Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby Jerky » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:58 pm

stickdog99 » 17 Oct 2017 00:16 wrote:
Yeah, rich white guys always turn into mass shooters, and global warming always sets off 17 "wild" fires within a 24 hour period that seek out houses and cars and leave trees unscathed.

i realize that neither of these events seem anomalous to you because they both fit your own political agenda perfectly. Rich white people with guns are bad. So it is no surprise to you that one turned into a suicidal stranger-only mass shooter for the first time in human history.

Human activity upsetting ecological balance is bad. So it is no surprise to you that this randomly set off 17 "wild" fires within a 24 hour period that made cars look like they were parked at ground zero on 9/11 while leaving the trees above these cars unscathed.

No reason to look at the pictures at all because they are just a figment of my lack of sleep or perspective or obsession or something.

Thanks for the sincere concern, Blue, whoever you are.


If you think that mass shooting "of strangers only" was the first in history, you haven't been paying attention to history, Stickdog.

Also, if you think it's a bigger leap to believe that the wildfires have been caused by catastrophic ecological mismanagement than it is to believe that the Illuminati (or whoever) are using their space-based fire-beams to roast cars and homes (while conveniently NOT roasting the trees that would be in direct line of your proposed space-based fire-beams, right?), then, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy... you might be a conspiritard.

Jerky
User avatar
Jerky
 
Posts: 2240
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby Jerky » Tue Oct 17, 2017 8:00 pm

Whoa, whoa, WHOA there, PufPuf! Scientific rigor and learned expertise? Where the fuck do you think you are?!

Please propose a more "directed energy Illuminati space-beam-friendly" explanation, please, or else GTFO.

Jerky

PufPuf93 » 17 Oct 2017 00:25 wrote:I can explain why fire burns up the center of trees and state the fact that it is maybe not common but not all that rare in many forest fires.

The video does capture a picture perfect instance.

The center burning phenomena depends upon the tree species, age of the tree, fire resistance of the bark, past scars (from prior fires, logging, or other mechanical damage), and degree and characteristic of fungal heart rots present.

Many if not most native species in California have co-evolved with fire and have varying degrees of fire resistance and also various regeneration patterns keyed by fire.

The fungal heart rots are key in the interior burn phenomena. What cause this to occur is an older tree with a rotten and dry interior (caused by specific fungal heart rots). Fire starts in the tree where there is an old fire scar or broken top or other mechanical damage and burns the readily ignited rotted interior of the tree. The tree itself acts as a furnace chimney magnifying the heat.

The bark of the tree may be fire resistant and the sapwood (outer areas of wood) are sound, high in moisture, and do not burn as readily. Most fungal rots are specific to species and where and how they develop. Some are parasites of living trees. Some only infect dead trees. Some only infect sapwood and others only infect heart wood. Some occur in the base of the tree and large roots and some occur only high in crown. Some mostly feed on cellulose, others lignin.

For example take the case of Douglas fir. Many fungi inoculate of Douglas fir but only 6 specific wood fungi are common enough to take note. Two of these most important fungi that infect the Douglas-fir heartwood occur on living trees, and the extensive rot is found on only old and relatively large trees. Pileated woodpeckers excavate their cavities in Douglas-fir not in sound trees but in trees that have these two specific fungi infections that have taken years to develop. The cavity is excavated through bark and a sound sapwood but the interior heartwood is soft from the rot and easily excavated. Other live and dead trees, many with sapwood rots, may be places where pileated woodpeckers forage but are not used for cavity nests.

In a forest wild fire there is usually a mosaic of ground fire and crown fire, 100% crown fire being a most extreme condition of weather, fuel, and terrain. For a crown fire there typically needs to be a "fuel ladder". Prior to modern man in California and many other forests the forest was kept more open because more frequent but lower intensity fires kept the forest open with spaced large trees with fire resistant bark. However, even if trees have green foliage after a fire and show up as alive on immediate infrared, the trees may well be destined to die from the fire. Even with thick bark and for smaller trees with thin bark the fire can cook all or part of the cambium layer and kill the tree.

On a forest fire or in doing controlled burns one the first things a suppression or holding crew will do is to fell the "snags" (dead trees) or other large trees with dead portion. Why? Because they are dry, dead, and usually part rotten and ignite so much readily than live trees. Fire starts high in the trees from embers and wind and then throws burning debris from a height enhancing the spread of the fire. They are also dangerous to ground crews.

There is something wrong with the margins on this page and I hope when fixed it will also fix this post.
User avatar
Jerky
 
Posts: 2240
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby PufPuf93 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 12:51 am

Brentos » Tue Oct 17, 2017 12:18 pm wrote:Does seem like arsonists are behind this.

But, what type of arsonist can do this?:



Lightning strikes? [edit: PufPuf93 offers an explanation further back]

I think this is a different tree to the one PufPuf93 posted.

"Matthew McDermott was scoping out potential wildfire escape routes when he came across this tree with a blaze burning inside in Schellville, California. The Sonoma, California, resident was desperately searching for an escape route Monday as wildfires that had ignited the night before raced through parts of Northern California and began to surround the area where he lived.
He'd been driving around all night, and was in the nearby town of Schellville, when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks -- a tree full of fire."

fwiw, from another forum, someone posted this regarding devastation to homes and cars:
"The Oakland Hills fire 1991 did exactly that. There was a hot wind, increasing in speed, and heat as it descended the slope with added embers ( some the size of a baseball) increasing the speed and heat so you get a blast furnace effect for a certain distance. I investigated it post-fire and you could see the cars as puddles of molten metal, toilets as piles of white sand. It's natural forces combined with the human built environment that amplifies it."


That tree is an incense cedar in California. Incense cedar occurs as a minor component of various mixed conifer forests. On cannot go to a natural forest in California and not find charcoal in the soil and other evidence of fire. Incense cedar is readily killed by fire when young but once attains size and thick bark is usually the most fire resistant species in the mixed forest, partially because of the thick Bark but also notable that the tree can have fire locally in the tree but the large older tree still survive but with fire scars. One finds incense cedar in the original native forests often as solitary giants in areas of thin rocky soils or areas of high moisture. Incense cedar is one of the more drought resistant species but also better able to thrive where soil is of high moisture.

>>DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF FIRE EFFECT:
The probability of incense-cedar mortality increases with increasing char height and decreases with increasing DBH [178]. Even mature incense-cedars, however, are susceptible to fire damage. The outer bark on incense-cedar is dry, stringy, and deeply furrowed. The thick bark ridges protect the inner bark and cambium from heat injury, but the cambium under the crevices between ridges is easily damaged. As a result, many mature trees in locations subject to past fires have long, narrow fire scars. The susceptibility of incense-cedar to cambial injury from fire makes it a valuable species for tree ring-based fire history studies [226]. According to a 1961 guide for marking fire-damaged timber [225], incense-cedars are likely to survive late-season fires if cambium injury is none to moderate (<25% of cambium killed, little damage above "stump height") and crown mortality is less than 45% to 55%. << from: https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/pla ... c/all.html

Note in the video that the fire within the tree shows through what were crevices in the bark and as said above the crevices are scars from past fires. I will do one better and make the claim that the crevices are "frost cracks" from ice storms where the interior of the tree was exposed leading to bleached dry white wood initially and later may be charcoal after surviving a fire, both instances where there is much greater chance of ignition and persistence of fire than bark or green wood. Wood wasps, otherwise know as "stump fuckers", typically show up while a fire is still burning but mostly out and deposit eggs in the areas where wood is freshly exposed or on stumps. The "stump fuckers" look to have a awesome stinger but it is their ova depositor and they do not sting.

>>The Anaxyelidae are a wood wasp family within the Symphyta, containing only a single living species, Syntexis libocedrii, (also called the cedar wood wasp or incense-cedar wood wasp), though the family has an extensive Mesozoic fossil record; this species is thus a "living fossil". It has the remarkable behavior of ovipositing only in recently burnt incense-cedar (Calocedrus), red cedar (Thuja) or juniper (Juniperus); the wood is often still smoldering when the wasp is laying its eggs, and the larvae develop in the wood.[2] It occurs from the mountains of central California to southern British Columbia, but is very rarely seen, except by firefighters.<< from : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntexis_libocedrii

Note: There are some problems with that wiki in that this wood wasp has a much greater range as it corresponds to the range of incense cedar. The cedar stump fuckers are almost always seen by fire fighters or those doing controlled burns where incense cedar is present.

The stump fuckers do two things: (1) the larva excavate galleries; and (2) the stump fuckers innoculate with fungi that is spread by their larva deeper into the tree. Put these two facts in context to what I described earlier about fungal heart rots and fire within trees.

Now I will tell a story that occurred when I was 19 (1972) and working for the US Forest Service. There was a late season wild fire, about this time of year, where various small clear cuts had been "controlled" burned for tree planting, fuel reduction (of logging slash), and various ecological purposes. The weather took a turn to a dry spell and there were heavy winds and fire from stumps still smoldering from the nearly out controlled burns flared up and burned out the uncut forest between the small clear cuts and moved rapidly into the northern most area of the what is now the Trinity Alps Wilderness area (at the time the area was not federal Wilderness but the Trinity Alps were subsequently expanded to include that area.

There were very large (4 feet to 7 feet in diameter, average 150 feet in height) solitary incense cedars scattered through the forest in that fire. They all had fire scars. Some of the trees had extensive fire well into the crown of the trees burning in old scars or broken tops. They had basal fires in old fire scars at the base of the tree. I explained in another posts that in the case of fires. "snags" (dead trees) and trees on fire especially if high in crowns would be felled at initial stages to reduce fire spread and make a safer working environment for ground crews. The case of these large incense cedars was problematic because of the nature of the cedar and how readily fires burns high in the bole and crown of the cedar if there is past damage. Timber fallers could not use chainsaws to cut through a tree because one cannot use a chainsaw where the wood is on fire and even if the base of the tree is not burning there is a safety issue and an issue that the fall of the tree is not as easily controlled as regular timber falling.

In the US Forest Service everyone who is physically able has fire training and is required to be a firefighter as needed. So I was on the fire. The overhead came up with the solution that the burning incense cedar trees could be blown up. So they hired a contract "powder monkey" to blow up the trees. A "powder monkey" is a dynamite expert that in forestry/logging blows stumps or rocks for usually road building (also in old growth redwood dynamite can be used to split lengthwise large trees into pieces that can be moved by logging equipment or fit on trucks, dynamite was also used in old growth redwood to make paths around the downed logs to string "chokers" for moving the logs- think wire rope lassos -- note this was possible because redwood forests are moist, redwood doesn't burn easily, and much logging occurred in the wet as well as the Summer months.. I probably got selected to accompany the "powder monkey" despite my age because I was one of the few locals that worked USFS (most of my peers were Summer hire college students) and the "powder monkey" was a man I still know. I normally worked in timber management.

What we did was pack bags of ammonia nitrate with sticks of dynamite and blasting caps around the base of a tree, soak with diesel, and go off several hundred feet behind a rock or tree or stump and touch the blasting wire to the terminals of a battery. Big boom. The first tree only had 8 sacks of fertilizer and the tree did not fall so subsequent trees had on the order of 20 or more sacks of fertilizer and 20 or more sticks of dynamite. We had about 12 to 15 trees and some were a mile from a road. The big problem was packing the fertilizer to the site as a helicopter was not available or used as much at that time. But there were several hundred grown crew firefighters building fire line or doing mop up that could pack in fertilizer and Gary and I just had to show up with dynamite, blasting caps, blasting wire, and the battery. BTW this was great and awesome fun!! (and not something to this day one typically sees on a wild fire, partially because for various reasons, many safety related, wild fires are not fought as directly as in the past. Aside, a common forestry and fire tool is the "drip torch" that is used to set "back fires" or to burn out islands within the burn; the fuel is a mixture of diesel and gasoline, usually 70% diesel.

So as we went around the perimeter of the fire (incense cedars burning well within the fire were left to burn, this could take a week or more and most fell) blowing up these huge trees with prejudice. The ground crews knew what we were doing because people talked and one could hear the blasts and some of them were being drafted to pack fertilizer. The powder monkey after the failure of the first tree and the fact that the USFS was paying the bill was more than generous with the fertilizer and dynamite. The ground crews got to take a break while we did our work and got to observe a big explosion. Essentially a 50 foot segment of the bottom of the trees would splinter drastically and the upper portions of the trees above the blast zone would drop and shatter. Plus they were already on fire. Did I say that this was awesome!!! Several days of the most fun I ever had at work and I am not an explosion nor fire fetish. Awesome. Boom!!!

I am going to make the following comments at the bottom of this post because I have long held a concern (and I do not want someone at my door to question my thoughts and maybe it is better not said).

An arsonist that understood wild fire; the vegetation, fuel condition, and weather; could cause enormous damage especially in the western USA. A solitary with a anger and a chip on shoulder could set 100,000s if not millions of acres of acres on fire. An organized political terror cell that was scientific could break down social order dramatically and the damage could not be readily remedied. Aside from the radioactivity, there could be the impact of a nuclear war. It is not just the improvements and the trees that would be harmed but also the water we need for drinking and agriculture. The western forests have changed in nature and spend part of the year tinder dry and are shifting the range of various species in step with climate change. The most damaging and visible modern wild fires, notable in the fires subject to this thread, occur in what is referred to as the urban interface. Development has been pushed into wild lands where fire occurrence and species are the natural ecology. Sometimes the development has made it even more worse such as the highly flammable eucalyptus planting mixed with homes on steep hillside.

An organized group of arsonists that were fire science literate could quickly overwhelm the capacity to fight the fires that as they grew would only provide even more cover for the terrorists. Imagine all the forests of the western USA ablaze and the fires moving into urban suburbs such as we see in Santa Rosa. This would cripple for an extended time a major area of the country. The one thing that struck me about these photos is that homes were burning on flat ground. This is rare normally; most houses lost to wild fire have been located with what should have been a calculated risk of placement, near vegetation and canyons. What has occurred is a fire storm akin to the fire bombing of WWII. What if done deliberately in an organized and scientific manner by terrorists or military enemies?

So I will be interested as the fire starts are identified and if arson is much the culprit. I tend to think that at least some of these many fires starting in such a short period of time were arson. It is not likely but possible that there is a deliberate political motive that initiated some of the fires. In any case the fires, like similar events, are used politically through the media. Massive fires could be a cheap, low tech, and low cost method that has the near same impact as fire bombers or nukes.
User avatar
PufPuf93
 
Posts: 1884
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:29 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby stefano » Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:47 am

stickdog99 » Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:49 am wrote:Image

https://www.trbimg.com/img-59de8deb/tur ... 0/1150x647

Now, how did this fire basically leave nothing behind other than the bushes and trees?

Those trees are burnt to a crisp, stickdog. This is what the aftermath of a fire looks like.

These are from the south coast of South Africa this June. They look the same as the California ones to me. If there is some striking difference I'd love to hear about it.

Image

Image

Image

Now, as to how so many fires started in the same night, why would you not suspect garden-variety arson?
User avatar
stefano
 
Posts: 2672
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:50 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby stefano » Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:51 am

PufPuf93 » Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:12 pm wrote:The fire is carried by burning embers in the wind. There some parts of an auto highly flammable (gas, tire, and interior) so any start is likely to fully combust the vehicle.

This. A car runs on oxygen, so in a fire, where the fire is devouring all the available oxygen in the air, the car stalls. Next the petrol vapour, forced out of the engine by the higher temperature, catches fire and the whole car starts burning.

It happened to a few unlucky people in Portugal this summer.

Image

Image
User avatar
stefano
 
Posts: 2672
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:50 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby stickdog99 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:53 am

Jerky » 17 Oct 2017 23:58 wrote:
stickdog99 » 17 Oct 2017 00:16 wrote:
Yeah, rich white guys always turn into mass shooters, and global warming always sets off 17 "wild" fires within a 24 hour period that seek out houses and cars and leave trees unscathed.

i realize that neither of these events seem anomalous to you because they both fit your own political agenda perfectly. Rich white people with guns are bad. So it is no surprise to you that one turned into a suicidal stranger-only mass shooter for the first time in human history.

Human activity upsetting ecological balance is bad. So it is no surprise to you that this randomly set off 17 "wild" fires within a 24 hour period that made cars look like they were parked at ground zero on 9/11 while leaving the trees above these cars unscathed.

No reason to look at the pictures at all because they are just a figment of my lack of sleep or perspective or obsession or something.

Thanks for the sincere concern, Blue, whoever you are.


If you think that mass shooting "of strangers only" was the first in history, you haven't been paying attention to history, Stickdog.

Also, if you think it's a bigger leap to believe that the wildfires have been caused by catastrophic ecological mismanagement than it is to believe that the Illuminati (or whoever) are using their space-based fire-beams to roast cars and homes (while conveniently NOT roasting the trees that would be in direct line of your proposed space-based fire-beams, right?), then, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy... you might be a conspiritard.

Jerky


I awakened Jerky! Hi, Jerky!

It was either arson or PG&E lines, Jerky. Fires don't set themselves, and there was no lightning. Am I right, Jerky?
stickdog99
 
Posts: 6303
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby stefano » Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:54 am

DrEvil » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:34 pm wrote:Not believing the craziest version of a story is not the same as not believing the story at all.

Nice.
User avatar
stefano
 
Posts: 2672
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:50 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby stickdog99 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:58 am

stickdog99
 
Posts: 6303
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby stickdog99 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:03 am

So we are all agreed that this was probably arson, but just not any really "wild" kind of arson?
stickdog99
 
Posts: 6303
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:19 am

I am just really glad that trump has ignored the Santa Rosa wildfires....he would have just made it far worse
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby DrEvil » Wed Oct 18, 2017 4:54 pm

stickdog99 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:03 am wrote:So we are all agreed that this was probably arson, but just not any really "wild" kind of arson?


Yup, or at least possibly arson. It could just have been the weather, although I doubt it. As they said: 95% of fires are started by humans. How good are the owners of the power lines at clearing trees around the lines? If they've been sloppy with that it's possible that branches and trees fell on the lines because of poor maintenance, but that's a lot of falling branches at the exact same time.

Here's another crazy theory about all those exploding transformers:
What if someone hacked the power grid and overloaded it on purpose? Would be interesting to compare the locations of busted transformers/lines with locations of fires.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 3972
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby Jerky » Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:45 pm

Sorry stickdog, and thanks for taking my comment in a spirit of good humor and bonhomie. I appreciate that, and probably didn't deserve it.

However, my POINT still stands. And to be honest, I don't know if it's arson or what. This is a case where I am actually quite comfortable leaving it with the experts to determine.

But I AM pretty sure it's not directed energy weapons!

Jerky
User avatar
Jerky
 
Posts: 2240
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby DrEvil » Wed Oct 18, 2017 6:38 pm

^^You could argue that matches are a directed thermal energy weapon. :)
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 3972
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby Freitag » Wed Oct 18, 2017 7:12 pm

PufPuf93 » Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:51 pm wrote:That tree is an incense cedar in California.


Wait, is that why the smoke smells so good? During the last round of fires the smoke smelled like... well, incense.
User avatar
Freitag
 
Posts: 615
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2011 12:49 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Wild theory about Santa Rosa wildfires

Postby PufPuf93 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 8:12 pm

stefano » Tue Oct 17, 2017 11:54 pm wrote:
DrEvil » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:34 pm wrote:Not believing the craziest version of a story is not the same as not believing the story at all.

Nice.

Very very nice indeed.
User avatar
PufPuf93
 
Posts: 1884
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:29 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 41 guests