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Boy! Can you nail it.
Michael,
Yep, the climate was involved alright. A dangerous increase in Global Stupidity.
Regards,
Jim
Product idea: Early warning smoke detectors for a forest.
Build a smoke detector into a small package, with radio connectivity.
Use drones to install them on the top of trees in a forest area susceptible to fire.
In the event of a fire, the smoke rises, the smoke detector would communicate with nearby devices, relay that to headquarters, and provide an early warning of a fire situation.
The package would include some hook mechanism that would allow it to be installed by drone. Machine vision software could possibly allow the drones to do it on a mission without human intervention. Either way, it should be easy to install thousands of them.
Sell hundreds of thousands of them to the state of California.
I’m sorry, this makes too much sense and would be too profitable for California. Now, if you had a plan to spend tens of billions of tax dollars on preliminary design and planning without ever installing anything, that would probably get you elected governor.
And lots of sprinklers?
That would help, but it’s much more difficult. One can dispatch planes of fire goo pretty quickly.
Weirdly enough, the Camp Fire started right next to a river. So for that case, a sprinkler installation would be pretty reasonable.
Clearly, the most responsible and affordable approach is to burn down the rest of California, thereby assuring no more significant fires for at least a decade. Of course, the population will have to be evacuated first. I think Seattle’s moldy moist climate would help assuage any refugee’s concerns and avoid trauma triggers.
I live in the middle of the Huron National Forest in northern Michigan, home to a ton of Jack Pine, the needles of which are extremely flammable. On top of that our soil is dry and sandy and our summers can be hot and dry. Yet, we still don’t have the number or size of forest fires California does. The last one of any impact was in the 1980’s. Why? The US Forest Service uses the tools necessary to prevent them, including controlled burns of the forest floor. They do them all the time. It’s not unusual to drive around or to be hiking in the forest and see the floor of the forest and bottom few feet of the trees blackened. From what I understand California regulations imposed by radical environmentalists don’t allow controlled burns. And for what? Their regulations are killing the animals and trees they claim to care about (as they clearly don’t care about the humans they’re also killing). We can all live in the forest – people, animals, and trees – but we need common sense forest management to keep the forest healthy and safe.
But, but, Gaia always does a better job than those silly humans! Humans are just whistling past the graveyard until Yellowstone blows in any event. Be kind to your cockroaches, their’s is the true destiny.
Kim,
Your comment is excellent. However, since the advent of identity politics & deconstructionist philosophy, common sense is no longer common. Perhaps at some point in the future, the entire American public will collectively bump its head into a brick wall and common sense may come back in vogue.
Here’s hoping.
Regards,
Jim
This sounds like East Tawas. So beautiful out there.
I’m northwest of East Tawas, toward Grayling.
Spare the water and spoil the forest.
You are correct, in Seattle we have plenty of water and a moist climate; however, there are regular fires (i.e. seasonal fires) East of the Cascade mountain range, which is much drier.
Not sure how to deal with this. I assume you’re joking. But just in case…
It wouldn’t take hundreds of thousands, it would take tens or hundreds of millions of such devices in California. And it isn’t just forest land. Most of the SoCal fires are brush fires. U.S. Forest Service land in California alone covers over 20,000,000 Acres. The total area of California, susceptible to wildland fires is much greater.
Our governor-elect, with his comment, proved that he may not know enough about fire to extinguish a match.
And putting out a fire, whether forest, brush, grass or structure, ain’t quite that easy. In order to have even a remote chance of dropping significant retardant on a fire within a couple hours, or a heck of a lot longer, you will need hundreds of loaded aircraft orbiting the entire state 24-7. And the support crews necessary on the ground, to support such an air force will shock you.
And air drops of retardant hardly ever (maybe never – I’ve never heard of it) extinguish a fire by themselves. The retardant slows the advance of the fire, and /or cools it down somewhat so that hand crews, dozers, etc. can build actual fire line closer to the fire. To stop a fire, you need a line of mineral dirt, 1 1/2 times the height of the fuel, all black inside the burn, no black outside the burn. Black line. Cold line. And then patrol it. You can’t do that from an aereoplane.
So, even if you are joking, maybe this helps to underscore the scope of the problem we’re facing.
I wrote a post a few months ago that has a great deal in common with our present situation. Here’s a link if you’re interested:
http://ricochet.com/545224/august-20-1910-the-day-that-changed-the-world/
I’m not joking at all. On the other hand, I don’t have expertise in this area, so my proposal is intended to open the door to better ideas.
I figure that the earlier a new fire is discovered, the better. And drone-installed-forest-smoke-detectors could do that.
Cool! And how is this not a great business idea?
Well I have to admit we’d be dealing with a state stupid enough to build a bullet train that goes from nowhere to nowhere, and expects to have ridership. Maybe you have a point.
Duplicate post.