I think the article (unintentionally) makes a better argument that these companies are trying to create megafires?<p>It presents a bunch of startups, most about detecting forest fires earlier, coordinating faster fire department responses, preventing ignition sources, etc. Then it goes on to explain how Megafires are largely caused by a buildup of fuel because we extinguish every small fire and prevented people from doing what we now call prescribed burns.<p>Of course any tool can be used for good or evil, but aren't most of the described startups more likely to make the situation worse, giving people more tools to prevent fires until so much fuel builds up that an uncontrollable fire develops?
Such a beautiful article and really covers the root of the issue. I know we skim a lot of articles but this one really deserves to be read in full.<p>The issue being that natural fires have been suppressed for so long that when they do burn there is so much fuel available that they get way hotter than is natural and end up sterilizing the soil so nothing grows for years. Prescribed burns and thinning are the answer to prevention. Let nature happen, and even encourage it so it can be controlled.
One thing I find frustrating in the discussion of wildfire is that it frequently dumbs down to one thing vs another, usually "We must treat the landscape with thinning and prescribed fire" vs "We need better firefighting resources and equipment". This is a false choice and we need both.<p>The principle of Defense in Depth in infosec is illustrative. No one would debate whether or not you need secure passwords vs role-based permissions. You obviously need both and they reinforce each other.<p>The same is true in fire. To end megafires, we need:
1) Landscape Management
2) Community Resilience
3) Fast & aggressive suppression<p>Better technology can help play a role at all three levels.
I guess it takes a lifetime of wisdom to truly realize companies will never 'end' anything, as their whole existence depends on the thing happening at least enough to keep selling the cure.
Fire is a natural part of the forest lifecycle. We shouldn't try to end it, we should build our housing and infrastructure to minimize the effects of fire on us.
I'm curious, with such giant swathes of forest being burnt off annually, and large contiguous chunks being burnt up, leaving only smaller contiguous areas;<p>1) given the average size of a megafire, how many more megafires can happen (assuming regrowth to current fuel levels takes 50 years)<p>2) what is the largest megafire that could still happen, given the forested area unburnt for at least 50 years<p>The chronicle has a map somewhere that lists all the wildfires that have happened in the last 30-40 years, at a casual glance it is looking like any forest areas that haven't burnt yet, are getting increasingly smaller. According to the USDA california has about 101 million acres of forest[1], and the august complex (2020) alone burnt 1 million acres, almost 1%, dixie fire was also almost 1%. The next 18 largest fires burnt another 5% (4.7%) [2]. Since 2001 We've burnt up 22% of all the forests in california [3]<p>7% in ~12 years seems like a lot, but it takes a long time to grow that much fuel, also the space in between those burnt spaces is going to be increasingly smaller and smaller, or at least so it would seem.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsm8_037652.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsm8_037652.h...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/4jandlhh/top20_acres.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/4jandlhh/top20_acres.pdf</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_wildfires#Area_burned_per_year" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_wildfires#A...</a>
For those who are (truly) interested in the topic, bothered to read this whole article, and want to know more - the seminal work on the subject is <a href="https://megafirebook.com/" rel="nofollow">https://megafirebook.com/</a>
This is a peeve of mine that I see absolutely everywhere, none of our recent fires hold a candle (so to speak) to what was going on before humans started managing forests. Take a look at this chart from the UN[1], specifically pre-1960.<p>I guarantee every chart of wildfires you'll see on a major news site will begin after 1960. Typically they want to push the narrative that climate change is causing wildfires when in fact wildfires have everything to do with forest management and nothing to do with climate change. They are of course also ignoring the fact that climate models predict a _wetter_ planet, not a drier one, if current trends continue.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/ai412e/ai412e09.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://www.fao.org/3/ai412e/ai412e09.jpg</a>