Wild Fires!

[susitna-flower]

 Well my dear Florida friends we now have more in common than our fish interests!   The hot weather & lightning has caused fires on three sides of our little community!    A big one is burning 10 miles to the south west,  a smaller one 20 miles to the west, and a small one about 20 miles to the north.    The one to the south west is causing so much smoke that at 10 am it is almost dark as night!    Really hard to breath, and just a little frightening.     Our house is surrounded by green fields and a mowed lawn area, so I am not too worried it would cause us trouble, but am glad we have a good well and will be ready to start pumping water on our Cedar shake roof if I see flames.......    Here in AK we have swamps also, which is where our World famous mosquitoes breed, but they also grow fuel for fires.   A "black spruce trees" which grow in soggy ground, grows only about 20' in 150 years, they are notorious for burning hot and fast, and since they are the only thing that will grow out in the swamps, there is nothing to stop the fire.     Last week we lost our highschool to fire, unrelated to what is happening now, but still has us all reeling.   Less than two months till school starts, and we are looking at having our kids going to school in portables for the next two years!   Now this.......
Sigh,  :-\    Thanks for letting me vent!

Fish in the Smokey, Frozen North 8)

 

[Newtankdude]

Yea...I allways hate the winter for two reasons...one: The fires
Two: ITS TOO FREAKIN COLD MAN!!
I live in Florida and from January to about May, we had a forest fire in the picyune forest. I think it was between 5,000 and 15,000 acres. I'll look into how much was burned. For about 3 months, starting in January, we could smell smoke and it was hazy. By the way, what state are you in?

 

[Newtankdude]

P.S. I can't really remember EXACTLY how long it was so don't yell at me if I'm wrong about the time it burned.

 

[COBettaCouple]

sounds like one summer here about 10 years ago - all summer long it was hazy, smokey, ash in the air.. that summer led to some changes in the way the state handles and prepares for wildfires.. georgia's had it worse than us this year and colorado has troubles with the fires too.. sad thing is that most aren't started by lightning, but by people.

i hope the fires there get put out soon without any loss of property or deaths.

 

[Newtankdude]

Yea, Georgia had it worse, but The Picyune State forest had it the worst in Florida. I'll get the statistics on it.

 

[Newtankdude]

Remember, Fires aren't funny....Unless you find out that its at the dump, then its hilarious! lol, we allways get fires at the dump.

 

[Newtankdude]

DAAAAAANNNNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost forgot about hurricanes in 2005. FLBettacouple, you remember tropical storm Zeta?! We had to go into the Greek alphabet, because there were so many hurricanes, and in JANUARY!! FREAKIN JANUARY!!! Zeta Popped up! Heres the list of named storms in 2005 (27 named)

Normal Alphabet Hurricanes of 2007
Arlene Katrina
Bret Lee
Cindy Maria
Dennis Nate
Emily Ophelia
Franklin Phillippe
Gert Rita
Hervey Stan
Irene Tammy
Jose Vince
Wilma

Greek Alphabet Hurricans of 2007.
Alpha Delta
betta Epsilon
Gamma Zeta

 

[Newtankdude]

All these names WERE accually hurricanes or tropical storms, not the list of the names they would of used. These hurricanes DID form.

 

[COBettaCouple]

All these names WERE accually hurricanes or tropical storms, not the list of the names they would of used. These hurricanes DID form.

yea.. i've never seen so many in one year, obviously -- since it was a record-setter by far.. we were wondering what they'd do when they got past hurricane omega. !

 

[Newtankdude]

All these names WERE accually hurricanes or tropical storms, not the list of the names they would of used. These hurricanes DID form.

yea.. i've never seen so many in one year, obviously -- since it was a record-setter by far.. we were wondering what they'd do when they got past hurricane omega. !

lol, maybe this year we will get past Omega, if their telling the truth...so far I havn't seen any tropical storms, except Barry, or hurricanes... They said that El Nina would make it worse, I think it will keep em away, but next year, there is no El Nino or El Nina...we'll just have to wait and see...

 

[sirdarksol]

The worst thing about most of these fires is that the reason they're so bad is that, many years ago, we would put them out whenever they started. We then learned that, in many areas, all these fires would do is burn out the underbrush. Now, however, there's enough underbrush that the trees themselves catch fire, making the fires worse.
Here in Minnesota, most of the plains would get burned out every year. Now, however, we don't want the houses damaged (an understandable wish), so we put the fires out as soon as they start. However, the result is a large build-up of burnable materials, so the fires eventually grow too hot to control. Same thing happens in the Boundary Waters and the Everglades. Not sure about up there in Alaska, though.

 

[Newtankdude]

The worst thing about most of these fires is that the reason they're so bad is that, many years ago, we would put them out whenever they started. We then learned that, in many areas, all these fires would do is burn out the underbrush. Now, however, there's enough underbrush that the trees themselves catch fire, making the fires worse.
Here in Minnesota, most of the plains would get burned out every year. Now, however, we don't want the houses damaged (an understandable wish), so we put the fires out as soon as they start. However, the result is a large build-up of burnable materials, so the fires eventually grow too hot to control. Same thing happens in the Boundary Waters and the Everglades. Not sure about up there in Alaska, though.

Dude, I was just thinking about it, and Florida had it the worst this year because lake Okechobee accually caught fire (not the water lol). The lake was so dry from frought this year that the plants under it and the trees around it caught and started buring. Also that Picyune fire too, was like 4,000acres or somthin like that, I can't remember. there were fires in north and central Florida too.

 

[susitna-flower]

Well in two days the closest fire to us is up to over 6,000 ac and growing. Here they let them burn unless they pose danger to property. The burn areas grow in new good feed for wildlife. The older forests don't support moose, when they can't find food, they move. The whole gambit of wildlife leaves with them, all the predators etc. So fires can be good, just makes us uncomfortable for a time. :-\

This afternoon it started raining, cleared the smoke somewhat. I think if you research it a couple of years ago we had the record of fires burning in one year of over 2,000,000 acres!

In my driving around this last month I went by some of the areas that burned then, and you can still see evidence, but you can also see how resilient this earth really is. There are acres and acres of flowers, and "cotton grass" which is really beautiful.

Fish in the Frozen North 8)

 

[Newtankdude]

I'm sure they would let them burn here, but the animals are already losing habitat from growth, and the only place they can go is in sancuaries. Occationally theiy'll do a controled burn, but not all the time. If a fire breaks out here, there's usually no stopping it, they just have to keep it in an area and let it burn out...by the time they contain it, its already huge! Everything here in Florida in the winter is like super dry hay, mixed with straw, kindling and a galleon of gas dump on it. Have you ever seen how much underbrush is here???? If you go on an ATV trail, you usually can't see anything but the trail and green, it kinda looks like a green wall in a house, lol. as for that Picyune fire, I'm going to keep looking for the acreage.

 

[Newtankdude]

wow! I just read that someone in the 1960's bought 57,000 acres of the Picayune forest to make America's Biggest subdivision...Golden Gate Estates. I live in Golden Gate city (Subdivision of Naples), and Golden Gate Estates is a subdivision of Golden Gate city...

 

[Newtankdude]

You gotta read this! I never knew this much about The Picayune state forest and Golden Gate Estates, lol. Heres the Hyperlink.

 

[Newtankdude]

DANG! I found out how many acres the Picayune fire was....it was....


18,027 ACRES!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Newtankdude]

Total Acreage for Florida was about 2.01 milion acres!!! (2,010,000 acres!!) that's this year!

 

[COBettaCouple]

lol, maybe this year we will get past Omega, if their telling the truth...so far I havn't seen any tropical storms, except Barry, or hurricanes... They said that El Nina would make it worse, I think it will keep em away, but next year, there is no El Nino or El Nina...we'll just have to wait and see...

yea, fortunately it's been pretty quiet so far.

 

[susitna-flower]

:-\ I just watched the news, and the fire closest to me has grown today from 6,000 this morning to 10,000. Now in reality that is small and still about 20 miles from us, but it is still nerve wracking! They have brought fire crews in from the lower 48, and two tanker planes from Canada, THANKS NEIGHBORS!

Fish in the Frozen North 8)