Slashdot Mirror
Should the US Air Force Bomb Forest Fires? (popularmechanics.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Mechanics: Earlier this summer, the Swedish Air Force dropped a laser-guided bomb on a forest fire to help suppress the flames. Now there's a proposal for the United States to do the same, using the might of the U.S. Air Force to fight America's raging forest fires via bombs and sonic booms. F-15 Strike Eagle Weapon System Officer Mike Benitez, writing in War on the Rocks, proposes using B-1 bombers stuffed to the gills with bombs to battle wildfires on the American homefront. The idea here is to snuff out fires the way you'd blow out birthday candles at the base. In Sweden, the shockwave from a single bomb snuffed out flames within a 100-yard radius of the impact point. So, Benitez reasons, why not load up a heavy strategic bomber with up to 84 bombs and do some serious firefighting?
Benitez chose the B-1 for his hypothetical scenario not only because of its bomb-carrying capability, but for the same reason the heavy bomber became a close air support platform of choice in Afghanistan: its long range translated into persistence over the battlefield, enabling the big bomber to hang around above friendly forces and bomb the Taliban for hours. The B-1 could do donuts in the skies over a wildfire as firefighters on the ground work out the best way to tackle it. The B-1 wouldn't carry just any bomb, either, but ordinance that was designed for firefighting. Most bombs use a steel casing that fragments into deadly shrapnel, but this would be unnecessary (and dangerous) when fighting fires. A firefighting bomb would use a combustible casing that would disintegrate on impact. Ideally the bomb would use a thermobaric warhead, one that kills via overpressure, as it generates even more powerful blast waves than traditional high-explosive bombs.
Benitez chose the B-1 for his hypothetical scenario not only because of its bomb-carrying capability, but for the same reason the heavy bomber became a close air support platform of choice in Afghanistan: its long range translated into persistence over the battlefield, enabling the big bomber to hang around above friendly forces and bomb the Taliban for hours. The B-1 could do donuts in the skies over a wildfire as firefighters on the ground work out the best way to tackle it. The B-1 wouldn't carry just any bomb, either, but ordinance that was designed for firefighting. Most bombs use a steel casing that fragments into deadly shrapnel, but this would be unnecessary (and dangerous) when fighting fires. A firefighting bomb would use a combustible casing that would disintegrate on impact. Ideally the bomb would use a thermobaric warhead, one that kills via overpressure, as it generates even more powerful blast waves than traditional high-explosive bombs.
Kill everything, kill everything, bomb the living bejesus out of those forests.
Circumcision is child abuse.
On a small fire that has just started, this might work.... but once you've raised the temperature of everything to the point where oxygen supply is the rate limiting factor, I doubt this would work for more than a few minutes.
I'm not a fireman, but this sounds implausible.
Maybe? Depends on the cost. Right now they usually use old jet airliners that are past EOL for people hauling and usually scoop up huge amounts of water or fire suppressant. Sure you could use a MOAB or something along those lines. But what is the cost. Remember you already basically have the sunk cost of the aircraft and fuel. But not all planes are made the same...
An "ordinance designed for firefighting" might be a law banning drones, or something like that. I think the submitter means "ordnance".
Posse Comitatus Act (1878) bans military action (by the army, navy, air force, or marines) within the United States without prior congressional approval. The coast guard and national guard are not covered, though, so that's a back door (and why the coast guard is often involved in no knock raids, etc, that are no where near water).
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
Ideally the bomb would use a thermobaric warhead, one that kills via overpressure, as it generates even more powerful blast waves than traditional high-explosive bombs.
A lot of these fires are near habitation. You can't just go dropping bombs anywhere. The Swedes were able to bomb their fire because it was on a bombing range.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Spaaace Fooorce!
Table-ized A.I.
These fires were caused by the abnormal climate you fucktard, that is why Spain and Portugal are dealing with the same problems. Learn science and take your head out of Putinâ(TM)s ass long enough to look around!
Why not? California does give the US Federal Government more in taxes than any other state, by a lot!
Actually, you are on to something. Nuking California would stop the fires and ongoing firefighting needs (cost out), and would also prevent California from causing more problems in the future (cost avoidance). This is a bit of capex to avoid long term opex- sounds like a plan to me.
Now that trumptards have put their king cockroach in the white house, they'll make sure he does nothing to put out the california fires, because it's liberals burning. And there's nothing that conservatards want more than to exterminate all "libtards" from the face of the earth, so they can finally build their dream country populated only by english-speaking straight white christian conservative old men and their submissive wives and children, who only listen to country music, wear only baseball caps or cowboy hats, and drive pick-up trucks.
Not sold that it could work, but I see no harm in doing some exploration of the concept.
I'm sorry, but there is no significant historical record to accurately reflect any particular reason for a particular set of fires. While you may wish for the reason to be "abnormal climate" there is simply no way to know at the moment.
I.E. Please notice the "Post-2000" heading in this particular Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Have a great day!
Caution: Contents under pressure
They were started by an arsonist. Although being hot and dry for months certainly didn't help.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I propose new fire suppressing missiles.
--
Only you can prevent forest fires -- S. Bear
and other useful structures I see no particular reason to put out any fire. It's a natural process of renewal.
Caution: Contents under pressure
So, B1-B, flying donuts, over super-heated air, with loads of hyper-pressure-wave-bombs = spectacular blowout when the B1-B crashes after flying into what is essentially a vacuum over the forest-fire.
What could possibly go wrong???
Wikipedia is illegitimate. "History" isn't required, but even there you are wrong. These fires have a probability of occurring in a given area (based on observed past, i.e. history), and that probability has been elevated due to climate change and that change has been verified by observed increased frequency in wildfires in disparates areas with the same climate. You know, statistical analysis? Time series analysis? Do you know what these words mean?
It's the only way to be sure ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I miss the days when a story like this would instantly get the whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag.
You mean the 500+ wildfires across the entire western US region were started by a single arsonist, or was it a vast "arsonist conspiracy"? Were those same arsonists able to secure air travel on a supersonic jet to travel from California to Portugal several times per day during the 46 C extremes?
Not just a few, but enough to darken the sky like a lxocust swarm. All coordinated picking water and dumping.
The cost of military missions and bombs, especially in something as expensive to fly as a B2, would add a lot to the cost of the fire. Not worth it.
I was under the impression that forest fires are natural in a healthy forest, and in fact some trees need forest fires to germinate properly (the cones are heavy with resin, the heat of the fire causes the cone to fully mature and then go to seed after the fire has passed.)
Also, by preventing fires the deadwood that would normally be burned accumulates, to the point where when a fire inevitably starts you get a torrentially large fire instead of the typical small fire (of a healthy forest).
And so one way to prevent large forest fires is to frequently start smaller fires, to clear out the accumulating deadwood.
I'm not a forestry expert, so I'm asking the question: has that explanation (and rationale) been disproven?
If it hasn't, is there some reason why smaller "management" fires aren't periodically set?
Is this a California thing?
Unless the area gets more rain and green vegetation it's going to keep getting worse every year.
So barring major favorable climate change, here's the only realistic solution:
Fight fires normally for another ~10 years, then let it burn.
You have ten years to get out.
Why don't we just learn the lesson and ban any construction that would cause us to care about the forest fires?
I've known several people who built very cost effective homes where they just scooped a place out, built the home, and put the dirt over the top. As long as no trees are nearby to fall on it, those would likely survive most of these fires. They may have to leave to avoid suffocation, but their home would be fine when they return.
Rather than fight mother nature, respect her and build with the assumption that the worst will always happen over any significant time span.
nobody is allowed to own anything. keep making paymentsvon something. at least Fire insurance or something.
You mean the 500+ wildfires across the entire western US region were started by a single arsonist, or was it a vast "arsonist conspiracy"? Were those same arsonists able to secure air travel on a supersonic jet to travel from California to Portugal several times per day during the 46 C extremes?
Do we know if California was proactive in the development of fire breaks? In other words, by all means put out the fires replant and all that, but also make sure there are enough barriers or just gaps in the tree coverage and such so that fires can't easily spread. I'd assume they had some efforts, but perhaps not enough?
Also as far as the arsonist angle, well let's wait for the facts to come in. More likely it is a combination of a lot of different people being careless. Certainly climate change is likely a contributing factor.
I think people don't quite understand the magnitude of some of these fires. A few years ago I was on the ride out team for a charitable organization that operates a camp in the wilderness. On the day of our fire evacuation, the fire for into an old burn and proceeded to consume some 5000 acres in under 2 hours. The fire sent a plume some 50,000 feet into the air. We were about 6 miles away and the best way I have to describe this is watching a nuclear bomb going off in slow motion. It was the most awe inspiring spectacle I have ever seen.
Anyhow, the only thing that the Airforce could really help with in these situations would be for the Air Mobility Command to turn some of their transport fleet into VLATs (Very Large Air Tankers) to help protect structures and people, and guide the fire. Directly attacking it is futile.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Fucking Christ you actually doubled down on your stupid theory. It is not possible to point to climate change for any single event. You are doing serious damage by making claims about which you know nothing. Fuckwad just close your goddamn account now. You are too stupid to post here.
... once the blast decayed and the oxygen returned to the hot embers?
(That's a rhetorical question.)
I suppose I'm far from an expert on such things, but what I have seen suggests that a lot of the high energy explosives that are used by the military contain some pretty nasty chemicals. The stuff that firefighters use isn't completely benign either (almost all water used in forest firefighting has additive "fire suppressants") so a comparison of them (toxicity, pervasiveness, effectiveness, etc) would be necessary. All that of course on top of the dangers of dropping high yield ordinance on populated areas.
You need to declare war on fires because oil. Hear me out. Trees decay and produce fossil fuels after millions of years. Yes, those fires are threatening america's right to oil. Let's bomb the crap out of the fires until they submit and install an american friendly puppet leader.
Fires are natural part of the ecological cycle. Developed countries putting them out early for nearly 100 years is what's causing more fires to occur - the buildup of vegetation (dead and live) means more fuel for new fires. The ecosystem needs fires every now and then to clear out dead brush (release the elements and chemical compounds they contain back into the ecosystem), and clear room for new plant growth (which supports different species than old growth). If you're not gonna let loggers thin out those trees, then you gotta let fires thin them every now and then.
Forest fires happened for hundreds of millions of years before man arrived on the scene, and they never burned the entire Earth to a cinder. Leave them alone to do their thing. If they're threatening buildings, that's a sign that you need to build a bigger firebreak around those buildings. Not a reason to put the fire out.
Fuck yeah bomb forest fires! Bomb the shit out of them! Bomb them with bombs tattoosed with smokey the bear and american flags all over the payload!
Fuck forest fires!!! #FFF
Get five Packers fans and feed them nothing but beer and cabbage for a week. Then send out five man Fire Activity Response Team squads (FART squads) to go break wind on the fires. The resulting explosion would be like dropping thermobarics on the fire but much cheaper. You just have to make sure the cloud doesnâ(TM)t blow into populated areas.
If we're going to use ordnance in relation to forest fires, we should invent tree-planting bombs and/or missiles
My God, how is this not already modded "+5, Hilarious".
Now that's a real Wrath Of Khan style death as the wave of creation overcomes you!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Haven't you ever wondered what Santa does during the summer months?
Trophy homes. While letting it burn would be the best solution in many cases, the rich don't like it. Hence spending millions fighting a fire which shouldn't be fought.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Nukes are expensive. Just let it burn.
Apparently he's bringing the rest of the country it's Christmas present early this year.
The reason for bombing the fire in Sweden was that the area was an old test range and there was possibly undetonated artillery ammo in the ground. Not something you want in the middle of a fire. So basically it was to much risk to have people on the ground.
If you've ever been to a military base, you might have noticed that everybody isn't just sitting on their ass all day. They are doing things. Which shows you that they are allowed to do things, inside the United States.
The Posse Comitatus Act says the Army and Air Force can't be used for domestic *law enforcement*, except as authorized by the Insurrection Act and certain other situations, including enforcing federal law (see Little Rock 1956).
Firefighting isn't law enforcement, so no Posse Comitatus issue here.
Originally it applied only to the Army. Later, the Air Force was added. There is no law applying it to the Navy or Marines, only policies put in place by those services.
Just no.
Any excuse to bomb California. I'll take it!
Think of all the money ever spent by humans on nukes. 2 weapons have ever been used. Those are expensive bombs. Use one more and the bombs are 50% cheaper... Not to mention that they are expensive to keep on the shelf.
And if all us people weren't around then the fires wouldn't matter/wouldn't happen in the first place in some cases. So I posit we should kill all humans and the the environment will be fine.
Fires are an incredibly important part of the ecosystem. Areas that have forest fires have greater biological diversity, healthier plants, and yes, some seeds even require the heat of a fire in order to germinate. This obsession with stopping all fires at all costs is hurting the environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGgKZ1p4hoA
Seems like a great way of getting the shit off the streets of San Fran, though. Bomb the shit out of that shit!
How long before the first ent wedding gets accidently bombed?
Sorta. Within the U.S. wildland firefighting arsenal we have something called 'F.L.E.', Fireline Explosive. Looks like a roll of gray sausages when laid out. This is mostly used by the National Park Service to blast in fuel breaks which, once raked clear, look 'more natural'. But the use of FLE is diminishing because turns out we're relatively intolerant of killing human beings to save vegetation. And if we jump up the hierarchy to where homes are threatened, well, FLE laid out in or near someone's community is just a non-starter. The idea of bombing wildfire's out with explosives is simply too far fetched and fantastical to warrant serious consideration. We have a hard enough time getting guys and gals clear of a bomber dropping red snot.
You really can't talk meaningfully about trends by examining individual events in isolation.
Climate change is neither necessary nor sufficient for the kinds of fires we are seeing. However, in places prone to wildfires, wildfire is a seasonal phenomenon, and the lengths of fire seasons over the last forty years has increased by 19%, and the area burned in fire seasons has more than doubled. Wildfires are only possible when three factors are present: fuel, ignition sources, and dry weather. While the acreage and number of fires *might conceivably* be due to increased fuel or ignition sources, the lengthened fire season is pretty obviously correlated to prolonged dry seasons.
It's probably meaningless to ask whether anthropogenic climate change "caused" any particular fire or set of local fires, because such fires could happen in a steady state world, or a cooling world. The more narrowly you look in space and time the less meaningful the question is. But the overall global, multi-decade trend to more area burned and longer fire seasons is a different kettle of fish.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'd there a plan after to fix the terrain?
Old growth trees are less vulnerable to fire than the tree farms loggers have created. Let all trees go to old growth. Logging causes climate change and worsens forest fires.
You might say just clearcut everything. I bet you would get arsonists driven insane by the disappearance of trees. Forests help alleviate the stress of neoliberal society. Clearcut the forests, watch city fires increase.
I forsee no problems at all with random unexploded bombs.
no
long answer:
still no
SPACE FORCE!
Yea bomb LA , Cali and SF !!! ... Trump better take notice
Perfect time to get rid of all the idiots
How about a dedicated fleet of Air Force owned and operated 747s to drop fire supressant and/or water, funded through military funding. The Air Force can bomb the fuck out of those fires. Equip these planes to be able to use in-air refueling, and we can send them anywhere on the globe on short notice. Use these as a supplement to the firefighting resources already in use now. Perhaps even a bunch of Airmen, trained as firefighters, can parachute in and assist firefighting efforts already in progress. With military funding, there will always be enough funding. MIlitary Industrail Complex gets to make its money, so little opposition. Fires get put out faster.
They should use nukes to make sure it does the job!
I do not want the evil white military invading my California. I understand that the illegal immigrants and left wing lawyers set the fire to show the American public how dangerous Trump-genic climate change is, but we need to stop these fires before they mess with the great homes owned by Holy-wood stars. I propose we round up 60 year old white people (u know the folks that started slavery) and carry them up in a solar powered airplane (don't want to increase the green house gasses) and drop them onto the raging inferno. This may or may not stop the fires but it will sure be a victory for peace and tolerance.
The person calling someone an idiot is a shameless outright liar with a political agenda, big surprise. (No, California doesn't have a shortage of firefighting water like you read on twitter either.)
I see the controlled burn notices and the plumes of smoke every spring, and they've been increasing in frequency in recent years as the fire danger has grown. Here's a source from 9 months ago noting that California's controlled burns have doubled in the past 3 years and is now 31 square miles of controlled burns a year: https://weather.com/en-CA/cana...
This space intentionally left blank
Let's research how to make better fire-fighting foam. The foam would be cheap, easy to apply (ex: wouldn't get clogged up in hoses), and wouldn't mess up the environment.
And there should be two options of how to package the foam:
1) The standard, self-contained way to package it, which I guess uses an aerosol spray to shoot the foam out of the container. This way is simple, but when you transport the foam to the fire, you have to carry the water that's in the foam.
2) A dry foam powder, which mixes with water fast and easily. So you would carry the dry powder to the fire, and combine the powder with a local water supply, such as a river or a water pipe. Then you'd shoot the water/powder combination at the flammable bushes or whatever, and it would expand into foam when it hit the open air. Something like that. This way is more complicated, but you don't have to transport the water.
Why not just actually manage the forrest in the first place? You know look after and manage nature as has always been the case.
These fire were caused by mismanagement of the forests, no controlled burns etc...
Police and other government services love getting powerful military hardware. If this really were to work, we wouldn't end up with the military dropping bombs on forest fires, we'd end up with fire departments owning bombers, plus the creeps who get a kick out of having that much power and destruction at their fingertips. And we end up footing the bill.
These jets and chemical explosions would just produce more CO2 on massive scale. What was the root cause of these calamities in the first place.
I suppose they have got enough bombs now to nuke everything on the planet.
Fight fire with fire!
ts... Americans.... solve any problem with bombs.
Eucalypts. They have lots of oil in their leaves and burn really hot. Our gift to America...
For many species the seeds will only germinate after a fire. So regular fires keep them going in the longer term.
Our gift to America, burn very well due to their oil.
Just to be sure.
It's the one time it really fits and is on topic.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Seriously, our forests are loaded with dead trees due to beetle kill. Start harvesting the heck out of them and replant. This is much cheaper than bombing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I actually have a PhD in industrial and environmental statistics, so you can fuck off you god damn idiot!
Concussion bombs could be a fast way of containing a wildfire, but are any currently available military bombs suitable for this application? The MOAB is an effective large airburst weapon, but they cost $16 million each and the USAF has a total of about twenty in inventory. We may be better off developing a special low-cost airburst device specifically for the job. These could be stored on military bases near fire-prone areas.
Eucalyptus isn't everywhere, though to somebody whose experience is limited to a coastal urban and agricultural landscape it may seem like it. And yes, certain varieties do burn like gasoline. Dealing with such a fire is oriented toward controlling its spread and protecting what might be nearby while the fire burns itself out, which generally happens fairly quickly.
Most California forests don't contain much if any eucalyptus, but do have trees that are small-fire-adapted. Big, very hot fires cause major, long-term changes in the forest, much like clear-cutting.
Controlled burns are done, but only in areas where there is little exposure of private property. Considerable preliminary work is needed to thin the trees and large underbrush, and establish control lines, before burning - the burning mostly clears the grass and low brush. Because of all the work that's needed, it doesn't get done often - most likely to find it in national parks and conservancy-managed land. National forests don't have the budget to do any significant amount of thinning and controlled burning.
"Thinning" is not the same thing as clear-cutting or "managing for maximum cut." There is a large amount of distrust of federal land managers because of political and management pressure for the latter under the guise of the former - a distrust that is historically justified.
Gatorade all what plants need.
...everything looks like a nail
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
Bombs. The source of, and cure for all of our problems
I've long thought aerial CO2 bombs would be helpful...except for the squirrels.
It's the only way.
31 square miles of controlled burns, vs 500 square miles burned in this year's wild fires...
I can't wait until we do this on burning suburbs too.
Or better yet the parl...
The fifth, and most important reason this isn't more widespread is that to reduce risk of non-containment, we need the cooperation of weather. It must be relatively cool at the time of the burn and humidity must be high enough to limit the rapid spread of the fire. Ideally, there is rain in the forecast. Also, controlled burns need to be limited in area and well supervised. It takes a lot of time, money, and personnel to safely burn an area. Now imagine you need to do it over 300,000 acres.
When you have a long drought, higher than normal heat, and years to build up fuel, you are looking at a worst case scenario.
I'm all for the Air Force bombing California. Bomb everything that causes the problems related to the wild fires. They should start with Sacramento and work their way out from there.
Won't know if it works until you try. I suggest starting in California with the biggest fusion bombs you have.
What I am about to say is reductio ad absurdum. Burn the state down. Burn the country down. Burn the continent down. Then man will build metropolitan areas to replace the forests and the prairies. This will give more territory for humans to breed. It will generate more tax paying citizens, making governments richer, and it will create more tithe paying worshippers to make church hierarchies richer. Yes, the more land we clear through controlled and uncontrolled burning, the better off the human race will be. All the trees will be gone and we will have one huge megalopolis from coast to coast, and from pole to pole.
Homo sapiens has been trampling the western half of the continental United States for 15 thousand years. Herbivores have been trampling the land for much longer. Any casual observer knows that if the land is left alone by humans and herbivores, dense vegetation and forest covers the land and a water cycle is created to make the vegetation grow even more densely. Next, beavers enter the landscape and they create wetlands that increasingly feed the water cycle.
Of course, neither of these two scenarios ever occurs. We will have wild fires, and we will have controlled burning to make the land even dryer. We will have clear cut timber industries, cattle ranching, agriculture, and we will have urban sprawl and wild fires aggravated by drought and climate change. Bombing the wild fires will not make a dent, as has already been pointed out by bombing experts.
How often are there large wildfires? If it is about once a decade then 31 square miles of controlled burn is of the same order of magnitude as large wildfires.
It is currently illegal for the US military to detonate explosive munitions anywhere outside of designated bombing ranges. Allowing it would require Congress to act, and I am pretty sure Trump's sycophants there would be happy with letting California burn.
Because, we have declare war on everything
No!
Forest fires are yet another beautiful part of nature.
As are trees.
Both should be allowed to grow, unchecked. What could go wrong?
The air force happens to be equipped with a bunch of planes specifically designed to carry large loads to be dropped, accurately, on targets.
The use of high explosives to snuff out fires is obviously problematic and probably not practical in all but the most remote and/or desperate situations.
But I don't see why the use of the planes with "bomb" loads that are designed to spread flame retardant or extinguishing chemicals would be at all controversial. The only real question is whether we have a bomb technology capable of working as a dispersal technology and not just an explosive.
B1s or B52s can dump massive payloads pretty accurately and the air force has the logistics to turn these around quickly, too, amplifying the potential effectiveness. A B-1B has a payload 25% higher than a DC-10 converted to tanker capability and probably a lot better low level handling capability. Plus there's a whole lot more B-1Bs than DC-10 tankers. Hitting a fire's leading edge with 5 planes in rapid succession is probably worth more than 5 DC-10 loads spread over hours.
My guess is that we probably do have some dusty old designs from the chemical and biological warfare eras that could be adapted for use with retardant or extinguishing materials. Clearly if we once had a way to spread VX or anthrax or whatever with bombers, we could probably figure out a way to bomb fires with flame retardant that didn't involve blowing up whatever's on the ground.
It also seems like the kind of technology the military itself would find useful. The Japanese tried to use balloons to set forest fires during WW II, and it seems reasonable the military would gain some value in a "bomb" technology that would let them fight fires using their existing bomber fleet.
All the other arguments about forest fires seem a distraction -- should we or shouldn't we put them out, should people build in fire-prone areas or not, etc. Once we've decided we shouldn't allow some area to burn, then its really about how do you control the fire if conventional methods and equipment don't seem up to the task.
Is there any chance that the bombs might not go off? If so, then you are left with a mine-field. Sounds stupid to me.
This is funny-- in Australia the problem is another oil rich invasive exotic-- olives.
I bet somebody from the US Forest service is calling somebody at NOAA asking "So...how did you guys finally deal with people asking you to take care of hurricanes with Nuclear weapons?"
Eucalypts. They have lots of oil in their leaves and burn really hot. Our gift to America...
More like Californians' idiotic gift to themselves; eucalypts were brought to California during the Gold Rush as a way to satisfy the demand for lumber with the fast-growing Australian trees. Then the tycoons who'd planted vast acreages of eucalypts discovered that, while the 75-100 year old trees in Australia provided good timber, the young trees they were growing didn't, being irregular in grain as well as cracking and shrinking when dried. The wood didn't even make good railroad ties or fence posts. Even the oil was poorer quality than what Australia produced, and the trees were increasingly sold for fuel until cheaper electricity and gas wiped out that market.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Firefighters with TBI. Do not want.
Seriously, ground crews work too close to water drop zones for this to be safe with explosives. The procedures needed to clear the area and verify that personnel were at a safe distance would take too long. People can't move quickly through dense forests. So this would really only be useful for inaccessible terrain.
Have gnu, will travel.
Worked in Dresden. ...or did it....
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
A note - during the Vietnam war, fire base hill tops were cleared by dropping large fuel bladders which broke open; the resulting fuel-air mixture was then detonated.
Normally it's best to ignore the idiots that love this dipshit conspiracy theory stuff.
We have a unique problem now, though, because one of those dipshits is the President.
https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1026228024403021824.jpg
(Posted form deleted tweet archive)
In my mind the fires should burn naturally and we should just stop populating areas that are at risk for mother natures cleansing. Its like controlling floods, or hurricanes or any natural disaster. The happen and always will, and to mitigate to human loss and property losses. We should avoid the risks in the first place. Its a interesting ideal to use bombs of certain design, but were just adding to the destruction as well. After all were not trying to save the forest as much as the properties of humans who mistakenly built in places they should not.
This is stupid idea. What it will do is litter our forest with exploded ordinances. That in turn will make it so that it would be exceedingly dangerous to walk around our forests.
hey, it's still making money for the Military Industrial Complex...
These large wild fires happen several times a year. I believe there are 3 major ones now in CA and several smaller ones. That 31 square miles is tiny, there is a WMA not far from my lake property it is about 67 square miles and gets regular controlled burns. Even the large county park near me has started doing controlled burns over its 4 square mile area. They ran some big brush hogs through the woods several years ago and have been having controlled burns since in the woods and as part of an ongoing prairie restoration project.
Time to offend someone
It would need testing. It could blow out a fire but the fire might re-ignite anyway because of many superheated cores well beyond fire starting temps.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What about the animals that found a good spot to see humans burn?
Seriously, what are those people thinking? whats next? Convince people of drinking napalm to help easing their cancers?
Send the Air Force out to carpet-bomb all the national forests. Once there aren't any trees, the wildfire problem will be solved for good. This will be good for the economy of companies that make bombs, and will probably cost less than the wall. This will also let Air Force pilots rack up "combat" flight time and pad their salaries. And finally, it shows the trees and wildlife who's boss in America.
Whenever someone suggests making a problem go away by using large quantities of explosives, I'm reminded of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vmnq5dBF7Y
If the Air Force can get to bomb forest fires, then the Army should be allowed to shoot down thunderstorms.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Wildfires are only possible when three factors are present: fuel, ignition sources, and dry weather.
You neglected a detail: the fuel is only present after a sufficiency of wet weather. Without wet weather, the vegetation doesn't grow enough to become a fire hazard when it dries out.
Yes, but that does nothing with respect to fire season *length*, which is what makes that an interesting metric.
Anyhow you get both under AGW models: more intense rainy seasons and longer dry seasons.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In Germany there's a saying. shooting sparrows with cannon balls.
It may work, but it's like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
There were large tracts of Bowater paper mill trees all across Tennessee; They were all killed out by native beetles, and they left them standing until they fell, because they weren't good for anything.
If you can't use them for paper, wtf can you use them for? :)
IIRC, the land was sold off, and not replanted.
Native stuff is growing there now.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Fun to talk about but not at all logical.
1. Cost
2. People
... and if the U.S. would build more forest fire fighting planes instead of building so many "B1"s ???
A single B1 is 400 million US$. A Boeing 747 adapted to fire fighting costs the same...
And it can throw enormous quantities of water or fire retardant.
Forest fires CAN be extinguished from the air yes, but not with bombs but with water!
Too much for many americans in washington to understand. B1 is important, let the fire go on burning...
A group of 20-30 Boeing 747 full of water would extinguish most fires. It would cost 12 billion for 30 planes.
Peanuts!
The costs of overseas wars is between 2010 and 2018 is around 1900 billion. The F35 fighter program will cost 1.5 TRILLION.
Why don't they start a war against the fires instead?
I wonder if a sonic boom from an airplane flying trans sonic 100 feet off the deck would generate enough over pressure to blow out a fire?
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
I hated the Pogo comic, but it was right, we are.
but why do I picture it pushing the flames further out making the fire much larger.
Most oil you buy here has Made in China proudly stamped upon it.
nuke it from space? Itâ(TM)s the only way to be sure.
Clear cutting is likely the best answer especially if you don't think Global Warming is a hoax. A zig-zag pattern would be visible from the air, but not too noticeable from ground level. This year alone, California will put more CO2 in the atmosphere than all of our cars and coal plants combined. The feds insisting that fed land fires be allowed to burn out is dirt dumb. Zig-zag clear cutting would not need to cost a dime. Sell the trees from the feld area and make money, lumber would get cheaper and we wouldn't have to import most of our forest products from Canada.
To be fair, California receives federal spending dollars more than any other State, by a lot.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway