2021 Fire Season Outlook | Welcome to CAL FIRE
I got religion about wildfire back in 2016 when I realized the amount of combustible fuel that I have on my land.
In 2016 I did about 75 controlled burns, and then started doing about 25 per year.
In 2020, I built a kiln and used the heat from the controlled burn, to melt metal for a casting.
Among other things, for me it’s a shame to see all that wood burned without being put to some use.
Earlier this year, it was a contest between the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, and the Dixie Fire in California, to see who would end up being the bigger fire. The Dixie fire “won”.
Usually, Oregon never manages to put out large fires until the rains come. But this year was the exception.
A month later, the focus is on the Lake Tahoe fire. It’s smaller but it’s closer to a lot more real estate.
Earlier this week, I was lucky to hear from an older firefighter, and a retired firefighter, about the Tahoe fire.
I watched the Carr fire in 2018, and they were extreme & aggressive in fighting it. They backed off a distance twice what had already burned, to build their fireline. In other words, they built the fireline where the edge of the fire would be in 2 weeks.
It worked perfectly, and they lost another 10x20 miles of forest near Redding & Shasta - but no more.
Since that worked well, and since it was a REALLY SERIOUS situation, and since Tahoe is also REALLY SERIOUS, I thought taking some time and building a fireline that takes advantage of natural fire breaks, like lakes and mountain tops, would help to guarantee that the fire stays at least 5 miles from South Tahoe.
Through the Echo Lake area.
The older firefighter thinks that they won’t manage to stop it using their close-in firelines, and that it will burn around the Echo Lakes to get to Tahoe. Basically following the wind, and no Echo Lake fire-break.
In other words that it’s heading towards a “wildfire version” of the movie San Andreas. And this is the part where everybody watching feels really nervous.
Anyway, Tahoe / Caldor is Just One Fire.
Oregon California British Columbia, Minnesota, Maine, lots of states are having record wildfire years.
I kind of see a trend.
Then add in the Mediterranean fires, Algeria Greece Turkey Italy, and the fires that Western media never mentions if you do a web search for “wildfire news” - Russia & Siberia (where they think they are going to break the 2003 record - 47 million acres of forest burned).
Then I see MORE of a trend.
At the local rifle range, I suggested earlier that we should be extra vigilant about wildfires, to keep it from being shut down the way it was 2 years ago.
Some moron shot the 64 grain Fed 5.56 Tracer bullet, at the steel targets at 400 and 500 yards. So there was a fire and that range was closed for 6 months.
Just from having a little experience with metal working, I know how hot metal can get when you force 2 pieces of metal together and shear off a smaller piece of metal. Smoking red hot.
I think the range-master should spend 10 or 15 minutes with a binoculars watching for fire-starts, during the 1/2 hour Cease Fire before the range officially closes, but after everybody is done shooting the steel targets.
They weren’t crazy about the idea, but we only have a month before the first rains so we’ll probably just keep being lucky.
