If only we had raked our forests

[SHRED]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Merlot]

1. Rakes are old school, we use leaf blowers to clean our forrests.

We blow all the debris across the state line.

[Shrike47]

5. Leaf blowers with very long cords...

[Wintryjade]

2. Are a thousand presumed dead, or 1000 more missing? Because That is a big statement to say,

Do they think a thousand more are dead? That matters.

I am having a lot of conversation with people that are trying to get to some clean air in the Northwest.

[NotASurfer]

9. Think of it as a list of people somebody else is concerned about

The past week Butte Co has been encouraging calls from anybody who can't find a family member, neighbor, or friend, and has some reason to think the person might not have left or might not have made it off the Ridge there. They're erring on the side of over-reporting right now; there will be some duplication, some names are guesses based on what an emergency caller sounded like they were saying through spotty cell reception, and in some cases all they have is somebody's first or last name.

The past few days they're also been adding in calls for welfare checks, and reviewing 911 calls from the chaos of the first day when things were so overwhelmed that all the dispatcher could do was promise they could try if there was anybody in the area once the evacuation phase was over.

This is now going to be a slow-motion process. Nobody knows where most of the 50,000 evacuees went; I think shelters in the area only have a thousand or so people, the rest could be anywhere in the country. The County is relying on evacuees checking that list and report in if they're on it.

I personally don't doubt there are over a hundred deaths, but right now we don't and can't know just how many

[demigoddess]

3. leaves allowed to sit on a forest floor will decompose and make soil

of course, they need rain to do this. And raking a forest floor was not done for centuries, and they survived just fine. It was man who created fire. The power lines running to houses in the forest seem to have done this. Perhaps if the houses had been solar powered, there would have been fewer fires.

[True Dough]

4. How about this?

Link to tweet

[BigmanPigman]

6. Sure, like FINLAND he said!

He is standing there next to Brown and still is saying that he blames the forest for not raking the ground and all those trees. He said he "spoke to authorities in Finland which has the exact same problem but they don't have big fires like this since they rake the forests. We need to do what Finland does". I am not making this up...HE IS!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Finland had terrible fires this summer because of the unusually hot, dry weather.

In fact, all of Scandinavia had many forest fires in July and August (Norway had almost 300) because they had little rain and it averaged 10C warmer than normal. The problem was caused or at least aggravated by climate change. They don't rake their forests, most of which are privately owned, in Finland. https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/finland-has-a-problem-with-too-few-forest-fires-to-promote-biodiversity-burned-down-areas-should-be-protected/

[BigmanPigman]

8. Is he really, really stupid or does he think

we are and will believe his BS if he says it often enough?

A lot of people are waking up, too slowly for my taste, to the fact that sometimes he "fibs a little".

[NotASurfer]

10. Two things

I lived there for almost a decade. They DO log the forests in the area in part to try to make open areas where you can create fire breaks. Look at a satellite map of the area, there is a patchwork of open spaces on the upper ridge. In other words, the forests are well-maintained. Some of the land is National forest land, some is privately held by paper companies with a vested interest in not having the next 50 years' worth of inventory reduced to ash

Then look at a topological map. Some of the slopes are almost vertical. You'd almost need to be at the end of a rope, not quite rappelled down but you wouldn't be able to get any footing otherwise, to get a chainsaw on those trees. The idea that you could pick up the forest floor is beyond ludicrous