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New gel lets us spread flame retardant before wildfires start
The last few years have seen horrific fire seasons in California, resulting in destruction, deaths, and economic damage. And with climate change continuing unabated, things are set to get worse.
Prevention is better than firefighting; avoiding carelessness is one way to reduce the huge number of human-caused wildfires. But a paper in PNAS this week reports a new option for wildfire prevention: a fire retardant-carrying gel that coats vegetation in a thin film, keeping that vegetation safe from fire long enough to see it through fire season. If it is demonstrated to be safe, it could allow us to spray high-risk areas at the start of fire season and keep protection through until heavy rains start.
[...] Stanford materials scientist Anthony Yu and his colleagues wanted to figure out a way to get a retardant to stick to vegetation long enough to make it through California's fire season. They used nontoxic substances that are used in food and agricultural products—silica and cellulose—to make a carrier for a fire retardant that's already used in current formulations. The new gel makes the retardant stick to the vegetation for longer periods of time.
[...] The gel's longevity means that it could be sprayed at the start of wildfire season, and last long enough to offer protection until the first heavy rainfall. Once the heavy rain starts, wildfire risk starts dropping anyway.
The gel can be distributed using standard pumping equipment, so it should be quite easy to apply. And it wouldn't need to be sprayed everywhere: human-caused fires often start in high-risk places like roadsides. So, reducing wildfires wouldn't mean coating everything in retardant—focusing just on the high-risk zones would make a big difference.
Obviously, there's more testing needed before this option can be widely used, but this could be a beacon for a world facing ever more extreme wildfires.
Wildfire prevention through prophylactic treatment of high-risk landscapes using viscoelastic retardant fluids (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1907855116)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 07 2019, @08:03AM (2 children)
Your very categorical assertion of "is just another example of the climate change scare tactics" puts you under a burden of proof (which you could have avoided if only abstain from using "just (another example)" or admit to a dose of subjectivisim - like "I feel/think/believe")
Now, from the very "personal experience" for a tree or bush, it isn't more or less extreme - when it burns it burns, only the (adapted) seeds remain behind to repopulate the area.
From this point of view, your "species are well adapted to regular exposure to fire" doesn't demonstrate "extremity" and neither the lack of it - just that species are adapted to a fire cycle (so your citation, as informative as it may be otherwise, neither supports nor contradicts your argument)
As an example of "measure of extremity": do you have any information about the area affected by a single fire? Perhaps the frequency of such events?
Are you sure you use the same meaning for "extreme" as the authors which you accuse of "just scare tactics"?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07 2019, @02:44PM (1 child)
You're wasting your time trying to convince Runaway. He "knows" much but understands little.
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We need to eat the babies! - some conservative at an AOC townhall meeting
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday October 07 2019, @11:12PM
Modded you Touche for the sig