at your own displeasure ie don't.



edit - it looked like a replay of a public broadcast of the Rachel Maddow show, likely why it got pulled. The news story was that Trump cancelled funding for a shovel ready expertly designed plan to put firebreaks in the Minnesota ?name forest last summer - and then the forest is burning this summer. Among other cancellations like the rocket diahrea outbreak now across 41 states - specific effort for controlling exactly that outbreak done quite effectively up till now.
 
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BC is getting hit pretty hard. 10's of thousands evacuated. Seems that recently the Okanagan valley gets hit almost every year. Ontario apparently set a new record, more than the past year or two's new records.

One scientist said probability of forest fire has gone up 2x due to recent climate change. Seems corroborated by the situation on the ground. Places historically without fires are now experiencing them.
 
Spokane, Wa got hit really hard. I know a few people who lost homes. They said 60k were evacuated on the east side of the city. Arsonist set it, and they've caught other sickos trying to start more.

Idk what's worse, the fact that folks genuinely think that's okay, or the fact that there's folks good at hiding the fact that their decisions help the world burn (data centers, fracking, aquifer abuse, etc).

Just smile and wave I guess.
 
Brando CalPankian said:
Spokane, Wa got hit really hard. I know a few people who lost homes. They said 60k were evacuated on the east side of the city. Arsonist set it, and they've caught other sickos trying to start more.

Idk what's worse, the fact that folks genuinely think that's okay, or the fact that there's folks good at hiding the fact that their decisions help the world burn (data centers, fracking, aquifer abuse, etc).

Just smile and wave I guess.
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It’s getting dismal and dystopian for sure. Seems that we are in the beginning of the feedback loop cycle with a reflective societal component.
 
Brando CalPankian said:
Idk what's worse, the fact that folks genuinely think that's okay, or the fact that there's folks good at hiding the fact that their decisions help the world burn (data centers, fracking, aquifer abuse, etc
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Being "ignorant" is cool/trendy for a slice of society and has been for a while. Assuming it comes from a pushback of feeling intellectual overbearing. Follow the bumperstickers, rude t-shirts, hate/xenophobia and there's the base who supports the world burning.
 
Bart_ said:
I think it's come up before. Increased premiums and refusal of insurance is starting to become a thing. Flooding and fires.
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Oh that’s been on going. I’ve had many of those calls from clients, with non specific threats from their insurance companies ‘you have to remove all the trees from around your house and structure or we will be forced to drop you.’
Sometimes is cut all branches and tops from over the roof.
 
Evo said:
Oh that’s been on going. I’ve had many of those calls from clients, with non specific threats from their insurance companies ‘you have to remove all the trees from around your house and structure or we will be forced to drop you.’
Sometimes is cut all branches and tops from over the roof.
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It's not fun to argue against them either.
 
I wrote letter for a client who's insurance told her to remove all limbs over the house from a huge Red Oak and a big White Oak that was basically all 8"-10" leaders, half of which were over the house. I laid out the risk of Oak Wilt, over-pruning, creating a hazard that didn't exist before, and financial implications for bad tree choices. I also said that making tree pruning or removal requests from drone footage is irresponsible and has no nuance or context, nor the knowledge of a consulting arborist. I threw in the phrase "ecologically irresponsible" for good measure. They changed their tune and are giving her until January to have us perform the prescribed prune from us, NOT them. Sometimes you win one!
 
Njdelaney said:
I wrote letter for a client who's insurance told her to remove all limbs over the house from a huge Red Oak and a big White Oak that was basically all 8"-10" leaders, half of which were over the house. I laid out the risk of Oak Wilt, over-pruning, creating a hazard that didn't exist before, and financial implications for bad tree choices. I also said that making tree pruning or removal requests from drone footage is irresponsible and has no nuance or context, nor the knowledge of a consulting arborist. I threw in the phrase "ecologically irresponsible" for good measure. They changed their tune and are giving her until January to have us perform the prescribed prune from us, NOT them. Sometimes you win one!
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Good job!
 
I'm amazed people don't dump their insurance more over that stupid stuff. They are willing to spend more on (unnecessary - often harmful) tree work recommended by an unqualified pencil pusher who has no idea about the difference between a high risk tree from low risk tree than they are saving with their new provider.

I know in some situations it's not that simple, but around here it is...and homeowners still go for it.
 
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