Wildfires: Clear fuel from hilltop and remote area communications towers

[Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke () gmail com>]

Over the past week I think I've seen about 20 to 30 photos of burnt out
communications sites in Oregon and California.

Due to the often remote and unstaffed nature of many of these sites,
there's a natural tendency for brush, shrubs, grass and small trees to grow
close to the tower compounds on many hilltop sites.

Many of these sites also support emergency communications services.

In the subject line I'm using "fuel" as defined by firefighters, not
literally meaning petroleum fuels, but anything flammable.

In some places there are ecological or political concerns with maintaining
a cleared perimeter around telecom tower sites. This might be a time to
re-visit the logical purpose of some of these policies, if allowing fuel to
grow right up to the tower and telecom equipment shelters greatly increases
the likelihood of the whole thing going up in flames.