Edhat Staff
November 21, 2022, 1:22 am
4.4k Views
11 Comments
By the edhat staff
The Santa Barbara County Fire Department is conducting pile burns near Painted Cave and Paradise Road off Highway 154.
Crews are working to complete the burning of Hazard Reduction Burn Piles in the area of the Painted Cave Fuel Break.
Smoke may be noticable in these areas over the next five days.
Photo: SBCFD
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Great. Just great. Who cares if this makes air quality suck? Who cares if the smoke makes people sick?
Agreed. Instant asthma flare and all the joys that accompany it. Can we not mulch, or ANYTHING else?
We care. It’s far better than the air quality produced by a raging wildfire that would ensue without these fuel reduction measures. Not to mention the damage done to life, land and property.
I talked to someone from the County FD about burning vs mulching, etc. Anyway, to make a long story short, they said that burning was the best and most efficient way to get rid of the burnable materials. He also said that those working the burns need to be wary when burning poison oak, and added that it would be “highly improbable” to cause any asthma-related ailments.
It’s much safer to burn this stuff in small batches under controlled conditions like these pile burn operations. This brush is destined to burn eventually whether we like it or not. Don’t forget, smoke is an immutable feature of the western landscape. It has shrouded the mountains and filled the valleys since time began. No matter how hard we fight it, there will aways be smoke in the west. The only way forward is to embrace fire and utilize it to manage the land as nature intended.
You are all missing the forest for the trees on this one. We need to all follow the supreme guidance of the Dear Leader. He has vast experience with golf courses and ordered California to “rake the trees like Finland does.” We all need to go to Home Depot, get rakes, and get busy doing landscaping on hundreds of thousands of acres. It’s going to be phenomenal, the best forest management people have ever seen. A lot of people might even call it the bigliest forest management since Smokey the Bear, folks.
CHIP – good points. But then again…….. aren’t these fires considered to be “fire suppression?” If we, human beings, do anything to reduce the risk of larger fires, aren’t we contributing to the massive wild fires by conducting fire suppression as you mention?
CHIP – honestly, I agree with you 100% on this, but just brought it up as a way to clarify – what man-made fire suppression techniques are OK, and which ones are not OK? I have yet to get an answer from your sidekick, so maybe you can provide one sans the insults, deflection, and childishness.
“….next time you need to evacuate your home because of a local wildfire, be sure to tell the fire department they can only mitigate, not suppress if it gets close…..”
I really don’t think burning a few small piles of brush is an issue with the vast majority of people…and by vast I mean 99.999%. Why anyone would tell the fire department to mitigate a wild fire (and not suppress it) makes no sense. For the most part, we want fires to be put out, especially if the potential for the loss of life/property is present. Play words games all you want, but please grow up when it come to “playing with fire.” We do live in brush fire country. f you have not been around this are for more than a few years, take a drive on Modoc Road between State (Hollister) and La Cumbre and pay attention to all of the charred palm trees and burned stumps along that stretch of road. The damage to those trees was caused by the Painted Cave fire back in 1990. So, any and all efforts to remove and reduce the amount of burnable fuels should be welcome. God forbid Mission Canyon gets lit up….OMG. If I were put in charge, all eucalyptus trees would be removed along with the filthy highly flammable debris beneath each.
BABYCAKES. Well, I guess we can all be thankful you’re not in charge. “Filthy” leaf and twig debris? And . . . Mission Canyon was “lit up.” Jesusita Fire, May 5-18, 2009. I suggest you read up on Eucalyptus as roosting sites for Monarch butterflies. Add to that some reading as regards to lerps (psyllid) on Eucalyptus trees and how migratory birds depend upon them as food/fuel. Santa Barbara has 44 species of Eucalyptus trees. Your hyperbolic and uneducated espousal re: removal of all Eucalyptus trees is absurd and brainless.
How many of the 44 species of Eucalyptus trees are native to our area? Just another invasive species. Does the overall environmental disaster outweigh the benefit to lerps (psyllid) and migratory birds that probably did just fine before the Eucalyptus invasion.