US Takes Action To Save Sequoias

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

According to this article it was caused by lightning.

https://wildfiretoday.com/2018/10/30...988-wildfires/

In 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park caused mostly by lightning burned 793,880 acres, 36 percent of the park, during windy weather following a dry spring and summer.

The Yellowstone fires were natural fires that were allowed to burn, and then got out of control. The Forest Service admitted that it was a bad policy and reversed it. Fires are bad and must be put out. Not putting them out risks lives, property, resources and contributes to more global warming, and then more fires. We are in a downward spiral.

Also the article you posted is filled with BS. Yellowstone still hasn't recovered from those fires. It will take at least 50 to a 100 years for it to look anything like it did before 1988, but it will burn many times before that can happen. It's sickening. We will never have forests like we used to have.

The fires of 1988 quickly ate up hundreds of thousands of acres thanks to an extremely dry summer and high winds. The longstanding policy to allow natural fires to burn out on their own was reversed in 1988. That led to teams of firefighters being brought in and millions of dollars spent fighting the blaze. The “Let it Burn” policy, as the national media coined it, was widely blamed for the destruction and the park faced intense scrutiny as the park continued to burn.

The Summer Yellowstone Burned. What Went Wrong in 1988_

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

What I think we really need is a fleet of Global Supertankers stationed all over the Western US ready to take off at a moments notice to start bombing any wildfires as soon as they start, before they can get too out of control.

Problem is, they can get out of control faster than tankers can even get in the air. Also, there is no ability to 100% fight a fire from above so you still need literal boots on the ground. This was a big political issue during the Cedar fire in 2003. It also takes a lot of time to mobilize crews to fight fires that start in remote areas, especially that of mountainous back country.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by joosoon

Problem is, they can get out of control faster than tankers can even get in the air. Also, there is no ability to 100% fight a fire from above so you still need literal boots on the ground. This was a big political issue during the Cedar fire in 2003. It also takes a lot of time to mobilize crews to fight fires that start in remote areas, especially that of mountainous back country.

I'm not sure that is true. It usually takes about a day or two for the fires to really blow up and get completely out of control. I would have a policy that if the local fire department can't control it in the first 30 minutes they would call in the Supertankers. And I'm talking about a fleet of them, coming in one after another dropping water. As long as the wildfire is still relatively small I don't see how it couldn't be controlled most of the time with that level of firefighting capability.

I'm sure there would still be situations where the fire would spread too quickly, beyond the control of anything to stop it. But if we could even control 90% of them quickly, hopefully that would reduce the damage enough that the forests would no longer be burning faster than they can grow.

I'm sure the cost of it would be great, but I really don't see how we can afford not to do it.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by joosoon

Problem is, they can get out of control faster than tankers can even get in the air. Also, there is no ability to 100% fight a fire from above so you still need literal boots on the ground. This was a big political issue during the Cedar fire in 2003. It also takes a lot of time to mobilize crews to fight fires that start in remote areas, especially that of mountainous back country.

Plus, the price of these planes and the price of converting them is staggering. It can also cost 25-50 grand a day to use them. This is on top of maint and the costs of the crew.