California Residents

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
May 25, 2005
Messages
15,635
Location
ROCHESTER, NY
I'd like to send my deepest sympathy to all of those in CA who have lost their homes and worst, their loved ones in these wildfires. My thoughts & prayers go out too all Californians and others who may be affected by these fires.

I have a question for anyone in CA who can answer a question for me. Story first...

My buddy was telling me that he saw on FOX NEWS that there is a law in CA that prohibits homeowners from removing "downed trees & debris"? Can anyone elaborate on this?

My buddy usually get the story wrong or only relays part of the story often inaccurately.
I can see if by law in CA, homeowners are prohibited from removing(living) trees, shrub & grass or anything else holding the soil together in order to prevent MUDSLIDES.

What say you?

Thanks,
CB
 
Last edited:
Quite the opposite. If you have a downed tree or dead tree you are required to remove it. The wildfires are fueled by unmamaged forests. The tree huggers wont let any logging or other ways of thinning the forests. So instead of say 20 healthy trees per acre we have 300 unhealthy and dead trees per acre.
 
Originally Posted by Chris142
Quite the opposite. If you have a downed tree or dead tree you are required to remove it. The wildfires are fueled by unmamaged forests. The tree huggers wont let any logging or other ways of thinning the forests. So instead of say 20 healthy trees per acre we have 300 unhealthy and dead trees per acre.

This.
 
The fires 'manage' the forests. Natures way of keeping things in balance. The problem is people living in fire prone areas.
 
Depends on the setting, county, and the species. Some trees require a permit. I usually just snap some photo's of the damaged/sick/dead tree and then saw away. You can always come up with a reasonable justification ... Trees in a green~space or a reserve take a lot more work to deal with. If your home is in a special district with a known endangered species with an arboreal habitat, you have your work cut out for you ...

Hazard trees are ones with some disease like canker, or heart rot, etc. - with a demonstrable target that could injure or kill humans. As long as you can show that was/is the case, they can come down.

Eco types love "bug logs" laying on the forest floor. They think it aids in forest health. In some cases I agree, but most no ... It depends on their surroundings. If a thinly soiled area with sparse veg - yah they are needed. With plenty of duff and thick veg - no, they need to go. Use good judgement.

It's about managing the environment, not neglecting it ... The most important issue is fuel loading on slopes and prevailing wind direction. Do not load fuel below your house or just under a ridge-line where it can spew embers for miles in a high wind.

Pruning lower branches is important and often overlooked. Eco types hate "pop-sickle" trees, but fuel ladder management is paramount.

Benign neglect is not management
frown.gif
 
Last edited:
While visiting in California last week I was listening to a talk show being aired on San Francisco KGO. The host was saying she blamed PG&E for bad manitainance around the power line towers. A caller called in and said that wasn't entirely correct. The caller knew of many property owners who when wanting to maintain under the power lines told PG&E they were not welcome onto the property to do the work. As a result a lot of debris had grown up under the lines contributing to the fires.

I used to live in California. I was employed in the lumber industry by a mill that has been put out of business by the tree huggers. That group has made an environmental mess of California with the laws they have forced to be put into place. People lives have been devastated by these laws and regulations. There has been and will be a lot of denial about that but having seen them in action and losing my job over their demands I am not buying into their propaganda.
 
There are certain areas of California that have "defensible space" laws whereby you have to keep weeds, brush, dead trees, etc. at a perimeter in relation to your property. OP, I would think that anything involving keeping vegetation to prevent mudslides would be on a case by case or after-the-fact basis and not an environmental protection / endangered species type of argument.

I was lucky that my house barely survived the 1991 Oakland Firestorm but I can tell you that the majority of these fires don't relate to "mismanaged forests" or "global warming" specifically. They relate to an idiot ( in the case of the Camp Fire likely PG&E ) and co-factors that make the situation almost inevitable. In the case of the Oakland Firestorm it was a mismanaged smoldering fire at a construction site combined with heavy Santa Ana winds. Today, I'm sure it would be attributed to mismanagement or global warming...or why the Eucalyptus trees weren't removed 50 years ago, etc.

Hundreds of thousands of trees in forested areas of California have died in just the past few years due to drought conditions. I'm not sure that a 40 foot fire break through "management" of this forest area is going to help things if there are 40,000 trees ready to go up all around it. Most of these fires aren't typical forest fires that are caused by lightening, etc. they're what are called wildland-urban interface fires. Oakland was one, Camp was one, Mendocino was one, Malibu was one. The Feds manage almost 60 percent of CA forests with most of the rest privately owned or commercially owned by timber companies. California government and local entities oversee about 3% of these lands.

If Paradise and Butte Co. spent several million dollars 10 years ago to remove the undergrowth and weeds that typically provide fuel for these fires in these "wildland-urban" perimeter areas ( they did ), you have to ask yourself what's "mismanagement" and what are conditional situations that "managing" isn't likely to create a different outcome based on the above. Unfortunately, that requires brain synapse firing and not pandering politichimp whores who'll attribute it to whatever they want.
 
Mother nature is getting rid of the undergrowth as California is returning to it's normal drier climate. These fires are part of the natural cycle. The only unnatural part is all of the subdivisions built in fire prone areas.
 
Originally Posted by Char Baby


My buddy was telling me that he saw on FOX NEWS that there is a law in CA that prohibits homeowners from removing "downed trees & debris"? Can anyone elaborate on this?




In the Oakland/Berkeley hills and most parts of the Bay Area, you are encouraged to clear all brush and dead trees from around property - it's a fine if you don't in certain parts.
 
Originally Posted by Vuflanovsky


I was lucky that my house barely survived the 1991 Oakland Firestorm but I can tell you that the majority of these fires don't relate to "mismanaged forests" or "global warming" specifically. They relate to an idiot ( in the case of the Camp Fire likely PG&E ) and co-factors that make the situation almost inevitable. In the case of the Oakland Firestorm it was a mismanaged smoldering fire at a construction site combined with heavy Santa Ana winds. Today, I'm sure it would be attributed to mismanagement or global warming...or why the Eucalyptus trees weren't removed 50 years ago, etc.


If Paradise and Butte Co. spent several million dollars 10 years ago to remove the undergrowth and weeds that typically provide fuel for these fires in these "wildland-urban" perimeter areas ( they did ), you have to ask yourself what's "mismanagement" and what are conditional situations that "managing" isn't likely to create a different outcome based on the above. Unfortunately, that requires brain synapse firing and not pandering politichimp whores who'll attribute it to whatever they want.


There are so many people opposed to thinning out the Oakland/Berkeley Hills for fear of OMG toxic chemicals(which are necessary, as much I think we shouldn't be indiscriminately spraying Roundup and other herbicides, chemical control can be safer for workers than mechanical means) and animals but all that eucalyptus up there(I ride up in the hills quite a bit) that was brought in originally to serve as a buffer for the Hercules Powder Plant in Hercules are an invasive species and are fodder for fires. Luckily the voters spoke with passing measure FF to let the East Bay Regional Parks to do their job of vegetation management.

And it's not just mismanagement of vegetation - we're building out into places that aren't meant to support homes. Sprawl is one thing - infrastructure to provide a defense against fires is important. As much as cities are polluted, crowded and have their problems with politics and the homeless/drug addicts, they get one thing right - infrastructure.
 
Originally Posted by rshaw125
The fires 'manage' the forests. Natures way of keeping things in balance. The problem is people living in fire prone areas.


^^ this ^ is essentially, the meat and potatoes of this matter.
 
All I wanna know is how much will PG&E customers pay for kilowatt after they lose the upcoming trillion dollar lawsuit?
 
I remember visiting Paradise back in the early '90s. They did not have those subdivisions back then. Not sure when they built all those houses so close together. There is no defensible space. Once one house catches on fire, it's only a matter of time till the others next to it catch too.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Originally Posted by skyactiv
All I wanna know is how much will PG&E customers pay for kilowatt after they lose the upcoming trillion dollar lawsuit?

In theory they can sell stock and lower dividends to cover the difference. But you all know how that will work out.
 
I have a friend that works on the power line right of way maintenance, and there are a few places where they have to have the sheriff go with them. Many of those folks are off the grid, and do not give a care about anyone else. Often they have an alternative crop and do not want caught.

Rod
 
Originally Posted by ragtoplvr
Often they have an alternative crop and do not want caught.

Rod

Isn't that alternative crop legal now?
 
Originally Posted by Dave1027
I remember visiting Paradise back in the early '90s. They did not have those subdivisions back then. Not sure when they built all those houses so close together. There is no defensible space. Once one house catches on fire, it's only a matter of time till the others next to it catch too.

The lefty CA government is trying their best just to blame it all on climate change. I guess that's their way of passing the buck. In my opinion, they are more to blame than PG&E.





It's not just California. Those kinds of developments are happening everywhere. The spacing between houses is not even enough to put up a ladder to clean gutters.
 
Originally Posted by rshaw125
The fires 'manage' the forests. Natures way of keeping things in balance. The problem is people living in fire prone areas.



Often it does not. Fires are put out prematurely until there is a massive uncontrollable fire which thins the forest.

American Indian reservations do not have to live by this asinine law of not thining the forest this more often then not the living areas on a Res are spared.
 
Seems like it has gone politics but I'll try to refrain.

If you build next to a forest you will expect a fire sooner or later. You can't expect the whole forest to be "managed" if you know how big the forest is, and how dry California is. There's always a "what if they build more buffer space", they did, but eventually you'll see one fire that's big enough to jump pass what you have, and eventually people won't pay for it instead of moving to a dense urban city. Same for power line sparking a fire, same for "no open flame in dry season", same for "no smoking when you are camping", but remember Murphy's law.

The only thing they can do is really to build enough fire exit paths so no matter what happen, people are safe.
 
Originally Posted by rshaw125
Mother nature is getting rid of the undergrowth as California is returning to it's normal drier climate. These fires are part of the natural cycle. The only unnatural part is all of the subdivisions built in fire prone areas.


The other unnatural parts are careless human actors starting most of them.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top