Wildland fire suppression

During the summer of 2016, I fought wildland fire for the Weiser Ranger District of the Payette National Forest in Idaho. I worked on a type four heavy engine, E-421. As a firefighter, I was able to witness climate change and increasing fire activity first hand on an off forest assignment to Midas, Nevada. It was there where my module was the first to respond to the Hot Pot Fire. In a little under 36 hours, the Hot Pot Fire spread 123,000 acres. It claimed an abandoned ranch and almost consumed an entire town, six occupied ranches, and a mine. Its ferocity was truly unbelievable. The flames spread like water on the ground. The fire even created its own weather head, causing it to roll across the rangeland at 45 miles per hour. Fires of this…

While wildfires have been around since the beginning of time, our encroachment into forested areas and dry locations such as southern California requires mitigation to reduce loss of lives and property damage. The most impactful thing I see the communities and individual owners do is vegetation management. There are multiple ways to fight overgrowth of vegetation; prescribed burning, chemical treatments, and mechanical treatments (San Diego County Wildland Fire Task Force Findings and…

In The History of Sexuality, Foucault approaches two perspectives of sexuality as seen throughout different societies; the ‘science of sexuality’ and ‘erotic art’. Both of these representations of sexuality can be seen as a significant contribution to societies’ harsh judgment towards weight loss. A main focus of Foucault’s claim can be related to the suppression of urges in both the sexual sense and the nourishment sense. Additionally, Foucault discusses the role of ‘preserving health’ to…

These thoughts become suppressed because the brain is preoccupied with other responsibilities and thoughts like remembering all the formulas for that statistics final and remembering how to most effectively write a persuasive essay for Writing 150. However, stress can also cause suppressed feelings to reappear. Stress creates certain emotions and feelings that can be associated with the suppressed thoughts. If you feel angry due to stress you might remember a suppressed memory of when your best…

In The Future of Illusion, Sigmund Freud discusses his idea that man at its very basic nature has a primordial instinct for pleasure and that nature and fate play a more powerful role. This has created a perception of civilization that he feels is built on two concepts that are knowledge based and rule set by a minority that has destructive anti-social tendencies. This is done for the base of extracting and distributing “wealth” by means of coercion and suppression of this primordial natural…

There are some legendary forest fires that have been documented all the way back to the late 1800s. The most notable fire in that century was the Peshtigo Fire of 1871. After these fires, there were two main conservationists, Franklin Hough and Bernard Fernow, which pushed for protecting timber supplies and watersheds. The federal government then established the US Forest Service in 1905. The Forest Service was given control over the national forests. The current management at the time focused…

Suppressing bad memories from the past can block memory formation in the here and now, research suggests. The study could help to explain why those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychological conditions often experience difficulty in remembering recent events, scientists say. Writing in Nature Communications, the authors describe how trying to forget past incidents by suppressing our recollections can create a “virtual lesion” in the brain that casts an…

One of the most devastating natural disaster in the western part of the United States are wildfires. Wildfires impacts everyone, personally and economically. Of course, not every home get destroyed by wildfire but homes that live in in the wildland urban interface areas (shorted to WUI) are at greater risk. These homes can be completely destroyed within moments due a to wildfire all because they are near wooded areas (Western Regional Climate Center). Community in wildland urban interface areas…

The in the article, “Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression” researchers explored the hypothesis that thought suppression is difficult for people to do and that suppressed thoughts can return to consciousness with minimal prompting, perhaps becoming obsessive preoccupations (Wegner, 1987.) To explore this, they conducted two experiments where they asked subjects to verbalize their stream of consciousness for 5 minute periods, asked subject groups to alternatively express or suppress thoughts…

different compromise solutions, including the idea that individuals should upload a picture at registration to eliminate the need for photo ID. Ultimately, it is this sort of innovation that is needed in the Voter-ID debate. However, these practical half measures do not fully address the issues in the ideological plane. In deciding which issue takes precedence in determining solutions, history must be examined within the present day context. Historically, both voter fraud and voter exclusion…