Fire retardant kills fish. Is it worth the risk?
May 16, 2023 9:21 AM Subscribe
I'm guessing they will get the Clean Water Act exemption, because otherwise the next time that a fire burns a bunch of houses, all the blame would get pointed at the lack of fire retardant. No politician wants to be stuck holding that bag.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:42 AM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 9:42 AM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
>Despite retardant’s wide use, FSEEE Executive Director Andy Stahl questions its efficacy. “I call it faith-based firefighting, because there’s actually no empirical evidence that retardant makes any difference in wildfire outcomes,” he said. “Everybody knows that it’s done because it looks good on CNN, and because communities who feel threatened by fire want to know where the air tankers are.” FSEEE’s own analysis of Forest Service data did not find a correlation between retardant use and wildfire’s size or spread. “Why would we be permitting pollution that doesn’t accomplish anything?” Stahl said.
Sounds like garbage, reckon someone is making a lot of money from this poison.
Plus if California wants to stop having wildfires, they know many things to do about it and refuse to do em all, so kinda suspicious they cling to this useless one.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:19 AM on May 16, 2023 [8 favorites]
Sounds like garbage, reckon someone is making a lot of money from this poison.
Plus if California wants to stop having wildfires, they know many things to do about it and refuse to do em all, so kinda suspicious they cling to this useless one.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:19 AM on May 16, 2023 [8 favorites]
Doesn't the forest service already choose water over retardant in sensitive areas? Retardant essentially affects waterways in the same way as fertilizer does.
posted by pmbuko at 10:20 AM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by pmbuko at 10:20 AM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Plus if California wants to stop having wildfires, they know many things to do about it and refuse to do em all, so kinda suspicious they cling to this useless one.
Ban lightning strikes? Ban all driving so sparks don't cause fires? Ban hunters from going into the woods who then get lost and try to light a signal fire?
posted by LionIndex at 10:39 AM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ban lightning strikes? Ban all driving so sparks don't cause fires? Ban hunters from going into the woods who then get lost and try to light a signal fire?
posted by LionIndex at 10:39 AM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ban lightning strikes? Ban all driving so sparks don't cause fires? Ban hunters from going into the woods who then get lost and try to light a signal fire?
Secede from the USA because the Forest Service is a Federal agency?
Hey, that one doesn't seem to bad these days.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 11:04 AM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Secede from the USA because the Forest Service is a Federal agency?
Hey, that one doesn't seem to bad these days.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 11:04 AM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ban lightning strikes? Ban all driving so sparks don't cause fires? Ban hunters from going into the woods who then get lost and try to light a signal fire?
Have regular, controlled burns. Move people away from the urban-wildlife interface so the smoke (the current major objection) isn't as bad. That would solve a tremendous amount of the problems we have.
Most of California is meant to burn regularly. If people choose to build in the most fire-prone parts, we should not help them rebuild when their homes are incinerated.
posted by Maecenas at 11:05 AM on May 16, 2023 [14 favorites]
Have regular, controlled burns. Move people away from the urban-wildlife interface so the smoke (the current major objection) isn't as bad. That would solve a tremendous amount of the problems we have.
Most of California is meant to burn regularly. If people choose to build in the most fire-prone parts, we should not help them rebuild when their homes are incinerated.
posted by Maecenas at 11:05 AM on May 16, 2023 [14 favorites]
We repurpose like 1% of our DOD budget and have a fleet of ~200 747 tankers on-call during fire season able to provide a continuous stream of water over any forest fire in North America.
It would cost a lot more than 1% of the DoD budget, which comes about to $8 billion.
CAL FIRE (aka California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection), which shares firefighting operations in California with the federal government has a budget of $2.9 billion and has 23 airtankers. You can try to guess what the cost would be if you add the Federal government share of California and expand the program to cover many more states, it's going to be a lot more than $8 billion.
Plus if California wants to stop having wildfires, they know many things to do about it and refuse to do em all, so kinda suspicious they cling to this useless one.
The "correct" way to stop having huge wildfires is to either spend hundreds of millions of dollars doing "thinning" operations every single year, and maybe billions of dollars moving / redesigning the electrical distribution grid.
The preferred way would be to have a lot of small wildfires all the time to clean up the forest instead of having people do it manually, but people don't like any wildfires, and that option was closed off 50 years ago because the Forest Service had a "no wildfires" policy and lots of people have built homes in the wildfire-prone areas.
posted by meowzilla at 11:06 AM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
It would cost a lot more than 1% of the DoD budget, which comes about to $8 billion.
CAL FIRE (aka California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection), which shares firefighting operations in California with the federal government has a budget of $2.9 billion and has 23 airtankers. You can try to guess what the cost would be if you add the Federal government share of California and expand the program to cover many more states, it's going to be a lot more than $8 billion.
Plus if California wants to stop having wildfires, they know many things to do about it and refuse to do em all, so kinda suspicious they cling to this useless one.
The "correct" way to stop having huge wildfires is to either spend hundreds of millions of dollars doing "thinning" operations every single year, and maybe billions of dollars moving / redesigning the electrical distribution grid.
The preferred way would be to have a lot of small wildfires all the time to clean up the forest instead of having people do it manually, but people don't like any wildfires, and that option was closed off 50 years ago because the Forest Service had a "no wildfires" policy and lots of people have built homes in the wildfire-prone areas.
posted by meowzilla at 11:06 AM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
The preferred way would be to have a lot of small wildfires all the time to clean up the forest
Fires in Southern California that get really bad are not exclusively "forest" fires, although portions of the burn area could be described that way. If you're thinking the answer to California fires is controlling the undergrowth, please understand that quite a bit of California is nothing but undergrowth.
posted by LionIndex at 11:10 AM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Fires in Southern California that get really bad are not exclusively "forest" fires, although portions of the burn area could be described that way. If you're thinking the answer to California fires is controlling the undergrowth, please understand that quite a bit of California is nothing but undergrowth.
posted by LionIndex at 11:10 AM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Mod note: One comment deleted. Let's avoid doomsday comments, please.
posted by loup (staff) at 11:13 AM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by loup (staff) at 11:13 AM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
maybe billions of dollars moving / redesigning the electrical distribution grid or we could start by just doing normal maintenance.
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:46 PM on May 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:46 PM on May 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
The chemical is aluminum phosphate which is a very common fertilizer. Runoff from the liberal application of this product in agriculture and lawns is a source of enormous algae blooms and dead zones in lakes, rivers and the ocean around the mouths of rivers. I’m skeptical that the relatively small quantities used in fighting wildfires makes any difference. Yes it has caused some localized die offs and the article’s mention of 20,000 fish sounds a lot; unless you’ve gone out and seen them do fish sampling on a stretch of river via electro-fishing. I did that a few years ago and the number of fish that were in just a short stretch of a small river was really shocking.
20,000 fish is actually a very localized impact. There is also potentially a benefit to dropping this stuff as it should help kickstart the recovery after the fire.
posted by interogative mood at 12:54 PM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
20,000 fish is actually a very localized impact. There is also potentially a benefit to dropping this stuff as it should help kickstart the recovery after the fire.
posted by interogative mood at 12:54 PM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Like everything humans do, fire retardant isn't perfect at stopping fires from spreading, but there is no reasonable argument to be made that it doesn't work at least some of the time. Unless the effects are either greater than stated or longer term than stated, I have a hard time believing that the tradeoff is not worth it.
That's not at all to say that better management practices shouldn't be implemented to reduce the incidence of fires that require intervention, just that given that there is a fire that needs to be contained, using retardant is worth some minor and temporary damage to the fish population.
Not to get all whatabout on the subject, but there are far greater sources of phosphate pollution whose control would probably render any debate on the use of fire retardant moot by reducing the excess nutrient load enough that fire retardant had no measurable effect in the absence of pollution from those sources. There is an amount of phosphate load that is not measurably harmful. The trick is to allocate that budget in a way that makes sense when you've got everybody from homeowners insisting their lawn must be neon green at all times and in all conditions to farmers for whom the use of phosphate fertilizers is the difference between a crop yield that makes money and one that loses money wanting to use phosphates.
posted by wierdo at 2:46 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
That's not at all to say that better management practices shouldn't be implemented to reduce the incidence of fires that require intervention, just that given that there is a fire that needs to be contained, using retardant is worth some minor and temporary damage to the fish population.
Not to get all whatabout on the subject, but there are far greater sources of phosphate pollution whose control would probably render any debate on the use of fire retardant moot by reducing the excess nutrient load enough that fire retardant had no measurable effect in the absence of pollution from those sources. There is an amount of phosphate load that is not measurably harmful. The trick is to allocate that budget in a way that makes sense when you've got everybody from homeowners insisting their lawn must be neon green at all times and in all conditions to farmers for whom the use of phosphate fertilizers is the difference between a crop yield that makes money and one that loses money wanting to use phosphates.
posted by wierdo at 2:46 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that not everyone affected by smoke from controlled burns or wildfires more generally is affected because they live close to the urban interface. Wind can and does frequently blow that shit 50-100 miles. Here again there is a tradeoff to be made that would be made much easier if we weren't pumping a bunch of particulates into the air from other sources such that the overall burden was not so damn high to begin with.
posted by wierdo at 2:53 PM on May 16, 2023
posted by wierdo at 2:53 PM on May 16, 2023
Wood ash is ~1% phosphate. I think if the forest is on fire, maybe the local creeks and rivers are going to be affected no matter what, and phosphorous from fire retardant is way down in the noise.
posted by ryanrs at 3:06 PM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by ryanrs at 3:06 PM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
I spent a decade living in the Santa Cruz mountains amid the California coastal redwoods. It's a magical fairy land in a lot of ways. The trees are magnificent, and they are absolutely meant to burn. As many of you probably know, redwoods and other native species have cones or seed pods that only open under high heat.
There were two little fires on my little one lane windy dirt road. The first time, I couldn't get out. The second time, I couldn't get back in to my family and pets. It became very clear that the question was not if this house is going to burn, only when. We decided, how about when we don't live here! and moved to the flat lands, nestled between a few lakes.
I have heard that historically, the native Ohlone tribes would forage in the redwood mountain forests, but they did not consider them safe places to live. I don't think they are either. I like hearing stories of native practices, and I also like data. I consulted the California Fire History Maps extensively when looking for a new home.
In short, I agree that people should not live where fire is an integral part of the landscape. With climate change upon us, this is all the more true. If we had a forward thinking, kind and benevolent government, we would start rehoming people now. Instead, insurance companies are forcing the issue by refusing to cover high-risk homes.
posted by birdsongster at 3:48 PM on May 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
There were two little fires on my little one lane windy dirt road. The first time, I couldn't get out. The second time, I couldn't get back in to my family and pets. It became very clear that the question was not if this house is going to burn, only when. We decided, how about when we don't live here! and moved to the flat lands, nestled between a few lakes.
I have heard that historically, the native Ohlone tribes would forage in the redwood mountain forests, but they did not consider them safe places to live. I don't think they are either. I like hearing stories of native practices, and I also like data. I consulted the California Fire History Maps extensively when looking for a new home.
In short, I agree that people should not live where fire is an integral part of the landscape. With climate change upon us, this is all the more true. If we had a forward thinking, kind and benevolent government, we would start rehoming people now. Instead, insurance companies are forcing the issue by refusing to cover high-risk homes.
posted by birdsongster at 3:48 PM on May 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
In short, I agree that people should not live where fire is an integral part of the landscape. With climate change upon us, this is all the more true. If we had a forward thinking, kind and benevolent government, we would start rehoming people now. Instead, insurance companies are forcing the issue by refusing to cover high-risk homes.
The insurance companies tried this with flood insurance for flood prone homes and eventually the political pressure was such that the Federal government stepped in and runs the flood insurance program now. Which is why there are too many homes in flood zones and the price is too low, because trying to price is correctly leads to complaints to the local representation to prevent it from working like real insurance and not encouraging people to move away from the flood zone.
posted by jmauro at 7:21 AM on May 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
The insurance companies tried this with flood insurance for flood prone homes and eventually the political pressure was such that the Federal government stepped in and runs the flood insurance program now. Which is why there are too many homes in flood zones and the price is too low, because trying to price is correctly leads to complaints to the local representation to prevent it from working like real insurance and not encouraging people to move away from the flood zone.
posted by jmauro at 7:21 AM on May 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
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