• TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Climate change mixed with awful mismanagement of forests. Overzealous fire suppression and thoughtless tree planting has lead to forests that are artificially over-dense so when they dry out they practically explode when ignited.

    • FundMECFS@lemmy.cafe
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      2 days ago

      The indigenous people were doinf controlled burns and had this all under control.

      But then the colonisers took over and were more woried about protecting short term property value than long term sustainability so we got overzealous fire protection as a ticking time bomb.

      • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        They actually observed the natives setting those controlled burns, and decided to themselves, “Yeah they’re wild savages, they clearly don’t give a fuck about anything or know what they’re doing, here’s me with syphilis and muskets and I think it’s time to share civilization with them, they’ll thank me later.” All that magic prairie ecosystem (which is basically gone now) was a carefully constructed environment maintained over generations to make hunting big game cheap and easy. But no, let’s have railroads and lead paint instead.

      • LousyCornMuffins@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        we been burning the hills around my town for decades. except for some reason when the federal funding for the fire department dried up in 2016 they stopped.