SoCo Occupy: What will California’s dry spring do to wildfire season? Here’s what researchers say

Our supervisors policies are putting us at risk…Hopkins still pushing biomass industry.

What will California’s dry spring do to wildfire season? Here’s what researchers say

A blow up in the Palisades above Calistoga prompted a response from aircraft, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020, as a retardant line is put down between Highway 29 over Mt. St. Helena and the Glass fire flames.  (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat, 2020)A blow up in the Palisades above Calistoga prompted a response from aircraft, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020, as a retardant line is put down between Highway 29 over Mt. St. Helena and the Glass fire flames. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat, 2020)

OPINION: OCCUPY: How is our local and state government handling this?  Clearcutting, logging, and removing vegetation.  These ecology-destroying practices got us in this trouble.  The money being spent for removing trees and vegetation from the forests doesn’t stop fires from reaching people’s homes unless it is within 60-100 feet (a little more on a slope).  Instead of making all of this worse by disturbing the balance of nature, all available money should be spent on home safety assessments and making vulnerable homes safe: fire-safe roofs and sprinklers, metal screens over vents, gutter shields, replace wooden fences, stairs and decks, and impeccable leaf, dead brush and lower tree branch removal within defensible space.  Also solar panels, ovens and showers and decentralized energy systems such as microgrids for when PG&E shuts down during fires.  The big power systems are raking in the money, literally, rather than putting those resources, that our taxes paid for, where the people are.