Unfortunately a lot of misinformation here—comparing apples to oranges. The “studies” cited are hogwash, but it depends what you want to accomplish—to keep homes from burning they need to be “hardened.” I think the intent of the article is to say that money would be better spent hardening homes. The vegetation management proposals mentioned are intended to reduce “hot fires” so that wildfires will tend to be “cooler fires.” It’s well understood that fire suppression the past century has exacerbated “natural fire.” In Marin County we’ve had great success doing landscape management over the objections of the yahoos you mention.
Intense fires can create their own weather patterns and therefore intensify the wind, from my understanding the priority in forestry thinning is to close over and thicken the canopy and reduce the ladder of fire growth so the fire does not crown. You are right to say that fuel reduction and thinning that takes out the biggest trees and opens up canopy holes can create larger fires as the landscape will dry out and even controlled burns can dry out the landscape but each procedure does have a place if used wisely. In Western Australia they recorded areas with no fire and natural regeneration and it took over 60 years to form a high thick canopy and change the understory to a moist less fire prone flora. Any activity that can offer help toward this goal could be seen as fire suppressant but as the world warms it is only going to get harder. Grazing savannah is the intermediary cover and permanent in many other areas of the world but all grazers need water first and for most, it could be as simple as a trough on the forest side of your backyard fence to refillable ones along all fire trails or the small damming of springs. In an area so devoid of rainfall for most of the year if you want grazing in semi arid areas you need to offer water for the herbivores. It would be interesting if supplementing their feed as you refill would also encourage territorial behavior.
Unfortunately a lot of misinformation here—comparing apples to oranges. The “studies” cited are hogwash, but it depends what you want to accomplish—to keep homes from burning they need to be “hardened.” I think the intent of the article is to say that money would be better spent hardening homes. The vegetation management proposals mentioned are intended to reduce “hot fires” so that wildfires will tend to be “cooler fires.” It’s well understood that fire suppression the past century has exacerbated “natural fire.” In Marin County we’ve had great success doing landscape management over the objections of the yahoos you mention.
Intense fires can create their own weather patterns and therefore intensify the wind, from my understanding the priority in forestry thinning is to close over and thicken the canopy and reduce the ladder of fire growth so the fire does not crown. You are right to say that fuel reduction and thinning that takes out the biggest trees and opens up canopy holes can create larger fires as the landscape will dry out and even controlled burns can dry out the landscape but each procedure does have a place if used wisely. In Western Australia they recorded areas with no fire and natural regeneration and it took over 60 years to form a high thick canopy and change the understory to a moist less fire prone flora. Any activity that can offer help toward this goal could be seen as fire suppressant but as the world warms it is only going to get harder. Grazing savannah is the intermediary cover and permanent in many other areas of the world but all grazers need water first and for most, it could be as simple as a trough on the forest side of your backyard fence to refillable ones along all fire trails or the small damming of springs. In an area so devoid of rainfall for most of the year if you want grazing in semi arid areas you need to offer water for the herbivores. It would be interesting if supplementing their feed as you refill would also encourage territorial behavior.