Comment by ignoramous
13 hours ago
Unironically, wet / dry cycles isn't good news for California either.
Research published in the aftermath of the fire examines how this extremely wet to extremely dry weather sequence is especially dangerous for wildfires in Southern California because heavy rainfall leads to high growth of grass and brush, which then becomes abundant fuel during periods of extreme dryness.
I wonder how much of an effect human activity has on these cycles. Obviously, there are cycles within nature that don't include human activity but is this particular "equilibrium" (if we could call it that) the result of human settlements and all that entails or have they always happened this way but without a huge chunk of the population being in the midst of these modulations to witness it and be affected by it.
Huge amount, but maybe not in the way you intended.
Many of California's ecosystems have evolved to expect fires. Humans can't stand fires and aggressively put them out. So fuel that would be regularly burned off in mild wildfires instead builds up into megafires that exceed the limits of what the ecosystem can handle (a lot of California trees are fire-tolerant, but there's a point where the flames get too high and too intense).
So yeah, the human activity that affects these cycles is caused by our cognitive dissonance and fear to phrases like "mild wildfire".
This might be a good time to recommend you all read the first 5 pages of East of Eden by George Steinbeck. It’s about how the Salinas valley goes through flood and draught cycles, and how every time they’re in one cycle they forget the other one ever happened
For a non-fiction look at the topic of water in California - and really the whole shaping of the state - I highly recommend "Dreamt Land".
*John?
Depends on how you quantify human impact. Lodgepole Pine (for example) is fire adapted. That's not something that evolved overnight. So it's safe to say that broad swaths of California have been experiencing a feast-famine cycle since before humanity developed agriculture.
welcome to australia
wildfire is part of nature.
Yes, of course, those natural wildfires started by downed power infrastructure [1], bullets [2], and campfires on red flag days [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Fire
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldor_Fire
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_Fire
Yes, of course human activity causes some fires.
Now do all the other ones started by lightning.
Most of the actual wild fires just get put out. The big ones are happening because the build up is too big since all the smaller ones have been put out. It's all in service of the forestry industry.
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