[Anne Elk]

I keep going back to my favorite at-a-glance reference, the Palmer Drought Index, which I've cited in discussion threads before. Despite its faults, I think it gives a very useful picture of ground conditions - soil moisture, recharge, etc. I'm not sure how the data was derived for the historical models, given that Palmer came up with his system in 1965. I haven't gone back through the historical index to check when they first began to occur regularly, but you have to imagine that when the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula shows moderate to severe drought for multiple months in a row and not just in summer, we're in new climate territory.

[Malachai Constant]

Anne Elk of course you hit the nail on the head we concentrate far to much on the spark and to little on the underlying conditions. Be it careless campers, power lines, arson, agricultural machinery, grinding rails, sunlight on broken bottles, lightning, tossed cigarettes, catalytic converters, or careless loggers, sparks will occur it is what happens when the occur that makes all the difference. Record heat, drought, duff condition, disease, and fuel load determine what happens. After the fact punishments may be satisfying but will not cure the damage nor will internet pontification on hiking websites no matter how heated the arguments.

[Ski]

[treeswarper]

[Sculpin]

Another thread ruined by the usual trolls, sigh. The problem with trolls is not what they write but that they make every thread the same. Which is the idea I guess. I was just reading an article by Zeke Lunder about the fire ecology in northern California. He was describing some of the conditions that make forest fires spread more rapidly in parts of California than they are likely to do here. In the higher terrain of northern California, the forests are dominated by red and white fir. Firs produce small needles that make a dense duff. The density of the duff is very important for fire spread. Burning can only occur on an exposed surface, and denser duff has less surface area. Most years, the higher forests in California get buried under a snowpack that can exceed 30' of depth. The snow really compacts the duff layer. Down at lower elevations, the forests are dominated by Jeffery and Ponderosa pines. These pines make long needles that not only form a less dense duff, they tend to hang up on snags and brush. The result is a ground layer that promotes much faster fire spread. In California, a lot of the area dominated by these pines does not get a significant snowpack every year. This stands in contrast to here in Washington. Most of our Ponderosa pine forests are found in areas that typically get a snowpack. Another major difference is chaparral and manzanita. The open understory in California is dominated primarily by species of manzanita. If fire frequency is high, the pines will not regenerate and the brush will dominate. This type of ecosystem is known as chaparral. We have very little here in Washington, I have really only seen extensive chaparral in the lower Scotty Creek drainage. Manzanita, in particular, forms volatile oils that make fires hotter. After the fire, manzanita crown sprouts prolifically. While we do have fire-promoting shrubs and trees, we don't really have many areas that spread fire as quickly as manzanita chaparral understory. Because of these factors, the forest fire ecology in northern California at low elevations has no analogue here in Washington. The fires that have spread rapidly here were mostly burning in shrub-steppe, not forest. Here is a link to the really awesome website where I read about some of his: https://the-lookout.org/

[Anne Elk]

Sculpin, thanks for the link to Zeke Lunder's "The Lookout". He also recommends another site in one of his tweets from a couple days ago: If you are interested in learning more about how wildfires work, I highly recommend following @pyrogeog. Crystal Kolden has been working in wildfire for a long time and posts a lot of very solid information here. https://twitter.com/pyrogeog/status/1429272781355507714

[altasnob]

[treeswarper]

While talking with a friend this morning, who also went away on fire crews, the Naches area fire came up as a topic. I did remember that the Naches district has done quite a bit of fuels reduction work on the Tieton side of the Russell Ridge area--burning and selective logging. We may get a chance to see how that goes. And Sculpin, the forests of Western OR and WA often and this depends on elevations and locations, have deep layers of duff/organics. When a fire gets going in those places, digging line is difficult and mopping up is hell as the smoldering is quite deep, not to mention going into the roots. Luckily, water is usually available so the ground can be drowned in water if a pump and hose are feasible. Meanwhile, in the eastern part of the Cascades, we have deep needles in places where no fires have occurred for a long time. These burn pretty fast but will cause cat faces (fire scars) on the uphill side of trees where the needles have piled up deep against the tree and burn hot. Needles are easy to burn off with a drip torch in the spring, but that doesn't happen enough and it needs to be repeated every few years or the needles pile up again. Forests are not one size fits all. Nor did you say that but I think other folks can't or won't understand that concept. And some realistic humor. Prior to burning the needles off a forest floor in the high country of AZ, the forest WAS raked! The fire crews were sent out to rake those concentrations of needles away from the trees to prevent the trees from scorching. The same area had a Chariot Of Fire--an ATV with trailer attached. The trailer had a torch on it. Unfortunately, the Chariot of Fire had a problem and burned up. There were no injuries incurred.

[Sculpin]

[treeswarper]

Whilst out on a bike ride today, saw these beauties. These are great handpiles up near the Loup Loup ski area. They will be ready to burn late this Fall. The cardboard looking stuff keeps a core area dry. You stick your drip torch or lighting device in the pile under that and it'll take off, generate a lot of heat, and the uncovered part of the pile will burn. This area was logged a bit during the winter and up until the fire season shut down occurred. This is next to the Loup Loup campground where hazard trees were taken out. It'll look really nice once logs and slash are gone, along with cows that were trespassing.

[Ski]

^ You mean you don't think cows add something to the natural landscape? As an aside: In a conversation with somebody on another site, it was suggested that "the Europeans don't have this problem." When Pinchot went over to Germany to look at their forests and attend the first "school" of forestry, one of the things he noticed was that the litter on the floor was absent - the local villagers picked it all up for firewood. That practice had been in place for generations and generations - the landowners allowed the villagers to scavenge the wood. Maybe we could get people to go back to wood heat and provide free slash for firewood?

[altasnob]

[Ski]

^ that was in the context of Pinchot's visits to the forests of Bavaria, which occurred during the late 19th century. Certainly the situation has changed there significantly during the last century and a half. But the Black Forest is not Greece, or Spain, or Portugal.

[treeswarper]

Some research done a few years ago on German forests shows there is a problem. It shows up in the 4th? or so rotation of the forest. It's basically that the soil runs out of nutrients as there isn't enough deteriorating wood to add organics and all the goodies to the soil. Productivity is down with each rotation. In fact, after that came to light, things changed a bit here. Contracts specified that slash under a certain diameter was to be left in the unit, along with a certain number of larger logs. If they were whole tree skidding (limbing done on the landing) slash had to be sent back out into the unit. On the west side, this small stuff deteriorates quickly. On the east side, not so much but requiring lopping and scattering lessens the fire danger a bit. That's taking a saw out and cutting up the limbs so they aren't sticking up very high and breaking up the heavy concentrations of limbs (fuels) so the heat won't be as intense should a fire occur. But, if you are really serious about fuels reduction, the way to get it done and slicked clean is to put a campground in the area. No concessionaires selling firewood. Campers allowed to gather it for their fires.

[treeswarper]

They were hanging out around the outhouse. A few miles farther up the road, there were some Black Angus of a most impressive size. I talked nice to them and convinced the Demon Dog to keep a low profile. For some reason, range cows often seem a bit on the mean side.