From the desk of Seth Schalet, Chief Executive Officer
As Labor Day represents the end of summer, the rule was established that you shouldn't wear white after the holiday if you don't have the money to take fall and winter vacations. The no-white rule starts after Labor Day and lifts on Memorial Day on the last Monday of May, at the beginning of summer.
Yet, old habits die hard, and somehow, the “no white after Labor Day” old wives’ tale has stuck—almost bafflingly so. In Amy Vanderbilt’s Ladies Home Journal advice column in the 1970s, she responded to a reader who posed the question: “I don’t know where the rule began, but it no longer holds.” And, throughout the decades, some of the world’s best-dressed women from, yes, Coco Chanel, to Gigi Hadid, to Michelle Obama, have worn the color all year round.
So, perhaps the time is nigh to issue a declaration: We don’t live in the Gilded Age anymore. Our streets are paved. Our trash is taken out. You can wear white after Labor Day. So much for fashion rules. I say wear what you want, when you want. (Excerpted from Elise Taylor, Vogue, 9/1/2023)
What about long-held fire spread rules like the Rothermel model? Fifty years after its initial publication, Rothermel’s model continues to underpin many operational fire modelling tools. Past authors have, however, suggested a possible oversensitivity of the Rothermel model to fuel depth in certain fuel types. A recent study uses an existing dataset of flame spread experiments in pine needle beds to evaluate the effect of fuel structure on Rothermel model predictions of spread rate and reaction intensity. The results: Underpredictions of spread rate occurred for compressed fuel beds, apparently driven by an underprediction of the reaction intensity. To learn more, read this: The effect of fuel bed structure on Rothermel model performance.
As the days grow shorter, the FireSafe Council is packing more into each day. This newsletter is chock-full of information on our projects, some recent press and media about our work in early wildfire detection with our partners, San Jose Water and N5 Sensors. We are making use of our PG&E chipping grant and starting to utilize the new funding the County Board of Supervisors approved for chipping administered through Santa Clara County Fire Department. Read on to learn more about the dates and locations of our chipping program. Come see us at the
Last but not least, we invite you to join us at our inaugural FireSafe Summit at the Mountain Winery on October 10th. Learn more about the event, see our sponsorship packages, and purchase tickets at: https://sccfiresafe.org/firesafesummit/ We hope to see you there.
Best,
Seth Schalet
CEO, Santa Clara County FireSafe Council
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