Soĺ Cal fires

mbaird said

Exactly how are you going to clear millions of acres of brush and sage ? And brush doesn’t generally grow under old growth pines etc… not enough light through the canopy . Also the bark on old Ponderosas is so thick it’s damn near fireproof .
Most overly brushy areas in a forest occur in logged areas .
But I don’t think these fires are in forested areas… most likey foothills with sagebrush and such .
I spend a lot of time wandering through the mountains.

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One thing to keep an eye on is what we call Type Conversions. That is where a fuel type is burned away and burned so hot (due to dead/down, fuel loading, and ladder fuels) whereas the soil is neutralized and the seed bank is destroyed. The land then converted to a different fuel model, most usually, brush or grassland. This is the danger of putting fires out as fast as we can. Sure, on red flag days we need to but for over a hundred years we've been putting fires out that would have had great benefits down the road had they been left to burn.