(See related investigative report from Bob Berwyn off the Summit Voice here)
Matt Stensland:
"Steamboat Springs — For the second summer, grant money is allowing firefighters in South Routt County to help residents protect their homes from wildfires.
“We’re going to create some good fire breaks up there with these projects,” Oak Creek Fire Protection District Chief Chuck Wisecup said Wednesday while firefighters were completing their annual physical fitness test.
The $173,000 project includes the cost of equipment and for three firefighters to work in the Stagecoach area this summer. Another firefighter will join the project later to help burn slash piles once the snow begins to fall. Wisecup said the fire district is contributing $15,000 in cash for the project and $87,000 in other services, including use of equipment, administrative costs and housing. The Colorado State Forest Service is providing $71,000 for the salaries of the firefighters.
The work of the fire mitigation crew will help supplement the efforts by homeowners in the Stagecoach area, where miles of county roads meander through forests filled with dead lodgepole pines. Wisecup estimated the mountain pine beetle epidemic killed 75 percent of the lodgepole pines in the Stagecoach area, leaving behind a tinderbox that continually threatens homes in nearby subdivisions....."
(Read more? Click title)
"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."
Showing posts with label fire suppression causing historic size wildfires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fire suppression causing historic size wildfires. Show all posts
May 17, 2012
SandBoxBlogs: Summit County Citizens Voice "Study suggests Southwest fires driven by year-to-year weather cycles rather than long-term climate variations"
Bob Berwyn:
"SUMMIT COUNTY — A detailed analysis of historic fire-scar records and tree-ring data going back centuries offers more evidence that recent mega-fires in the Southwest are unprecedented and likely a result of widespread fire suppression.
While many of today’s southwestern forests haven’t seen a fire in more than 100 years, historical records show that, in the pre-suppression era, they rarely went as long as 40 or 50 years without a low-intensity ground fire.
To reach their conclusions, researchers at Southern Methodist University used a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns. They wanted to test if today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.
The results were striking. Year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity seemed to stay the same against the backdrop of larger climate cycles, according to SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos.
“The U.S. would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Roos, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology....."
(Read more? Click title)
"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."
"SUMMIT COUNTY — A detailed analysis of historic fire-scar records and tree-ring data going back centuries offers more evidence that recent mega-fires in the Southwest are unprecedented and likely a result of widespread fire suppression.
While many of today’s southwestern forests haven’t seen a fire in more than 100 years, historical records show that, in the pre-suppression era, they rarely went as long as 40 or 50 years without a low-intensity ground fire.
To reach their conclusions, researchers at Southern Methodist University used a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns. They wanted to test if today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.
The results were striking. Year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity seemed to stay the same against the backdrop of larger climate cycles, according to SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos.
“The U.S. would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Roos, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology....."
(Read more? Click title)
"Unapologetic pursuit and tracking of patterns within the news others make since 2010."
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