Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0000011111 | Hacker News Reader

In the US we struggle to protect the land that is already owned by state and federal agencies.

For example, each year we spend billions on fire suppression on public land. And most year more acres burn and the cost increases.

https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics

5,510,675 Acres Year-to-date Acres Burned

FY 2021 suppression cost $4,389,000,000

Conservation his hard especially in a landscape where we fail to manage fire effectively.

View on HN

While I agree with your assessment given the available data you shared, I have to wonder if we really have to spend that much?

From what I understand it's hard to separate how much of that spend is effective vs. how much of it is "bad money" tied up in modern forestry cargo cult practices carried over from the last 100 year.

With the increasing frequency of megafires in the Western United States (and other locations around the world) the discussion has shifted to reconsidering if the existing paradigm of prioritizing fire prevention over active fire management (planned burns, building code improvements, etc.) is in our best interests.

For example:

https://www.ctif.org/news/modern-forestry-practices-may-be-p...

http://www.roosevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu/?forum-post=preven...

This presupposes that fire suppression is an important goal. Obviously carbon storage is only possible if it isn’t all routinely released as smoke, but it’s not obvious to me that fire reduces carbon capture so much that other alternatives are better—and preservation may be a net good if other conservation/recreation/quality-of-life goals are accomplished alongside carbon capture.

Carbon capture is a good point for carbon storage part of the environmental movement.

And total Acreage burned per year continues to increase. Year - million acres burned 2015 - 10.13 2020 - 10.12 (over 1 million on the dixie fire in CA alone) 2017 - 10.03

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10244.pdf

Thats 21% of all federal land in 3 years! * total federal land in USA = 640 million acres.

For contrast in a good year YNSP might controlled burn 1,000 Acres.

It is all going to burn.

We need to find a better way to capture carbon.

What percentage of captured carbon does burning release? (And on what time frame? Fire is an important part of some ecosystems in the long run, even if not the short.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com