Pius Lee
We were all stunned by the apocalyptic scenes of devastation and destitution caused by wildfires in Maui, HI. The utter sense of desolation and desperation was overwhelmingly sad. It destroyed the idyllic Island of Maui. Many people are still in denial and disbelief when they look at the news reports. How could a booming town be wiped out in a few hours only to be remembered by scorched cars and barren home foundations without overlying structures. It is unthinkable to comprehend the mass destruction and loss of human lives in this land of dreamed vacations and secluded paradise on planet Earth.
Mediterranean Climate of Maui
The magnitude of the disaster is still under investigation as I am writing. I believed that the burn happened in the lee -side, sheltered side, of the Maui-Mountain-Range. Wind on the lee-side is void of moisture. Lee-side downslope dry air made the area especially susceptible to bush wildfires. The news media had been reporting from forensic evidence, the damage and rapid spread of wild fires were caused by swift dry wind swept over drought-stricken valleys of Maui. However, there are other factors to be concerned in order to reconstruct a scientifically viable replay of the catastrophic event to raise public awareness. Despite the vast oceans surrounding Maui, Maui’s climate is akin to that of the Bay Area, California or that in Israel pertaining to what is known as the “Mediterranean Climate (MC)”. Under MC conditions, relative humidity is often low and fire ignition possibility becomes a perennial concern. Bush fires can spread rather quickly especially in terrains with rugged topology. On the leeward side of a hill fӧhn winds, downslope katabatic winds deprived of moisture by precipitation on the windward side of the hill, are dry and warm. They are heavier than moisture-laden air. They rush down the slopes of the hill and can accelerate the spread of bushfires. Fӧhn winds are heavier than the ambient air and display gravity flow characteristics. The farther they advance, the speedier they become. As fӧhn winds are warmer, they dry the land and vegetation along their sweep.
A rugged terrain with a valley type topology would suffer a double ill-posed condition to accelerate the spread of bushfires. As the wind sweeps across the valley and begins to be decelerated in the opposite upslope, the upslope flow preheats and pre-dries the vegetation ahead of the fire. The upright flames shoot upwards and consume the vegetation on the ascending slope. A rule of thumb is that with a 20 degree uphill slope, the spread of bushfires there will be four times faster than that over flat terrains. The devastated Lahaina district on the Island is situated east of the West Maui-Mountain-Range. It enjoys the crisp dry air on the leeward side of the range yet the dry air caused rapid spread of bushfires.
Land Management Uses Preemptive Fires
Land management can make a huge difference in the prevention of wildfires. The concept of interactive interplay in wildfire-control land management is a worthy discipline to be considered by land officials and Interior Department personnel. This concept is being tested out and is still facing a lot of skepticism and indifference. The main reasons for the cold shoulders are understandable. It requires constant updating of information on the ground. It also requires excellent communications and transparencies among all governmental and nongovernmental entities involved in wildfire control. These requirements are particularly challenging for managers of large geographical swaths. For instance, these conditions are difficult to achieve in the outback of the Oceanic Continent, in the thick forest of the Amazon, and in the immense boreal forests of Siberia and Northern Canada. The concept needs time to confirm its durability and applicability.
Historical Camp-Fire in 2018
In a few southern states of the U.S.A., wildfires are rather frequent due to the onset of irregular extreme weather (Please see the last issue about El Niño cycles). The interactive land-management concept encourages frequent calculations of correlations of all the variables in: arborology, geography, meteorology and hydrology. To bring this statement in a close-up visual and anecdotal illustration, I would quote the loss of paradise in the Camp-Fire in Northern CA, in November 2018. In 2018, CA was in a 30 year record drought. The hydrological and meteorological conditions were ripe for precarious outbreaks of wildfires. Unfortunately in the time, the Californian forests suffered an onslaught of Bark Beetle infestation. These little insects were killing millions of trees across the state, especially the conifers. Dry dead trees became a common scene in CA forests, in some of them as large as 80% of the trees were dead. These dead trees were fuels awaiting ignition. The weather then was so hot that the CA authority controlled the electricity power-grid lest it caused sparks and became fire hazards. Behold! The Camp-Fire in 2018 broke out. It was the most expensive wildfire disaster in history at $12.5 billion dollars. It burned 150,000 acres, destroyed more than 14,000 homes and killed 85 people. It was extremely environmentally harmful as 5,500,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) was emitted in 17 days. The CO2emitted by Camp-Fire canceled out of the CO2 emission saving achieved by all the Teslas on the road in the U.S. in 2023 had they all run to retirements. CO2 is a major culprit of greenhouse gas that expedites global warming. With such a rapid rate of uncontrolled emission during wildfires, the natural sequestration mechanisms were overburdened. Much of the emitted CO2 stayed in the atmosphere causing the greenhouse gas burden to increase. In terms of health impacts, the air in CA and the neighboring states deteriorated almost 10 times due to tens of times more air-borne PM2.5 particulates. These small particulates harmed the human respiratory system. The cause of wildfires were manifold such as poor warning systems, low awareness among the general public, and the speed of the fire advance. In the Camp-Fire, the gale winds spread the fire was blowing at 75 miles per hour. People were simply caught unguarded. Again, I felt that land-management had a role to play and could mitigate some of the damage. Had the wildfires been conducted as prescribed burns and were done in staged and controlled manner, the natural sequestration could have worked better and the eventual increase of CO2 in the atmosphere could have been significantly less than what happened.
Land Managers are Mandated Stewards
In some other southern states of the U.S. prescribed burns have been employed as a primary tool to prevent uncontrolled wildfires. A land manager treats the optimal prescribed burn problem as an Operational Optimization problem minimizing the cost. The manager can only execute his prescribed burn plan under calm and non-fire hazard meteorological conditions subjected to the permitting from state and federal environmental departments. An aggressive and well managed prescribed burn strategy is to rid dangerous potential fuels and proactively renew forest with young trees. Young trees are usually more fire resistant and insect resistant. Permit issuance for prescribed burns are based on projections for minimum fire hazard and minimum air pollution. It will factor in heat output from the burn to calculate buoyancy of the smoke plumes so that a global minimum of air pollution impact is assured. The smoke plume rise should be confined to certain heights to avoid long range transport of smoke. Nonetheless, the plume rise should not be too shallow to risk near-source high smoke concentrations. Permits are daily issued. The land manager must analyze and update his prescribed burn plans daily. With good ventilation and decent lower-atmosphere turbulent mixing, the harmful substances formed from wildfires can be handled in less chaotic manners than those in uncontrolled wildfires. Therefore, Prescribed-burn Managers are geo-environment-engineers doing good stewardship. They have a high calling: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15).
Author: Pastor Dr. Pius Lee is the Director of the Development Division of NYSTM. In 2021, he retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States, and was selected the winner of NOAA’s Administrator’s Award for the Air Pollution Forecasting Research Group in 2020. Pastor Lee and Mrs. Ancy Thuyen-Anh, Lee have three sons and one daughter. The couple relocated from the capital, Washington, to New York to take up the post.
Pius Lee. “[Storm Buster series] Preempt Wildfires” NYSTM Truth Monthly, October, 2023.
https://nystm.org/nytm1023-12/
【小趣奇遇】返回都市 重操舊業
我父母親一直留守在龍安鄉鎮有數個月,以表示沒有抗衡政府的新政策,其實是有便衣公安一直在監控著我們⋯⋯
【小趣奇遇】壓迫商家驅逐去新經濟區
當我們一家被迫拋屋棄貨被驅逐到龍安省(Long An)的一個小鎮墟(Thu Thua)之後;我們的戶口被取消,孩子同時也被取消在城市內上學的資格。四哥與我、弟妹都要輟學。
[Storm Buster] Storm Surge
Storm surge causes inundation of large swaths of coastal land. Eleven years ago, storm surge from Hurricane Sandy havocked large damages in New York (NY) and New Jersey (NJ). Today, some of those destructions are still noticeable and remain unrepaired.
[Interesting Adventures] The New Economic Development District Policy in Vietnam
The Vietnamese government had planned well ahead and prepared many makeshift-hut developments such as the one we were sent among all the villages and provinces.
【小趣奇遇】壓迫商家(二)
一位女檢官早上7時至晚上6時在我家,看守著我們的一舉一動約有三星期⋯⋯
[Interesting Adventures] Suppressing the Merchants (Part II)
Upon the confiscation of our family-cloth-business, there was an undercover policewoman stationed at our home for three weeks every day from 7:00 am till 6:00 pm. Our every move was scrutinized⋯⋯
[Storm Buster] Autumn Foliage Forecast
Autumn is pleasant. It has many public holidays for the most populous countries in the northern hemisphere. In the U.S. we have Labor Day, Columbus Day and the Veterans Day. In China there are Mid-Autumn Festival and Double-Yang Festival.
[Storm Buster Series] Preempt Wildfires
We were all stunned by the apocalyptic scenes of devastation and destitution caused by wildfires in Maui, HI. The utter sense of desolation and desperation was overwhelmingly sad. It destroyed the idyllic Island of Maui. Many people are still in denial and disbelief when they look at the news reports.
[Interesting Adventures] The Oppressed Merchants (1)
Mom and dad ran a textile and cloth business for thirty years. Their humble street hawker beginning was never remote. Only through thrift living and hard work did mom and dad gradually expand their business and eventually proudly owned a retail shop in the middle of the vegetable markets.
【小趣奇遇】壓迫商家(一)
父母親在南越做了三十多年的布匹生意,由擺地攤起家到有自己的小店鋪門面。他們新婚之時住在小巷子裡的簡陋小木屋,節儉累積才買房搬出住在菜市街上,他們養育了六個孩子。
【小趣奇遇】民族之間文化的差異
我父母親年輕未婚時來自潮州;但我們六個兄弟姊妹都是出生於越南。全家一直住在華人聚居最多的「堤岸」。華人都是做大小生意為生的。連本地越南人都學會說粵語,特別需要在生意上能用粵語溝通,他們也讓自己孩子去華文學校讀書。
Heatwaves
Heatwaves in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere captured the public’s attention. The inadequacy of the central air conditioning units in many of the northern cities testifies to the unexpected increase in air temperature across Northern Europe, Asia and America.
Cultural Divide
Born in Vietnam, my siblings of six including myself, lived in a Chinese town called “Cholon”. Cantonese was the business dialect that even the native Vietnamese learned to speak. Many of the Vietnamese natives sent their children to Chinese schools.
【小趣奇遇】教學混亂與民間迷信
在1975年南越政變後,我和二哥(榮光)和弟弟(榮南)就讀的「同心」中小學,从私立成了公立學校,取消了學校制服。由於不夠老師,加上政府監控學校制度,又撤銷所有華語課堂,規定只准許學習當地越南文。
The Unfathomable Deep Space and Seas
Man is an adventurous creature. In the pre-pandemic year of 2019 the US travel and tourism industry generated 1.9 trillion dollars in economic output. That was a startling 9% of the nation’s corresponding GDP of 21.38 trillion dollars in 2019.
Chaotic schools and rampant superstitions
When the communists took over Vietnam in 1975, my second eldest brother (David), I and my younger brother (Kevin) were studying in the “Same Heart” middle-and-elementary school in Cholon, Vietnam. Originally a private school, it was changed to a public school under the communist government.
Calmness after the War (Part II)
My parents ran a textile and clothes retail shop from our home. Under the new communist government after the Vietnamese civil war, every home was eager to sew the new national flag. Therefore, all of a sudden our home business was thriving beyond our wildest imaginations.
【小趣奇遇】戰亂後的平息(下集)
父母親是做買賣布料的家庭式生意。內戰後的新興政府,規定家家戶戶都要買布料縫裁新國旗。突然間,店舖的生意好到忙不過來。我的大哥(雁榮)想幫父親的輕型電單車加油,去了附近一公哩以外的油站加油。
Pollen Allergy Becoming a Mainstay
Pollen allergy is more commonly known as hay fever. Medically speaking, it is called seasonal allergic rhinitis —- a provocation of the immune system to overreact to pollen from trees, grasses, and weeds. Hay fever occurs mainly in the spring and fall when pollen from trees, grasses, and weeds are in the air.
Calmness after the War (Part I)
In the May issue we mentioned the civil war between North and South Vietnam. It finally ended on the so-called “Liberation Date” on April 30, 1975. The North united the country into a communist country.
滕張佳音博士
國宣創辦人
▪︎美國芝加哥三一福音神學院文學碩士(宣教)及教牧學博士(宣教學)
▪︎前建道神學院跨越文化研究部副教授
▪︎牧職神學院榮譽創院院長
▪︎國際短宣使團創辦人