Mariposa Fire....hows Stephen doing??

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Whats LEO?

Looking at the situation report, wow, 16-18* humidity!!!! No wonder it's all burning.
Are these fires hot fires? Like, ones that haven't burnt through an area in years, so a massive fuel load that burns real hot, instead of just running through and gone?

Lots of fuel reduction burning is going on this winter in Tasmania, they are trying to get ahead of fires for the next few seasons, get fuel loads down in critical areas. Ours is the only state in Australia where fuel reduction burns take place on both private and public lands, co-ordinated by the TFS and the State Fire Commission...basically no discrimination in regards to land ownership, if it gets flagged as an area that needs reduction burning, it gets done.
 
Bermy said:
Whats LEO?

Looking at the situation report, wow, 16-18* humidity!!!! No wonder it's all burning.
Are these fires hot fires? Like, ones that haven't burnt through an area in years, so a massive fuel load that burns real hot, instead of just running through and gone?

Lots of fuel reduction burning is going on this winter in Tasmania, they are trying to get ahead of fires for the next few seasons, get fuel loads down in critical areas. Ours is the only state in Australia where fuel reduction burns take place on both private and public lands, co-ordinated by the TFS and the State Fire Commission...basically no discrimination in regards to land ownership, if it gets flagged as an area that needs reduction burning, it gets done.
Click to expand...

Burning in areas not burned in 75 plus years some of it.
heavy fuel loads, heavy and high grasses, hot fuel, steady winds.
Now, in our area, it only takes about 8 years for the chaparral to grow above head height. The chamise, Adenostoma fasciculatum, all by itself, burns like gasoline. Little dead nettles all under and in each plant. Grows thick, impassable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenostoma_fasciculatum
Then you throw some manzanita, buck and deer brush in with it around some oak.....
 
Could only imagine what the erosion is like in those burn areas, must be terrible!

My understanding of the natural fire cycles for the pine forest here is that the regular fires would not entirely burn the forest, just the underbrush leaving most of the mature trees intact. Too bad it does not work that way anymore.
 
Nope, fire suppression went on too long and too far before we figured out otherwise. Now it all burns to moon scape.
What they will do next is shoot grass into areas to try and stop erosion. Maybe seed by air as well. Try to get some grasses started come winter. Wild flowers will be everywhere next spring. Or one year later.
 
I think that would be true unless the underbrush has built to a point where a crown fire takes over and burns everything.
 
Ah yes, now I remember, they were dropping seeds out of a helicopter here a few years ago after a bad fire. There was a fire nearby about 30 years ago that has never re-grown. Apparently it burned so hot that the soil was more or less sterilized.
 
As we know.......the O horizon, also called the litter layer, is the topmost organic component of the soil profile.
 
I heard the heat doesn't permeate 5 cm into the soil... that's why they said when you're in your shelter, dig a hole for your face to breathe.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
 
That big air tanker is not really an appropriate aircraft for many, maybe most mountainous country wildfire suppression work.

Unless you have actually witnessed how close to the ground the flying is, how difficult the maneuvers required of the pilots and the aircraft to get retardant or water in the right place, how tiny the gaps in terrain the aircraft has to negotiate...you cannot really visualize the hazards. A beast like that is bound to be dangerous for the flight crew and the ground pounders. I understand the pressure the USFS has to be under to greenlight it's use, but I also understand the reluctance.
 
Ha! You nailed it Burnham.

I worked with a forester one summer fighting fires. He talked about a fire that they had to use retardant on. They all knew it would not do any good, but it was more politics than anything.

We have worked with tankers out here on the prairie. They work great!

In the timber? Not so much.
 
Been under more retardant drops than I ever wanted to be. Of course, a single one would qualify for that list :). And I saw a few really close calls... lead planes and tankers, both. Treetop flyers. Fearless effers. And in the right hands, they can really be quite effective in mountainside timberlands.

Not a place for a 747, though.
 
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