First of all, I’ll just say that I am not a trust expert. At the same time, most things I’ve read about trust focus on transparency and accountability. Transparency would mean possibly what the public wants to know, in the boxes the public wants to know it. Hence my long-standing support for a People’s Database.
Let’s go back to Anon.R.One’s comment:
Related, ‘managed fire’ as term is out for this year, leaving just wildfire or prescribed fire classifications. Additionally, ‘full suppression’ and ‘less than full suppression’ are being replaced with direct and and indirect strategies, respectively.
If the FS (and USWFS which is on the same page, hopefully) haven’t changed their minds, I think that this is a very bad idea, as I said when the Wildfire Commission came up with that. To my mind, if people are concerned about something (MF) more than something else (PF) and these two things are quite different (at least in terms of pre-planning and public input) and you decide to merge them in terminology, it seems a bit like sweeping the area of concern under the rug via buzzword creation.
I’m not really sure about direct and indirect either, because it seems to me that it could be confused with direct and indirect tactics.
Note, think fire people are great, always have, and some of my best friends have been FIOs. I’d say “let’s make the FIO’s job easier by developing terminology that is consistent across agencies AND is comprehensible to interested members of the public.” Also, in retrospect, I think vegetation management might have been more successful at developing public support if we had developed more user-friendly words than silvicultural terminology.
Jim Z. talked about his experience that many blow-ups of PFs were not due to bad weather predictions but lack of monitoring. Conceivably new technologies can help with monitoring. Shouldn’t there be an annual or biennial report on what PFs went to wildfires (not just one PF at a time, or not just after Hermit’s Peak Calf Canyon)? Otherwise how are we to know what kind of continuous improvement efforts are going on? Such a report would convey to the public “we’re on this thing, it’s important to us not only to do PF but to show you all what went wrong this year and what we’re going to do to fix it.”
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Let’s take a look at what some public health folks are saying about trust.
Forming relationships may be the most important way to create trust, said Castrucci. “Who we live with and who we talk to is who we trust.”
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“Seeing science work but not seeing it work for you erodes trust,” he said, and he told the audience to look around. “We are sitting in this room wearing suits, putting up slides filled with beautiful data. And we are looking down from a literal ivory tower,” he said.
“Good communication is not going to dig us out of this hole. If we want to rebuild trust, one thing that will help us more than anything else — it’s really quite simple — is to talk to people. Outside of rooms like this.”
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“Medical practitioners need to understand harm so they don’t repeat it,” Ramos said. By acknowledging past wrongs, we can create a more trustworthy future, he added.
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As the co-host of the podcast, “Why Should I Trust You?” Brinda Adhikari moderates conversations between people who are skeptical of the health system, like supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement, and people from public health. If we can’t come together and talk, trust is not possible, Adhikari said.
“I love the idea of going into the community,” Adhikari said. “But rather than righting wrongs of the past, work with them on the problems of the now and the future.”
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What was interesting to me about this is that it’s mostly about talking, and relating, and doesn’t have the concept of giving people the data and showing them how your approaches are improving over time. I’m not even sure that the community issued a report about what they did right and wrong in responding to Covid and recommendations for improvement. It reminds me a bit of the Stephen R. Covey quote “you can’t talk yourself out of a problem you behaved your way into.”
Oregon. 58% federal land. Temperate and arid. Fuels grow in each, annually. Much in wet areas and some in dry areas.
The need to reduce fuels is there and needed. Yet the Big Dog, the reason to scream WHOA! is “risk and reward.”
There is a basic inequality in the federal-private land nexus. The Federal land has ZERO tort liability exposure. The Private land has UNLIMITED tort liability.
The risk to private land is “mitigated” by private purchase of fire insurance, or so the federal government argues. Wrong. Apples and Oranges. Federal does not keep any “loss of values” records. UNTIL a fire from private ignition source on private land, e.g. a planned, permitted private land and operator ignited fire to reduce fuels trespasses onto federal land. The Justice Dept has dedicated teams of lawyers whose sole purpose in the area of the 9th circuit is to sue private operators for federal losses and expenses due to private ignitions trespassing on federal land Those can be a too small easement or R/W through federal land to deliver electricity or other energy to inholdings as demanded in the Rural Electrification Acts of the FDR administration now nearing a century ago. All trees grow to lean into rights of way and easements: sun is there and water under the road. Wind blows federal land tree over energized power line sparking fire. Justice Dept sues the energy provider. Having an energized line in a wind event is negligence and thus a multiplier of the damage award more than actual loss, and then, “non-economic” damage awards to punish bad behavior.
Lightning fire in a Wilderness goes unfought due to bad terrain and no egress or exit possibility for hand crews. Conflagration results. The US District court hears a Federal Tort Claims Act case, where plaintiff claims not attempting with the resources and abilities of the federal land agencies not even attempted so they have this multi million dollar loss of private timber and improvements. USFS has 120 years experience addressing wildland fire, and thus more and deeper experience. Thus your mere 1000 acres and management has no comparable experience or history. Case dismissed.
Recent case law in Oregon. Riverside fire. 2020. The federal outcome was the loss of the “last old growth low elevation forest named Opal Creek Wilderness.” But fire called Beachie Fire. All of it burned. 5000 acres plus and another 195,000 acres of mixed ownership and age forests: private, state, and some federal. All from an “unplanned ignition” used by BLM on Bur. Indian Affairs managed Indian Reservation land to reduce fuels from an earlier Wilderness fire from the Mt Washington Wilderness. In Deschutes county on the lee side of the Cascades in the rain shadow. Two decades for the fuels to dry and rot. Forecast east wind was more than expected in early September. Result: 400,000 acre fire. Administratively called two fires to reduce the extent of the disaster that burned out two towns and several resort and recreation areas of both private and public ownership. When it was a conflagration with gale force winds, Pacific Power energized lines down wind 50 miles from ignition fires of “contained prescription burning” are blamed for the plaintiff’s bar, and wonder of wonders, the case was heard by a jury in urban Portland where Portland General Electric is the power provider monopoly. Pacific customers are paying 50% more for electricity, and the company just sold it SW Washington customers and infrastructure to PG&E for $1.3 Billion, less than HermitsPeak-CalfCanyon “victims” with no property loss are getting for “trauma and stress” of having ash fall and smoke overhead for two months. New Mexico Federal Court case. In addition to the Congressional 2022 emergency appropriations for Ukraine sought by DoD (now War Dept), the bill paying $3.45 Billion to victims HP-CC escaped prescribed fire. $2.5 Billion “for the tribes” but not record of that yet. NAME ANOTHER USFS OR BLM FIRE WHERE CONGRESS APPROPRIATES BILLIONS TO PAY VICTIMS. A SPEAKER PELOSI-SENATE PRESIDENT SCHUMER POLITICAL STUNT IN THE RUN UP TO MIDTERM ELECTIONS IN NOVEMBER, 2022. OTTO PENN, UNELECTED, SIGNED THE BILL ON SEPT 30,2022. JUST IN TIME. AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT IT WOULD BE A POCKET VETO. FY 2023 BEGAN AT MIDNIGHT.
If victims of escaped federal set fire are guaranteed to get paid by Congress, go right ahead on prescription fire to reduce fuels.
I don’t believe Trump is stupid enough to sign a bill like that. Or maybe former Chief Moore had a premonition when he suggested “any unplanned ignition be used for prescribed fire to reduce fuels.” April 2024. Arson used as prescribed fire. I would follow that judicial rodeo.