Phreatic Craters, Fire Suppression & Penstemon Nuance 

Finally someone talking about fire suppression it really grinds my gears

"Smokey the Bear is an asshole." Truer words have not been spoken. I've often imagined writing a short story where Smokey goes to a therapist, comes to terms with the pain and loss in his life that led him to his extremist views about wildfires and then the harm and death he has caused over the years. Anyway, stay safe California!

I'm a forest ecologist and I work for the Forest Service, occasionally on fire assignments but it's far from my main job. My two cents on the (mis)management of fire adapted ecosystems is basically that we're in a precarious situation that has no easy solution. A large part of the problem is the fuels build up from historically suppressing every fire everywhere all the time, which is combining with climate change to produce extreme fires. The other major issue at hand is what we call the "wildland urban interface" since people continue to build their homes in fire prone areas, take no precautions whatsoever, and then expect to be rescued when the fire comes. Oh and they don't like the idea of controlled burning, and they're not so hot on timber harvesting for fuels reduction, and no they won't make a defensible area around their homes, and no they won't improve access to make it safe for firefighters to get in and out. But they or their insurance company will happily sue the state or federal agency that "failed" to protect them. I'm all for fuels reduction, controlled burning, and containment over suppression, but it's just not as easy to do as it is to say. It certainly doesn't help that we already have all the systems in place and the money appropriated to suppress all these fires while going through the process of properly managing our forests is slow, expensive, reliant on limited resources, and burdened with regulations that limit where, when, and how any treatment can be done. There's not as much maliciousness or even incompetence as you might expect, just a lot of conflicting values and frustrated people.

Your dog has the nicest life; guaranteed food but it gets to wander around the beautiful outdoors all the time.

Hey I went to highschool in Montana. The shit you're talking about in the beginning we learned in science class. We learned a ton of fire safety in general. That is where we train, in Missoula, the Smokejumpers who parachute into wildfires. In science class we also learned native American history, because their science of the land was sound. They used to do low burning fires in their forests often... they understood the benefits. Also the fact that "pruning your forest" is essential. You don't want too many trees growing too closely. A healthy forest has big trees spread evenly apart. Lots of room. I swear to god, Montana public schooling is among the best in the country.... I love what you're doing! just my 2 cents. leaving a comment for the algorithm :)

I think they need more Pupperoni! Thanks for the vicarious hike into da hole

Sippin on a nice whiskey, with a nice new CPBBD video, wildfire burning away less than 60 miles from me.

Thanks for the shot of the Wild Ginger. The leaf color appeared variegated, unlike what I've seen in the Upper Midwest.

Where else can you get forestry lessons, fashion tips for when to wear assless leather pants and devious ways to screw with your pets? Brilliant and hysterical as usual, thanks.

Thanks for the beautiful views. Got this friggin Lake fire smoking us out.

Ol Joey really getting that 'tuber thing down. Please keep making more, Its good to educate ones self when surrounded by mindless drivel just a tab away.

I come for the knowledge and snark but we all stay for the pupperoni don’t we.

From now on, lookin’ at Penstemon is gonna make me wanna Hot Dog. Who knew? Thanks again, Tony. You’re keepin’ sanity within our grasp with each vid.

Ever since I began learning about California native plants, I have come across plants(much like in these videos), and getting excited. It is like seeing a famous person in real life that you've been following, but far less disappointing. My favorite was reading up on aquilegia Formosa, and coming across it in the wild. I took its photo, and was really excited. It makes life so much more exciting and makes hikes feel like a scavenger hunt. Also it helps me appreciate the life around me. Side effect has been the desire to secretly spike people's front yards with native seeds.

Here's a comment for the algorithm. Love what you're doing. I lived in the Nicollet (sp?) Forest in Wisconsin for a couple years. But that whole forest is more of a plantation for lumber and pulp than real Forest. I still miss it though, and go fishing there every couple years.

Hey Tony. I don't always get to wash every video you make, but every video I do watch, you always make me smile, while you teach me things that I didn't know, or refresh my memory about things I learned 15 years ago.

The phreatic enema kit website must be down.

Loved the close up flower dissection and the great botany lesson!!! So very much better than pictures in a book. Thank you!! 🌿💕

I love your videos, I’ve learnt so much from them! If you ever come to Mexico City, I think you’ll really enjoy visiting the Pedregal de San Ángel, a 1,600 year old lava field with a pretty cool ecosystem growing on top.

A national fucking treasure you are dude. Thanks.

Chaps were designed for riding horseback through chaparral, no? Words, like plants, can be orientating. Diggin' the riffs.

I'd love if you'd do another episode of "botany of the bleak" I loved your other videos talking about the urban ecosystem

Darn dood, ur knowledge of plants is really incredible. Like it's straight up an example of the power of human brain. Crimepayulus Maximulintilegus for sure.

That ending.....good boys!

Thanks for the vid, love the doggo ending.

If you want to borrow some bush-turkeys from Queensland Australia we've got plenty spare, and they're pretty good at taking the fuel load into nest piles.

This guy...inspired me go back to University and get a degree in Plant Health. I'm 53 y/o and I'm going to recommend this channel to all the little pukes in my classes

You should come down to the South during burn season and do some videos on controlled burns. Obvious the environments are way different. But a great example of good burn management. We just had the first wild born Eastern Indigo Snake found in AL for the first time in 50 years, thanks to help from burns...and the gopher tortoise.

i loved the end with your dogies

The man knows what a porcelain toilet sounds like smashed on a sidewalk 14:06

Thanks for the hot dog bun analogy. This is the low brow shit I sub for.

psych ward green, i need to see if Behr carries that color

good for you my friend talking about how some ass will NOT do the right thang on making sure that the ceg. is out or the campfire is FULLY out and with dirt over top before they leave

When you get a chance check out Corte Madre in San Diego. It's a private protected area near Laguna Mountain

I have not looked at all of your videos so sorry if you have already done some on this but could you do some videos exploring burn areas at different time frames one year two years 5 years and so on. both small short fires and the huge ones we have every year bless you and your furry friends thank you

Thanks for the nice hike

I grew up in Lake County, broke my arm in Shasta while snowboarding, been there many times... Spooky to you, familiar to me :) Weird that I like seeing you do shit around my old home, since I hate that asscrack. Now that I'm a horticulturist, I find the area fascinating, though.... So again, glad to see you prowling around, and listening to you rant and rave about it.

"smokey the bear ain't too happy" Me: Yeah it looks pretty bad Takes a step *c r o n c h* Me: 👀 that shit's flames that haven't happened yet

Beautiful conversation... to pre delay imperative

Good job giving us a taste of the argument with Jack. I wonder who won.

Love the ending 😆

I’ve always liked Penstemons. It’s the largest genus endemic to North America, they come in all colors (blues and purples most common, but I’ve seen red, yellow, and white ones), grow in a wide range of habitats, and most species are quite showy. But you do need a hand lens to key them out to the species. “Broomrape” refers to a European species of _Orobanche_ parasitizing _Cytisus_ species (common name: broom).

"Etsy witches" I hollered :-)

14:04 The owner of that home (look behind where the rock was tossed) is inside wondering why this jackass is tearing up their front porch! 😁

" Smokey the Bear was an asshole" made my day!!!

Before the green, there is volcano, it helps in the end. And all along the paths of life.

Love the Asarums, got some nice ones in Georgia too. Under used as a landscape plant for well drained shade, critters don't eat them like they do hosta and they're evergreen here. Got ya some commercials, nice to be monitized. Hope ya got some pennies from letting them run. Get some pupperonies for the kids.

I was just thinking about looking up if there were any myco-heterotrophs in California, but based off this video I can tell there are both myco-heterotrophs and straight up root-parasitic bastards. I’m a amateur dip-shit botanist from the east coast figuring out the ecology out here on the West after moving here a couple years ago. Your channel is some great stuff!

Nice job Tony!

Mr. Santore I know it's not really your area of expertise but if you feel comfortable explaining I'd really like it if you could talk about soil biology, the importance of indeginous microorganisms in plats, the symbiotic relationships with endo/ecto mycorrhizae fungi have have with some plants and what species or circumstances can occur for their symbiotic relationship turn sour into a parasidic one

Love the dog footage at the end. You're getting soft with all this extra non-educational stuff

You gotta follow the bear trails to get through manzanita like that.

Awwww! Who's a good boy?

I like to listen to lo-fi while watching your videos, CPBBD. Someone is going to end up making a channel that re-uploads your videos with a lo-fi soundtrack in the background, I can see it now.

Absolute mad man bushwhacking through that stuff in shorts lol

I agree with you, Wrigley Field IS like a smashed porcelain toilet! 🤣 PS Awesome vid as usual.

best video in a while. keep it up.

I wonder how many cool rocks you find

Hey Joey I know that international travel is difficult right now with covid, but eventually I would love to see you exploring Subsaharan Africa. I've been looking into many of the native plants and it just seems like a breeding ground for weird ass shit. Lithops or other mesembs specifically which have like thousands of different species would be awesome to see in habitat. Edit: obviously money is a factor in travel too I don't mean to be so forward. But if it ends up in the cards I'd love to see it.

Dog, man's best parasite.

Bonus pupperoni revolt at the end!

gods i miss california's flora. thanks for making these videos

I did forestry a few years ago when on my free state paid vacation. Cut down and built 25foot burn piles of dead crap and over growth... burn it in the winter in Tahoe.

18:46 NOW WE'RE BOTH BARKING AAAAA

awesome stuff, gotta love what volcanoes do to ecosystems. also ending dogs! :D comments are good for the youtube algorithm

BROWN AND CRISPY

Really nlce dogs you got there.

19:08 What a voice.

I think the one dislike is from smokey the bear 😂

Does the forestry department over there do backburning in some states to manage it better than seen in this video? I live in Australia and sometimes we get backburning right, but after the gutting of the fire services you can see the results in our last bout of severe bushfires.

So do you just know all this offa the top of your head or do you go through beforehand and read up before each video to make sure you're ready? Either way, cool shit. Had no idea phreatic explosions existed, now I can't stop readin about em.

I love your videos. 👍🏻

Walking through thick manzanita is like swimming in barbwire, beautiful but nasty

Did you notice the young bobcat jogging by? At 3:05 to left side

Brachs 👍 Only when I was good

Haha hairy ovaries... I’m really enjoying how you describe the plants.

That's a ton of ladder fuel! Fortunately, looks like there isn't too many windfall timber. It'd still burn hot and fast with all that available burnable surface area.

I come for the education. I stay for the sass!

someone should really sweep that forest!

more of the dogs

This is a prime example of what happens when you take fire away from a forest that needs fire and has evolved around frequent fires. Then when a fire does happen because it’s enviable it has so much dry fuel it turns essentially into a blast furnace and burns everything

Is Jake an Australian Cattle Dog? I’ve read they can new challenging pets. Just curious about your opinion. Is he a high maintenance breed? How is he with strangers? That kinda thing. Thanks

thats why they call em chaps, for walking through the chaparral. cmon man the dad joke was right there and you missed it ;) 16:30

Is there a plant that specializes in parasitizing other parasitic plants?

What kind of breeds are your dogs Tony?? They look like border collies but their coat are shorter so I’m not sure but they definitely are geriatric coyotes by blood.

It must be awfully weird to live in a place that gets wildfires. I'm from Ohio, so that stuff doesn't happen naturally here.

Chaps= protective gear for plowing through chap-aral.

all my homies are allways hunting smoky the bear with the back of our adhd ass brains

Risked your ass to show us dat parasite at de end dere, nice.

I watch because of the dogs.

The hot dog bun drinking game.

Hnh, how fitting, posting this while the Bay and up north are burning. One of my favorite campground in Big Basin is gone, top of Empire Grade and Ben Lomond are gone, do ya think that Californias people who make these decisions will learn? Nah, itll be fine.

No more pupperoni!

So for fun here’s a bit of cool shit: Over here in Florida, where it’s flat as all hell all Over the place, there’s a nature preserve where it’s actually hilly. The hills were caused by a sinkhole, called the Eichelberger Sink, whoever the fuck Eichelberger is/was. Probably some developer who contributed a bunch to some organization/government and got his name attached to a natural wonder of this area. The hike down created some both sandy and erosion filled interesting habitat where the gopher tortoises have more hilly environment to make nests in, and plants that wouldn’t normally have a chance are popping off left and right. I forget how many varieties I counted, but there was a bunch. It’s basically a forest with hills in an otherwise flat, depressing landscape full of annoyed people and repressed emotions, funded by tourists contributing billions of dollars a year and snowbirds making the cost of living astronomical for those that live and work here. It sucks, man. Kinda the same way in California, but just a bit cheaper.

The way this video aged....man.

Three months after this you’re in red woods that were destroyed in one of the fires that probably looked just like this. Plenty of fuel!

I'm scared Tony

I’m sure you have answered this already but where do you get all your knowledge from?

those short broken tree branches next to the Penstemon (3:12) looked like cigarette butts at first glance... had to go back to see the H they were...

Thank You ! :)