The relationship between global warming and the fire cycle in North America

[Johnny Dangerously]

Out of respect for the folks on the West Coast, I started a separate thread on this to limit the potential for partisan politics on that thread. However, there's good discussion about this topic right now on "Real Time," and I found a few stories with varying points of view.

Some of these links are years old, and some are fresh. They are in chronological order.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/11/02/global.warming.enn/index.html

http://www.livescience.com/environment/060706_globalwarming_fire.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5541423

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-warming25oct25,1,7881915.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20071026/cm_ucrr/thefirethistimethewarmingnexttime

I don't really have a comment. I just thought this would be an interesting discussion.

 

[Left_Coast]

SoCal has been burning in the fall for decades. It happens when the wind blows 90 mph, humidity is 1.5 percent and you have assholes with gasoline cans and a match in parks and in the mountains lighting things up.

 

[playthrough]

Having read a ton on the Santa Ana winds this past week, that doesn't seem like a global warming thing to me. Just a damned weird thing that can get out of control if everything falls just right (or wrong).

 

[User 1019]

SoCal has been burning in the fall for decades. It happens when the wind blows 90 mph, humidity is 1.5 percent and you have assholes with gasoline cans and a match in parks and in the mountains lighting things up.

Or cigarettes?

 

[Batman]

If global warming has anything to do with it, I would guess it would be from causing a lack of rain in that part of the country, causing drought, making things drier than normal, and thus increasing potential for a bigger fire. Of course, environmental policies that forbid controlled burns can do the same thing. So can natural cycles. Not sure there's a connection.

Besides, wouldn't global warming help put the fires out? I mean, it's supposed to create these massive hurricanes and melt the ice caps, right? Wouldn't that flood California? Problem solved.
That's one of the biggest problems I have with global warming proponents — they want it both ways. It'll cause floods. It'll dry things out and cause drought and fires. In the end, any weather records or abnormal weather events get blamed on global warming, when in truth it may just be **** we haven't seen in a while.

 

[sportschick]

Maybe you should try actually reading the research. Then you'd understand how it can cause both.

Now, they get fires the size of the ones in California in other places out West all the time, but they'd don't get nearly as much publicity because there aren't as many homes to be burned.

 

[hondo]

Three of the fires were arson. One started when a car accident resulted in downed power lines.

Global warming didn't have **** to do with it.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

 

[pallister]

I wish I could find itto post, but the editorial cartoon I saw tonight had a picture of two trick-or-treaters: One had a costume with "Bush admnistration" on it, and the guy was holding up an empty box, saying "There's no candy left." The other guy, whose costume read "The Left," said, "&$%!^&%#! GLOBAL WARMING!"

 

[Norman Stansfield]

Is old_tony sick??? ???

 

[old_tony]

No, just too tired to respond when there is no point to respond to.

Are house fires related to global warming, too?

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

So saith old tony, the vocational climatologist.

 

[typewriterhill]

I blame all of it on Nostradamus and those who have carried on his life's work to create tragic events, one after another.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Of course nobody from the environmental lobby is talking about the fact that, thanks to their lobbying, it's illegal to remove even one dead branch from any of these canyons.

I'm sure all of that kindling laying around had absolutelly nothing to do with these fires...

 

[typewriterhill]

Protecting the land should be simple but nothing can ever be so with politics involved.

 

[buckweaver]

Of course nobody from the environmental lobby is talking about the fact that, thanks to their lobbying, it's illegal to remove even one dead branch from any of these canyons.

I'm sure all of that kindling laying around had absolutelly nothing to do with these fires...

Actually:

Regardless of people's feelings, the question - "What do we do about it?" - has begun to be answered.

With the aid of Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, millions of federal dollars poured in to cut down many of the millions of drought-stricken trees that filled the forest. Communities were made safer as tree-cutters focused their work around mountain towns.

San Bernardino County strengthened its building regulations to make way for building safer homes.

Communities like Big Bear Lake enacted stronger ordinances, requiring residents to better manage vegetation around their homes.

Big Bear Lake's ordinance requires residents to remove conifer pine trees 8 inches in diameter or less if they are within 15 feet of another tree of the same species on a property. Residents must store woodpiles more than 15 feet away from a structure or deck and clear native brush and shrub to no less than 10 feet from structures or decks. Those not in compliance face misdemeanor charges.

But, given the recent events, there is much to be done.

http://www.sbsun.com/ci_7301879