Posted by bruce in CO [75.71.67.91] on Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 13:33:36 :
In Reply to: Black Forest Fire (Website Affected) posted by CGarbee [199.90.35.10] on Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 11:28:41 :
Best wishes to your brother and his family. When you look at Google Earth imagery of the pre-fire Black Forest area, you are left with an impression that the homes inside the burn area were all enclosed in forested canopy making them more subject to burn in such an event. In some cases this may be so. But the truth is that the Black Forest community has been predicting this fire for well over a decade. Black Forest raised the bar on developing and supporting community-based wildfire mitigation efforts educating, encouraging, and offering benefits to participating property owners engaging fuels reduction designs for their homes and neighborhoods. This work was in progress in Black Forest even before the devastating 2002 138,000-acre Hayman fire further west which brought about a great deal more public awareness and concern. The mitigation programs in Black Forest served as models for others. It would be interesting to learn on any day of this fire whether one or more well-mitigated properties may have stalled the fire's course and saved further loss. This year's fire is proof that "perfect-storm" fire conditions and wind can out-trump even the best-developed plans ... And a sad tear-in-the-eye speculating that the blaze was most likely human-caused.
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