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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.24] on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 14:05:12 :
In Reply to: OT: Fires to the left of us, fires to the right of us. posted by Gary in CO [64.234.252.38] on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 13:43:17 :
It's been a very wet June here. I wish we could send you some of our rain. We'll get our turn at the fires I'm sure. Last year a couple thousand acres of grand fir on the way to my land got eaten brown by some kind of bugs. Then they turned into little moths, flew into town and died under the streetlights so thick we had to sweep them out. I'm still waiting to see if the trees recover this year and if the bugs spread into my valley. I'm seeing lots of doug fir getting killed by the tussock moths too. In nature, it seems like fire is the only cure for these plagues of beetles and caterpillars.
I have got to get serious about fixing up my old brush truck. The transmission is blown, and last winter the snow smashed the fiberglass cab in. Prior to that it was a good truck, with a 750 gallon tank, a good strong fire pump and two hose reels. Of course when a big fire comes through, all we can do is try to save the buildings. We can't save the forest. We can do some thinning, though and try to make is so a small fire will stay on the ground at least.
One thing worth mentioning is based on experiments they did in Canada, all that's necessary to save buildings from even a bad crown fire is to keep a space of 200 feet cleared between the forest and the building. Even a wood-framed house will not catch fire from a crowing fire in bug-killed lodgepole pines if there's a 200 foot gap.
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