the hair on the back of my neck rises, every time i read about what is happening with fire around the world. alas, a huge percentage of americans do not believe global warming actually happening. of course, more and more violent weather will get their attention. let the west coast have more tornadoes and the seas in Louisiana rise.....
a friend said to me years ago, IT'S A MATTER OF OUR TECHNOLOGY STAYING AHEAD OF OUR STUPIDITY. unfortunately, technology has become our stupidity. we seem unable to judge the consequences of the same. on a DC10 incident from wikipedia:
Tanker 910 experienced its first serious aviation incident on June 25, 2007. While on its third run over the White Fire in the Kern County mountains near Tehachapi, California, the aircraft was in a left bank while turning from base to final approach. It encountered sinking air, the left wing dropped, and the aircraft descended 100–200 feet (30–61 m) lower than expected.[14][32] The left wing struck several trees before pilots were able to power out of the descent. The aircraft climbed to altitude for a controllability check and to dump its load of retardant, then returned to its base in Victorville, California where it made an emergency landing and was grounded pending an investigation, inspection, and repairs.[14][32][33]
a commentator on facebook says he's just waiting for one to crash, the plane very clumsy for what it's being used for. i maintain they can't be used much in the mountains and are a waste of money.
let's see, what about drones? they seem to be all over fire sites, as the wonder drug! well, what about drones crashing into other aircraft? every time a drone appears near a fire, operations closed down. can they really be managed? i grant they could have a use to check out smokes already spotted. can they operate in smoky conditions and high heat? how many people will it take to monitor them? if they crash, what kind of a fire will they cause? can they fly in high winds?
most americans think global warming fake news. unfortunately, the affects are upon us. here's from an article on fire-fighting in spain:
‘Traditionally we could predict the fire behaviour and the direction of the fire but under those conditions and those moments it’s not possible,’ said Marc Castellnou, president of the Spanish independent wildfire prevention group Pau Costa Foundation.
While these fires are rare, when one strikes it can generate 100,000 kilowatts of energy per metre. In firefighting terms, this is 10 times what a firefighter can handle, but even at 4,000 kilowatts, firefighters cannot go near the flames and require aerial support. ‘The old way of fighting fires by sending firefighters – that’s gone,’ Castellnou said.
‘This change has been cooking for a long time, but the first time we realised something wrong was happening were the years 2009 and 2012,’ he said, referring to the Black Saturday bushfires in the Australian state of Victoria that killed 173 people and wildfires in Spain, Portugal, Chile and California, US. Many in the fire community initially thought these were just abnormal events, he says.
But then wildfires in Chile and Portugal in 2017 indicated that those weren’t simply extreme years. ‘That was the new normal arriving. 2018 has confirmed that,’ he said, referring to the deadly wildfires in Greece and in California.
VIOLENT WEATHER: this the main result of global warming. without the big picture being addressed, locals will be at the mercy of high winds and hurricanes, tornadoes and drought. if technology can't fix the source, it certainly won't where we live. i believe we need a return to staffed lookouts all over the country. this won't solve the problem, but it might buy us time until people can be herded into spaceships and dispatched from the planet.
PENNSYLVANIA REINTRODUCES FIRE TOWERS:
NICHOLAS A. TONNELLI ON FLICKR/CREATIVE COMMONS 2.0Ricketts Glen State Park is the site of one of the fire towers Pennsylvania may replace.
More than six decades after transitioning to newer methods, Pennsylvania is returning to a tried-and-true approach toward combating forest fires: fire towers. The state plans to replace up to 25 existing towers and to build two new ones by summer 2017. Fire wardens and volunteers will staff the towers during the height of fire season, typically March through May.
the only people using their brains
