User:JecklesLarue/sandbox

Assorted Miscellany

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Article Evaluation

I figure I should probably critique an article before the due date for the contribution assignment deadline tonight but I won't go too much deeper than the WikiEdu criteria.

From the 'Wildfire ecology' category page I looked at a few articles to use and settled on one with a middling length to hopefully find some good and some bad. The page for Fire regime is shockingly short but it's apparently only got a stub-class designation so I'm going to use Controlled burn because it has an average quality and importance.

The provisos as I understand them are:

-[First pass] Does everything in the article justify its existence?

• Yes, it is bone dry.

-Does it have a neutral stance?

• Also yes. It mentions one controversial viewpoint without any frills.

-Is there too much/too little of any stance?

• By that same token, perhaps the Controversy section could be expanded or more of a case could be made for controlled burns without a soapbox. That said, almost the entire article espouses the objective advantages to smart controlled burns.

-Are the citations technically correct and functional?

• Technically the citations all work. I looked at a handful of them and some of the sources include The University of Georgia Ecosystem Center, archived news articles, and various scholarly journals.

-Do they support the claimant paragraphs?

• Yes.

-Are the citations biased?

• No.

-Are they outdated or found wanting in content?

• It seems like a lot of sources but there are actually some missing. For how long the article is I think there are typically more citations than this but I could be wrong.

-What's the culture like on the Talk page?

• The last real change that wasn't from a bot was about a year ago and it only happened because it was a student doing the exact same program we are. The vast majority of issues raised on the Talk page have to do with semantics and fixing the style and tone of the writing. The only interesting proposal was from the same student, Trevanco95 from Ohio University, who said we should probably increase the volume of the "Use" section as there are more concerns for fire than just in forests and agriculture.

-Quality and Importance ratings?

• C for quality and Mid-importance. The rubric for quality says that a C means the article has some combination of irrelevant material or not enough. In this case it's not enough. The importance is quite average seeing as how the next lowest rung of importance is 'low' which is roughly 57% of all articles sitewide.

-Are any of the ideas counter to what we've learned in the classroom.

• Not quite. It's a pretty good canvas of what we've learned so far.

Closing thoughts: I highly disagree with how small of an importance level this page has and I want to get someone's input as to why that is. In the meantime I will keep an eye on it as a possible area for discussion. If it turns out there are good reasons for leaving it and I agree, I'll move on but suppose a lawmaker who knows nothing about controlled fires wishes to educate themselves... I'll want them to have some information relevant to them and the kinds of talks they'll have to be ready for.

Article Contribution

(Note: I'll make this one shorter, I didn't notice you just wanted a few sentences.)

Continuing off of the Article Evaluation assignment, I think I've got a few options. The first is to submit a more fleshed out "Use" section as suggested in the Talk page of controlled burn. The main concern I have is that if "Fire Ecology" already covers these topics is it really relevant? Furthermore, I might just want to include a link to Fire Ecology in this page.

I think a decent addition to controlled burn would be to add a subheader called "politics and controlled burns" or "political history" because there are some goals that seem important to me, such as:

• What are some of the biggest obstacles to approving burns?
• Where (and in which states specifically) have we seen the most success with controlled burns and how can we all aim to be a bit more like them?
• What are some reasons that states have cancelled plans or decided against fuel treatments?

I said it's a decent idea because it's not really worth its own stub but it also might be deemed too off-topic for the article at hand. I say it's just being comprehensive.

Something like this:

[This would go as a supplement to ¶ one in the Forest Use header]

"Another emergent means of ignition is the PSD "Plastic Sphere Dispenser" which ejects ping pong ball-like spheres filled with potassium permanganate from helicopters."

UPDATE NEEDED WITH: Book, journal, https://www.nps.gov/fire/wildland-fire/learning-center/fire-in-depth/prescribed-fire.cfm

"Collate the information and then synthesize what's been synthesized."

I figure by now I'm really not likely to get a response from the original guy who did most of this... that's fine, it just means my ideas will not be contested.

I'm going to be both adding new subheaders and providing more nuanced information to the article, so starting with the subheader I'm tentatively just calling Politics:

The case for all but writes itself, so I'm not going to worry about that. The biggest obstacles to approving burns other than what's expected have to do with things like the anti-burn campaign in this country which deserves at least a sentence. This chapter from a wildlife fire history book talks about some of the politics but I'll summarize the relevant parts here: According to the paper, this explicitly stresses the Yellowstone fires in the 80's as the events that initially politicized fires in the first place and switched them from being about science to being a hot debate issue. Basically in '88 the conditions were perfect for fire, with dead trees at 7% moisture and it was also one of the hottest summers. A third of the park burned down and the NPS wasn't sure if they should let some fires burn and prioritize others. The point is, the fire was out of their hands for no fault of their own but nevertheless it caused the Secretary of Interior to suppress the natural fire program.

https://www.nps.gov/fire/wildland-fire/resources/documents/wildland-fire-history_ch7.pdf

One or two sentences should outline the tourism aspect of prescribed fires, as the senators of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho most quickly responded to the surprisingly large amount of money they lost from people who had heard about the fire who cancelled their trips. The truncated version of about 10 pages is that the political posturing and smear campaign of 1988 shaped fire treatment procedure of the nineties and beyond. Since then, the procedure has been to use a series of nine criteria with public safety at the very top. I'm unsure if I should list these...

The huge risk of using too much from this source is that it will of course be biased so I think I'll just stick to listing the modern safety criteria with what I'm thinking will be a link to the template we looked at for the Scott Mountain fire plan. Another way to keep the section strictly business would be to include a sentence or a half sentence for each criterion based off of actual reasons that have been given. If the reason is obvious or self explanatory it will be left blank.

In this section I will be listing things I think might deserve a sentence or a definition but I don't yet have a place for them.

Go/No Go checklists. -

The anatomy of a successful planned burn.

With most of the reading done, here begins the main skeleton for what goes in. After the first pass, a second one will be done to remove flowery language and partiality. Then, a third pass will be done to insert citations appropriately based on the ones already mentioned and some others.

Article Contributions

Controlled burn#Political History

The conflict of controlled burn policy in the United States has roots in the historical campaigns to combat wildfires and to the eventual acceptance of fire as a necessary ecological phenomenon. The notion of fire as a tool had somewhat evolved by the late 1970's as the National Park Service authorized and administered controlled burns. While the methodology was still relatively emergent the Yellowstone fires of 1988 struck, which significantly politicized fire management. The ensuing media coverage was a spectacle that was vulnerable to misinformation. Reports drastically inflated the scale of the fires which stigmatized politicians in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana to believe that all fires represented a loss of revenue from tourism. Partially as a result of millions of dollars lost in estimates, stricter data recording was enforced and thresholds were established for determining which fires must be suppressed. Paramount to the new action plans is the suppression of fires that threaten the loss of human life with leniency toward areas of historic, scientific, or special ecological interest. Since 1988, many states have made progress toward controlled burns but with a proclivity toward forgetfulness between fire events. Senators Ron Wyden and Mike Crapo of Oregon and Idaho have been fighting to reduce the shifting of capital from fire prevention to fire suppression following the harsh fires of 2017 in both states.

As large scale fire events happen, typically

attention shifted towar dmajor fire events, CITE A LARGE FIRE EVENT yellowstone 1988 FIND A CITE FOR CAUSES OF THE 1988 FIRE

between large fires, controlle dburns were decided by politics PARTIAL, CORRECT THIS

the political side wanted to FILL CITE

and the NPS side wanted to FILL CITE

Compromises are usually sparked by BLA

Which is a long way of saying BLA

Which happens more easily when BLA

]]]]]Fearing the previous paragraph or even article may be spent, I'm going to go into a little bit of the details in how prescribed fires are planned and executed. For my money, it is the logical successor to the political history paragraph because it covers the step before planning (approving) and that is valuable to me as a reader. Like I said, this will be about planning and execution only so as to tighten the focus and make sure nothing is irrelevant.

IMPORTANT: The existing subheader called back-burning will probably be merged to squish inside of this parent section as it itself is a procedure.

Controlled burn#Procedure

Depending on the context and goals of a prescribed fire additional planning may be necessary. While the most common driver of fuel treatment is the prevention of loss of human life, certain parameters can also be changed to promote biodiversity and to rearrange stand ages appropriately. The risk of fatal fires can also be reduced proactively by eliminating ground fuels before they can create a fuel ladder and begin an active crown fire. Predictions show thinned forests lead to mitigated fire intensity and flame length compared to untouched or fire-proofed areas. Furthermore, low-intensity fire treatments can be administered in places where mechanized treatments such as disc harrowing cannot. In the interests of conservation, electing for a mixed mosaic of unburnt islands within the targeted area maintains biodiversity and provides cover for wildlife. Because of this, some suggest fuel reductions of about 75% to be sufficient. In some areas where grasses and herbaceous plants thrive, species variation and cover can drastically increase a few years after fuel treatments.

Bromus tectorum#Prescribed burning

{Prescribed burning[edit]

Prescribed burning alone reduces Bromus tectorum biomass for approximately two years. The goal of a prescribed burn in a B. tectorum invaded area is to remove the highly flammable plant litter in a controlled manner. The timing of prescribed burns has an effect on native vegetation. (1) Spring burns may result in a significant reduction of native vegetation, but fall burns have been shown to actually increase species diversity. (2) Fall burns may also select for more fire tolerant species.} (4)

ORIGINAL ABOVE

1. Fix bad sentence, (first one) WHY does the timing have an effect on the vegetation and WHAT is the effect?
2. Keep the strike through but do perhaps a better job of interpreting this student's reading. "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479702905402" pp65
3. Note to Dan, this person was not quite right. The original sentence was a bungled version of the sourcemat.
4. FALL BURNS MAY ALSO SELECT... wtf were they trying to say, figure this out
5. "A study shows that competing vegetation can also nurture the return of cheatgrass BLA BLA https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2012_baynes_m001.pdf
6. "Conversely, http://apps.webofknowledge.com.libproxy.uoregon.edu/full_record.do?product=WOS&search_mode=GeneralSearch&qid=6&SID=7BcMj1waqVaWzUWPSpM&page=1&doc=3&cacheurlFromRightClick=no

EVENTUALLY I CHANGED THE EXISTING TO:

"The timing of prescribed burns can affect the variety and amount of returning vegetation. A study shows spring burns may result in a significant reduction of native vegetation, but fall burns have been shown to increase species richness. Fall burns may also promote select grasses and fire resilient plants. Another control for B. tectorum burns is consideration for the densities and fire adaptations of nearby foliage. In some cases the existence of adjacent morchella can trigger mutual relationships like increased fiber and, by extension, fuels that nurture the return of cheatgrass.Similarly, when densely packed conifers begin infilling sagebrush communities the understory perennial vegetation is reduced; when these areas are prescribed burned the succession is dominated by B. tectorum in favor of taller grasses, making burns situationally inferior."

Feedback

Good point, I think you should also post these ideas in the article's talk page. Jfaay (talk) 05:37, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Ah, right. Thanks J.