Perhaps the Bluecut Fire in California should cause us to take another look at doing something we seem to think we lack the resources to do. It is time to look at whether we can wet potential fire sites to keep them from bursting in flames.
Two of the reasons we don't? (1) It is too expensive to desalt the ocean water and spreading it over the forests would harm the trees, if the salt were not removed. (2) All the inland water is already spoken for, if I understand correctly. Someone has the water rights to all the water in our lakes and reservoirs and all the water is needed, mostly for culinary reasons.
I wonder why removing salt is such a prohibitive thing. I don't know what methods there are, but I imagine one is converting it to steam then letting the steam cool back into water. That does seem like it would take some effort, but, no, it doesn't seem it should be cost-prohibitive -- to me. It doesn't seem the equipment should be so expensive, as it is a simple enough process. Is it the energy required that is expensive?
As for water rights at our lakes and reservoirs, I guess for the moment I can only wonder. I must imagine that if you tell me there is no water available, I might not be in position to say otherwise. But, I certainly continue to wonder.
I'm not saying we should continually water all the forests. Maybe even let some dry up to catch on fire in controlled burns. But, we could at least spot water, picking the places we where we wanted to avoid fires.
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