First-entry prescribed burns occur when an area is burned without pre-treatment/thinning. Given the scale of our wildfire fuels problem in dry western forests, there are many areas which are too steep to thin, or where the economics of mechanical or hand-thinning make the work too expensive to justify. While there are many opportunities to use logging to thin forests while also making some money to pay for other management, we need to get better at using fire as the primary tool to thin forests. We often think of prescribed burns as being low-intensity events, where the flames creep slowly across widely-spaced trees, remaining on the ground, and killing very few of the trees in the area. However, intentional fires can also be applied under more intense prescriptions to kill thickets of dense, small trees, while still leaving the larger trees, alive. This video documents a late-summer prescribed burn in Nevada County, California, which included a portion of forest which had not been thinned before the area was lit afire. Link in comments, below.

I'm sorry, but the wildfire industrial complex tech bros need a reality check. There's a reason I say what I do: I've seent some shit, and now you get to see it to. Here are some clips that will demonstrate the futility of the drone nonsense. This one is wild: ignore the wall of fire behind the hill, just watch the spot fire and how quickly it gets established. This is the best way to get a sense of what an ignition looks like. Count how many seconds it takes before that spot goes from zero to bonfire and running...no more than 3 seconds and it's already beyond the control of a fire hose, let alone a tiny drone. You can also see how massive this thing gets. The heat energy on this is like nothing you can fathom. Keep in mind, this was day 2 on an established fire, there were resources everywhere, and you can see there's an engine parked in front of the structure...they didn't even bother trying to hose this thing down. They just sheltered in place in the structure. The structure survived because it had good fuel clearance and it wasn't covered in flammable materials. Now, why wouldn't the firefighters get out their hoses and fight fire? Because they understand fire behavior, and the limitations of water.

It is an unfortunate reality that people who talk incessantly about themselves and their achievements really do get taken more seriously than those who consider such things to be gauche. I need to stop being surprised by this.

Payton Tolle is an absolute gem 😭

Today we will lead the world in commemorating the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Twenty-five years after the day that changed our world forever, we will come together to read aloud the names of those lost. Join us live: ow.ly/vJlK50ZIr05

The United States 🇺🇸 (Fed/State/Local) can and must do better to build a system that’s better trained, better equipped and better led to meet this challenge. A more purpose built system with a more robust and more resilient workforce for the future. The United States Wildland Fire Service led by proven leaders such as Chief Fennessy is a giant step toward this future. Our legacy system and the great wildland firefighters that do this work have done a tremendous job but our current and future challenges will demand much more for more of the year across more of the country. This future system must be prepared for more risk reduction work AND more wildfire response both! 🇺🇸🔥

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, a documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. Featuring Elizabeth Holmes. Only in theaters this October.

It has come to my attention that I might not be as funny as I had previously believed. Please stay tuned for further updates as these revelations are reviewed.

When a fluid PDE like Navier-Stokes develops a finite-time singularity, it is not a prediction of a physical explosion. It is a mathematical warning sign. The warning basically says: "The assumptions made when forming this model have reached their limit, and this equation cannot reflect physical reality in the situation you're trying to model."

Some thoughts on the Navier-Stokes news from a professor of aerospace engineering: 1) take a deep breath 2) posts indicating we "solved Navier-Stokes" are incorrect and overblown. A very specific mathematical proof involving a niche scenario for Navier-Stokes has *potentially* been shown (that a perfectly smooth incompressible initial condition with finite energy could produce a singularity--note the assumptions here piled on to an equation set that already involves some assumptions). 3) there is no general closed form solution for N-S and that's not what this news is about 4) this is more of a mathematical curiosity than anything else and could matter a lot to mathematicians but basically changes nothing in the way N-S are used in practice 5) there are already very useful exact solutions to Navier-Stokes that greatly simplify the equation set with the right boundary conditions/geometry like laminar flow through a pipe or a 2D Taylor-Green vortex 6) in aerospace, we already treat N-S as an approximation in many instances and are well aware of its limitations. we don't outright solve these equations anyway and regularly chop off terms or simplify parts (at the expense of accuracy) to make them easier to deal with. 7) to be honest I have never found this specific problem to be particularly interesting because we know a core assumption of N-S is a "continuum" fluid where you ignore molecules and assume hydrodynamic scales >>> molecular scales. We know a real fluid cannot have infinite velocity or energy. But clearly you can push equations outside of their bound of validity and make them produce funky results and singularities.

We manage fuels year-around on the Angeles National Forest to reduce the potential of devastating wildfire impacts. Constructing and maintaining fuelbreaks is one component of the hazardous fuels program on the forest. The term “fuelbreaks” often refers to a strip of land in a strategic area such as a ridge top. The fuelbreak concept and fuel modification practices have been developed extensively since the 1950's and is integral to land-use and fire suppression planning.   Fuel modification practices include clearing of original brush by hand, mechanical or prescribed burning, depending on the specific project. The Front Country Fuelbreak Project is a series of 18 fuelbreaks along the foothills north of Interstate 210. This project aims to have vegetation treated to enhance community protection, reduce the risk of loss of human life, structures, natural resources from wildland fire and potential flooding. Fuelbreaks also give firefighters improved opportunities for tactical operations and safety.    The photos highlight the work on the Sunset fuelbreak that is currently in progress. The work underway is in partnership with the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy.  The Photo on the left is before treatment, and the photo on the right is post-treatment.   @RMConservancy

The competition for best indie band from the NY/NJ area featuring a married couple is pretty stiff. Ida wins it for me (albeit narrowly). youtu.be/p9qo5MwPBes?is=EEt2…

FYI, golf courses are a great place to be for a fire, and they're often used as safety zones and staging areas for firefighters. Evacuating from a golf course is likely going to present way more hazards for you than just chilling in the green grass.