Wildfires Mean End of the World

With all the 40+ wildfires and the worst year in over a decade mean issues with global warming. Are these fires helping create more fires by increase our overall output of global warming causing gasses. How do we go about fixing these issues and is firefighting helping enough to stop the problems. Do all the recent wildfires mean the end of the world? Is December 2012 looking to be more legit and should we be concerned with what is going on?

Just look at the following stories on the site this is a global issue!!

http://www.firehouse.com/news/107607...wildfires-burn

http://www.firehouse.com/news/107612...re-evacuations

http://www.firehouse.com/news/107611...uthwest-france

I'm no atmospheric scientist, but I don't think that the amount of burning going on in all these fires creates that many greenhouse gases compared to the zillions of internal combustion engines operating all day every day around the world.

Like weather, wildfire rates will have high years and low years, and we really don't have enough years of data to say what is a "normal" season. Yes, it's a bad year, but we don't know what things would have been like 500 years ago.

Yeah but couldn't the rates of fires increasing be linked to other global issues. Essential more fires creates more issues across the globe thus increasing more output than previous years? I mean look at the heatwave that started in March this year??? Dryer conditions more fire, less food and other social issues. More demand will be placed on our Public Servants! I am sure many departments are already seeing an increase in calls because of all the issues?

OK, your first post sounded like you wondered if brush fires were causing global warming instead of the other way around. Yes, I could see that greenhouse gases could be contributing to weather issues that are causing all the extremes we are seeing, but again, we can't be positive that the weather has never been this extreme before.

Proof or not, there's no way greenhouse gases are GOOD for us, so we need to reduce emissions. Unfortunately, until China and India and some other pollution monsters join us, we'd just be pricing ourselves out of every market and still not helping the environment.

I was around in 1980 ,also 2000 -at least here -80 was FAR worse

I try not to read other things into posts that are made here. Sometimes I do wonder what the real intent is....... In this case, a person looking for more credible info to bolster a predetermined position on Environmental Issues. If so, then listen up: The current Drought/Fire situation is a normal movement in a pattern of many thousands of years. We are NOT poised on the brink of great Firestorms that will sweep the globe and fry mankind. Hard Evidence: The Big Blowup of 1910. On this day, August 20, 1910, weather systems of the summer had favored a very dry area covering a large chunk of North America. In the early morning hours, a Low Pressure system developed over northwesern Canada and started moving South and East. By mid day, the Wind Conditions from this low had caused a number of Fires to "Blow Up" (or drastically grow in size and intensity) over the Western U.S. As a result Fire consumed 2 MILLION acres in one Day in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming. Hundereds died, including at least 78 Firefighters. There have been other "Single Fire" Blowups with Firefighter Fatalities, (Mann Gulch, Storm King) but not another 1910. Looking at the National Situation Report this Morning, ( www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf ) you see that we have had 42,488 Fires this year, with a 10 year average of 54,002 Fires for this same date. That says that there is a 25% reduction in Fires this year. But, the ten year average Acres burned is 5, 343,812 compared to this years acres burned to date of 6,888,342 acres which is roughly 1.5 million acres above average. Looking at the Drought Monitor, then looking at the Fire Map, several of the States hardest hit by Drought have had relatively few Fires, most of which were small one day jobs. As I see it, with 54 years of experience in Firefighting, some as a Forest Service Firefighter, Mother Nature is just rolling along as she has done forever, up and down. We're not in danger of anything more than such hysteria as the uninformed can throw out onto the internet..... :)


Edit to add: In regard to not knowing what happened 500 years ago, that's not really a good question. Science has developed Research technologies that let us look back a lot farther than 500 years. And one Forest Service research tool is a method of looking at cross sections of Trees and finding burn scars at certain ring levels and then determining when Fires occured. Radiocarbon Dating is a very useful tool in this regard........ I can't explain the Science involved, but look up Radiocarbon Dating on Wikipedia....

The end is near!

I Got a Boat, We'll go fishing on the James....

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Originally Posted by hwoods

I Got a Boat, We'll go fishing on the James....

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It would be nice, if the level doesn't keeping falling, then we could do some hillbilly fishing.

If the Mayan calendar is any indicator, we're all toast (no pun intended) around mid-December.

No offense, but please don't post end-of-the-world garbage if you don't have basic knowledge of the subject.
CO levels are lower than they've been in years. During WWII, transportation and factories ran 24/7 with no pollution controls, whole cities burned, bombs and ammunition were used all over the world, and two atomic bombs were detonated. And yet the environment recovered.

As for the Mayans, Really??

And for the Biblical perspective, it's clearly stated that no one knows the appointed time.

So until then, chill out and don't pollute (as much as you can)

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Originally Posted by johnsb

No offense, but please don't post end-of-the-world garbage if you don't have basic knowledge of the subject.
CO levels are lower than they've been in years. During WWII, transportation and factories ran 24/7 with no pollution controls, whole cities burned, bombs and ammunition were used all over the world, and two atomic bombs were detonated. And yet the environment recovered.

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Yet we've just had the warmest decade on record.

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Originally Posted by johnsb

As for the Mayans, Really??

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Meant it as a joke. I should have used a little smiley.

Global warming is nothing but a baseless scare created by the libbies to frighten everyone away from fossil fuels and towards their "renewable" green energy sources. Now if they could just figure out how to stop these same companies from declaring bankruptcy after vacuuming millions of taxpayer dollars from Nobama things would get better......

I think there is some truth to global warming..if it is sold to us by the politicians as a 10..it is really about a 5..There are statistics as far as weather trends and such, but then again if you look at it it sort of balances itself out. We should continue to use windmills and solar power and increase those if possible, but we need to drill more and work on getting the cost of gas down because the average consumer can't dump their car/truck and pick up a car payment for a new chevy volt.

As Disraeli said, "there's lies, damned lies, and statistics."

While science can discern climatic data from a number of sources, the fact is that even those are pretty general - daily record keeping, with accurate data, is a fairly modern phenomenon.

I was going through some old fire report books so I could post the stats on our website. In 1964 we had a real increase in the number of grass/brush fires. A little research showed that it was a very dry year.

It's all scare tactics.

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Originally Posted by BigGriffC12

I think there is some truth to global warming..if it is sold to us by the politicians as a 10..it is really about a 5..There are statistics as far as weather trends and such, but then again if you look at it it sort of balances itself out. We should continue to use windmills and solar power and increase those if possible, but we need to drill more and work on getting the cost of gas down because the average consumer can't dump their car/truck and pick up a car payment for a new chevy volt.

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The two don't have any relationship. There is more drilling in the US now than in the last decade and oil production is at a point where oil exports are occurring, yet gas prices remain high.

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Originally Posted by FWDbuff

Global warming is nothing but a baseless scare created by the libbies to frighten everyone away from fossil fuels and towards their "renewable" green energy sources. Now if they could just figure out how to stop these same companies from declaring bankruptcy after vacuuming millions of taxpayer dollars from Nobama things would get better......

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I'll gladly pay millions to companies trying to come up with renewable energy sources than the billions currently being paid to oil companies in the form of subsidies.

BTW, that program utilized by Solyndra was started during the Bush Administration.

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Originally Posted by scfire86

I'll gladly pay millions to companies trying to come up with renewable energy sources than the billions currently being paid to oil companies in the form of subsidies.

BTW, that program utilized by Solyndra was started during the Bush Administration.

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The government makes WAY more off of fuel taxes than the oil companies make in profit. And although the program utilized by Solyndra was started during the Bush Admin, I believe Solyndra got money and approval under you know who's watch. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a windmill and solar panels. But I've priced them and the batteries it would require along with the inverters. The only alternative energy source I could afford is geothermal or an EPA approved outdoor wood furnace. And yes, you should use the smiley's. Sometimes it's hard to tell if someone's BSing, or just nucken futs.:)

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Originally Posted by johnsb

The government makes WAY more off of fuel taxes than the oil companies make in profit.

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So what? Subsidies are still socialist programs. Something conservatives claim to dislike. The reality is they only oppose socialist programs they don't like. They support the socialist programs that benefit them.

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Originally Posted by johnsb

And although the program utilized by Solyndra was started during the Bush Admin, I believe Solyndra got money and approval under you know who's watch. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a windmill and solar panels. But I've priced them and the batteries it would require along with the inverters. The only alternative energy source I could afford is geothermal or an EPA approved outdoor wood furnace. And yes, you should use the smiley's. Sometimes it's hard to tell if someone's BSing, or just nucken futs.:)

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Doesn't matter. The program was still started during the Bush Administration. Who handed off a fiscal disaster.

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Originally Posted by scfire86

So what? Subsidies are still socialist programs. Something conservatives claim to dislike. The reality is they only oppose socialist programs they don't like. They support the socialist programs that benefit them.


Doesn't matter. The program was still started during the Bush Administration. Who handed off a fiscal disaster.

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Doesnt matter? Doesnt matter? Why? Because you dont want to admit that the Messiah ****ed up and gave Solyndra the money???? What about these clowns who all got a piece of the Messiah's money pie and then closed shop-
Ener1
Beacon Power
Energy Conservation Devices Inc.
Evergreen Solar
Mountain Plaza Inc.
Olson's Crop Services
Range Fuels Inc
Raser Technologies
Spectrawatt
Thompson River Power LLC

nahhhhhhhh doesnt matter I guess.