New Report Debunks Myth of “Catastrophic Wildfire”
By Matthew Koehler, Unfiltered 2-03-10
There is no such thing as "catastrophic wildfire" in our forests, ecologically speaking. That is the central conclusion of a report released this week by the John Muir Project (JMP), a non-profit forest research and conservation organization.
The report, "The Myth of Catastrophic Wildfire: A New Ecological Paradigm of Forest Health", is a comprehensive synthesis of the scientific evidence regarding wildland fire and its relationship to biodiversity and climate change in western U.S. forests. It stands many previously held assumptions on their heads, including the assumptions that forest fires burn mostly at high intensity (where most trees are killed), and that fires are getting more intense, as well as the assumption that high-intensity fire areas are ecologically damaged or harmed. The report finds that the scientific evidence contradicts these popular notions.
"We do not need to be afraid of the effects of wildland fire in our forests. Fire is doing important and beneficial ecological work," said the report's author, Dr. Chad Hanson, a forest and fire ecologist who is the Director of the John Muir Project, as well as a researcher at the University of California at Davis. "It may seem counterintuitive, but the scientific evidence is telling us that some of the very best and richest wildlife habitat in western U.S. forests occurs where fire kills most or all of the trees. These areas are relatively rare on the landscape, and the many wildlife species that depend upon the habitat created by high-intensity fire are threatened by fire suppression and post-fire logging."
The report notes that hundreds of millions of dollars are being needlessly spent each year suppressing fires in remote forests and implementing widespread "forest thinning" logging projects. This puts firefighters at unnecessary risk in remote wild areas, puts homes at greater risk by diverting scarce resources away from efforts to create defensible space around structures, and further threatens the many rare and imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat.
Specifically, the report finds:
• There is far less fire now in western U.S. forests than there was historically.
• Current fires are burning mostly at low intensities, and fires are not getting more intense, contrary to many assumptions about the effects of climate change. Forested areas in which fire has been excluded for decades by fire suppression are also not burning more intensely.
• Contrary to popular assumptions, high-intensity fire (commonly mislabeled as "catastrophic wildfire") is a natural and necessary part of western U.S. forest ecosystems, and there is less high-intensity fire now than there was historically, due to fire suppression.
• Patches of high-intensity fire (where most or all trees are killed) support among the highest levels of wildlife diversity of any forest type in the western U.S., and many wildlife species depend upon such habitat. Post-fire logging and ongoing fire suppression policies are threatening these species.
• Conifer forests naturally regenerate vigorously after high-intensity fire.
• Our forests are functioning as carbon sinks (net sequestration) where logging has been reduced or halted, and wildland fire helps maintain high productivity and carbon storage.
• Even large, intense fires consume less than 3% of the biomass in live trees, and carbon emissions from forest fires is only tiny fraction of the amount resulting from fossil fuel consumption (even these emissions are balanced by carbon uptake from forest growth and regeneration).
• "Thinning" operations for lumber or biofuels do not increase carbon storage but, rather, reduce it, and thinning designed to curb fires further threatens imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat.
• The only effective way to protect homes from wildland fire is to use non-combustible roofing and other materials, and reduce brush within 100-200 feet of structures.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Add your comment below
Nowhere is there a thing said about 10,000 years or more of anthropogenic fire, which is part of the insidious institutional genocide of academic science.
And, if fire is a GOOD thing, why is there this intense effort to ban backyard burning of vegetation prunings, leaves, grass, dead fall? The very same "air pollution" argument you just made is interpreted by the very same academic scientists to say just the opposite for "airshed" pollution.
If wildland fire is "good", then how are the health benefits to humans to be put forward? If the contribution to the overall health of the world is benign, then why is it in specific places there is tragedy? I would suppose, on a geological scale, worldwide, earthquakes are a good thing, too. After all, the do relieve plate pressure and change geographies, aid erosion, and expose hidden nutrients to weathering and introduction into the vegetative food chain.
When you report about "good" and "bad", those are just your vision of the report. And, you have selected for information that supports your egocentric view of how things should be. But good and bad are no more than anthropogenic values, and really have no place in a discussion that ignores millennia of fires set by humans to alter the landscape, to favor species and human survival. I have to deduce that far before Europeans, there were "good" fires and "bad" fires, in the views of who lived here.
(Think IPCC. lot's of conjecture, lots of fraud, lots of good science all mixed up, and all called science, so the casual observer can't tell the difference.) It what happens when you mix ideologues and science.
What I want to hear is that those scientists are frauds and not to be believed, so that I can say "Right back atcha" (is that a Palindrome?) on the climate change proponents. Or is pick and chose science the name of the game?
What nice, kind, stalwart Americans don't want to hear is that Big W Wilderness is just another piece of the whole cloth of a genocide that has been ongoing in the Americas for five centuries. And what NGO led supplicants at the altar of climate change want to believe is that forest fires don't change climate. And they probably don't. But the smoke and particulates are health hazards, are the ruination of summer with their choking smoke and sun blocking smoke and all the travel management, discomfort and disappointment that comes with project fires. What the US Attorney General thinks is that fire on Federal Land is of no value, unless it was caused by a non-government person for any reason, or came to the Federal Land from private land. At that point, AG Holder is continuing the Wildland Fire Task Force US Attorney teams to recover damages to the Federal Lands, including the log value of timber that will or would never be logged, the ephemeral value of habitat for plants and animals, and the kicker, loss of grandeur of the landscape. That begs the question of "loss of the grandeur of the landscape" only being a lost value if someone outside of the Federal employ starts the fire. If the fire is allowed "to burn for resource value" or "for fuel management purposes" or for "habitat rehabilitation" then it is assumed that there is no "loss of grandeur of the landscape." Is it fire that is out of control or is it government that is out of control? The US Dept. Of Justice got $102,000,000 from the Union Pacific Railroad for such a fire, and $14,000,000 from Pacific Gas and Electric for another, in which a pine tree blew down on their power lines causing the fire, and their negligence was not removing a tree that was rotten, which caused the fire (evidently you can control which trees blow over but the wind is not responsible).
So I am now more confused, conflicted, and not trusting of my government, the university research my government supports, and the conclusions that reach print and are electronically dispersed. Is fire good, bad, needed, not needed, controllable, not controllable? Or is fire just a handy excuse for a troubled, litigation wracked, unenforceable public land management program? As in agencies like the USFS cannot do a thing without being sued, except not fight fire. So they don't. The pap about fire being benign is situational ethics, now the moral base of this country. The Congress has written so many bad laws, amendments to those laws, that it is now impossible to govern, and impossible for the Federal government to carry out any meaningful duty to protect their charge. Obtuse neglect is now the national will, and any budget for the USFS would be remiss and a waste of precious resources. Let Federal Police guard the 195 million acres and if they catch someone using any one of them, put them in jail. Enforce the law to its fullest extent. If the law is inconvenient or just plain bad, maybe it will be repealed. Or maybe not. But when not burning might mean the end to your livelihood, there was no Congress of PhDs to tell the Indians that their burning was inconsequential and the fire was lit. Burning a south slope on a warm February day, to get rid of dead grass and leaf litter, and knowing that plush green grass would soon follow, and acorns could better be gathered in the fall, didn't have to go through planning committees, resource advisory boards, Congress, the Legislature, be approved by the weather man for prevailing winds. And there were no McMansions to have the curtains soiled, or the view blocked for an hour, or ash falling on a patio luncheon. And therein lies the real reason that restoration forestry will never get launched, or understory burning, or maintenance by fire of critical grasslands with specific ESA listed species needs. Inconvenience. We live in a world that does not tolerate being inconvenienced.
Each and every point Hanson makes can be easily refuted, as I have seen more burned forests in my 25 year career than I care to admit. Luckily, he traded in his SUV for a Prius that doesn't do well on our dilapidated forest roads *smirk*
My 25 years of forest observations in dozens of National Forests across the country have shown me that wildfires are NOT "natural and beneficial". I have numerous photos that show radically-accelerated mortality and ultra-high intensity fires that kill 500 year old trees and forests. When mountainsides have every single old growth tree killed, you CANNOT say that the fire was "low intensity". While today's fire acreages are lower than the pre-European estimates, the intensities have been ramped up. There is more fuels (both live and dead) in our forests now than have EVER been. Think of that statement! NEVER, EVER, have fuels on our forests been so high. Since the glaciers receded, humans have managed forests and their fuels. High fuels equals high intensity. Refute THAT! Species conversion to intensely-flammable species also guarantees that entire forest ecosystems will be fried to a crackly crunch.
The "monsters" of forest science (Doctors Jerry Franklin, Tom Bonnicksen, Stephen Pyne, et al) are begrudgingly agreeing that "unstewardship" of our forests is the most horribly-wrong thing we can do to our forests, in this age of climate change. Hanson thinks we should change our forests from 400 year old ponderosa pine forests, which harbor all the good things we want from forests, to 80 year old lodgepole mono-cultures that burn catastrophically and don't provide homes for endangered species and wildlife.
I can't speak for everyone else, but my impression that this report seeks to stop logging is the fact that nearly every bullet point in the above article made a point that was negative to logging. Just kind of seemed like a theme.....
No matter, other than him obstructing essential public health and safety issues, water quality and quantity issues, endangered species and habitat loss, destruction of cultural heritage sites, road disrepair and failure, massive public evacuations and "free range fires". Even every former Chief of the Forest Service agrees that "unstewardship" is wrong. Alas, forests will continue to be sacrificed, burned catastrophically, on the pagan altar of preservationism.
"Current fires are burning mostly at low intensities, and fires are not getting more intense, contrary to many assumptions about the effects of climate change. Forested areas in which fire has been excluded for decades by fire suppression are also not burning more intensely."....You only have to look at the ramped up acreages to see that the averages have doubled in only 10 years. Fires burned for months on end in northern California a few years ago, and the smoke actually reached Yellowstone!
"Contrary to popular assumptions, high-intensity fire (commonly mislabeled as "catastrophic wildfire") is a natural and necessary part of western U.S. forest ecosystems, and there is less high-intensity fire now than there was historically, due to fire suppression.".... He is talking about those flammable species that can dominates lands with their fire-adapted serotinous cones. No one I know wants to have lodgepole and knobcone monocultures that would result from "free range fires". When ponderosa pines are completely incinerated, it can take decades for them to return by "natural" methods. Indian burning favored ponderosa pines, and NOT lodgepoles and knobcones.
"Conifer forests naturally regenerate vigorously after high-intensity fire.".... With wildfire temperatures estimated at 4000 degrees F, all organic matter in the soil is vaporized, and nutrients are severely depleted up to 3 feet deep. Also, under those conditions, brush species will successfully compete with conifers for decades, until a new wildfire comes in and vaporizes the remaining plant material once again. This catastrophic loss of soil productivity surely isn't commonly "natural".
"Our forests are functioning as carbon sinks (net sequestration) where logging has been reduced or halted, and wildland fire helps maintain high productivity and carbon storage."....There are a great many examples of catastrophic wildfires which have released centuries worth of carbon. When carbon storage is reset to zero on a piece of ground, that freed carbon often goes into our upper atmosphere, well away from where plants can use it. An atom of carbon from wood is just as bad as an atom of carbon from coal in climate effects. When trees die in wildfires, they soon release ALL their carbon in the coming few decades.
"Even large, intense fires consume less than 3% of the biomass in live trees, and carbon emissions from forest fires is only tiny fraction of the amount resulting from fossil fuel consumption (even these emissions are balanced by carbon uptake from forest growth and regeneration)."....See above. After a high-intensity fire, the soils cannot support the level of carbon sequestration it had before, because the soils are impacted with both nutrient depletion AND hydrophobicity.
""Thinning" operations for lumber or biofuels do not increase carbon storage but, rather, reduce it, and thinning designed to curb fires further threatens imperiled wildlife species that depend upon post-fire habitat."....Oregon lost over one third of it's Spotted Owl nest sites in the Biscuit Fire. Certainly, thinning projects ENHANCE Spotted Owl habitat. After the Bitterroot fires, they experienced an explosion of bark beetles from the unharvested dead and dying trees. Of course, the bark beetles didn't stop at the arbitrary elevational line designation "Potential Lynx Habitat". Thinning projects would surely have reduced the problems, and salvage projects would surely have reduced dead fuels build-ups. Sorry, Chad, but black-backed woodpeckers actually have WINGS to fly to their next patch of snags, which there is and will never be a shortage of.
"The only effective way to protect homes from wildland fire is to use non-combustible roofing and other materials, and reduce brush within 100-200 feet of structures."....OK, OK, I'll let you win another one! However, even this comment makes Chad look naive. I've been to the town where he lives and seen how their forests are at probably the highest risk of catastrophic fire.
"Patches of high-intensity fire (where most or all trees are killed) support among the highest levels of wildlife diversity of any forest type in the western U.S., and many wildlife species depend upon such habitat. Post-fire logging and ongoing fire suppression policies are threatening these species."....Once again, there never has or ever will be a shortage of snags in our public forests. Salvage plans always set aside acres of snags to satisfy wildlife concerns. Non-issue!
The Donato paper: So has there been a revisit of his tome? Has anyone measured the "natural" regeneration after logging? And will that be measured annually for how long? Trees do not quit putting out seed after a fire. And they don't quit after one, two, or three years. Conifer seed can ride the wind and land tens of miles from its source. The Biscuit Fire area has upslope winds in winter of one hundred miles an hour and more, and summer winds in the fifty mile per hour range. So no matter if seed falls into wind in late summer, early fall, late fall, or early winter, there is certainly many times wind to carry it far. Natural regeneration is an annual event. Forever. Too bad hide bound pocket experts can't visualize that but can see spinning peas.
Memo to enviro propoganda minister-once in awhile, throw out a study that says something along the lines of " we had a theory about some impending ecological catastrophe, but after rigorous scientific research, we have come to the conclusion that we were wrong and there is no impending doom". It might make the rest more credible. For good propoganda to be believable, you have to throw in some bad news once in awhile.
What I find interesting is the "academia-enviro-media" connection. Remember about six months ago when the researcher from Colorado had the AP publish her story claiming that only 10% (?) of USFS fuels treatment were in the Wild urban interface(WUI). Now how does an obscure researcher get the AP to pick up a story within a week of being published and have it in every newspaper in the West. Of course when the USFS rebutted her a month later it was a four inch column on page D hardly picked up by any newspaper. Now what enviro made the phone call to their good buddy Jeff Barnard at the AP. Hey, all unproven allegations, but sounds like a good investigative news story. Better call John Stossels.
Propoganda always fails in the long run. If I don't get both sides of the story, I start wonderin what the other side of the story is, then I start questioning the story you're tellin me, then I stop trusting the stories you're telling me, then I quit believing every story you're tellin me. It's human nature. It took a couple decades for the Russians to figure out PRAVDA was feeding them a line. Then they quit believing everything they said. The credibility clock is running out on these enviro groups "scientific research studies". It'll take the "new media" to start digging into their sceme.
Hanson likes to pretend that Dr. Pyne is against forest management. In fact, Dr. Pyne rightfully is open to all forms of management in order to return landscapes to natural fire intensities and regular anthropogenic burning. I highly recommend Dr. Pyne's books, as he presents his impressive knowledge with an excellent literary flair.
I think most everyone who loves forests has a similar vision of resilient, vigorous forests that survive droughts, bark beetles and fires. THAT, my friends, is what Lewis and Clark saw on their westward journey. A finely, human-managed forest that you could ride your horse through with few thickets or brushfields.
Hanson sure doesn't want that. He is just fine with unnaturally-thick forests burning at unnaturally-high intensities. The worst thing about all this is that Hanson takes advantage of the conflicting rules, laws and policies of the Feds to repeatedly score huge legals fees, along with all the money he gets from the Feds as a "non-profit" eco-group. All an attorney has to do is win on just one issue in a complex NEPA document to reap the profits, overcharging the government in legal fees. It's a lucrative field that has little in risks.
The current policy is to allow massive acreage to burn and see what grows back. No NEPA analysis covers the plan to use uncontrolled and under-monitored wildfires burning in the middle of summer to reduce fuels levels. Frankly, this is a rather barbaric treatment of our forests, in this day and age of field-going GPS data recorders, satellite imagery and sophisticated GIS systems. Where is the "best-available science"?!?!?
The really bad stuff that happens is taking water out of a stream forever, and like the Trinity River, half the Klamath River watershed, and taking that water to another watershed, then dribbling it all on desert soils to evaporate or to carry salts to runoff ponds to kill birds with selenium. High cost agriculture. The water from subsidized Bureau of Reclamation built structures and diversions, to grow USDA subsidized crops. That is permanent damage. Brush will cover the slopes around LA in time, and the dirt will quit moving in mass quantities until after the nest fire. All those who compromised their lungs with weed and cigarettes, I guess smoke just compounds your bad choices. Fish have adapted to mass soil movement and hyper erosion. They will be back in time. Spotted owl habitat is gone and so are the owls. And in LA, more houses will be built where the ruined ones stand, and fire will revisit. And fire smoke is carbon neutral, which makes one wonder why the fuss over wood stove smoke in winter? Just returning carbon to the process. And don't give me the health answer. If wildfire smoke is not ghastly harmful to breathing, and breathing impairing compounds are not put in the air, how could it follow woodstove smoke is so harmful?
This is not science. This is an agenda dressed up to look like science; very much like the IPCC report referenced by an earlier blogger. I didn't bother to look to see if Hanson cited the WWF in this work, but it would not surprise me if he did.
For the record, Hanson invented his definition of "catastrophic wildfire" in order to more readily discount it. It was the same method he used to select and describe his myths in order to deliver his anti-logging agenda message.
The scientific definition of catastrophic forest wildfire (which is developed in greater detail my dissertation on the topic) is: "a wildfire encompassing more than 100,000 acres of contiguous forestland in a single event" (Zybach 2004: 7, 193). Most of the historical "evidence" that Hanson provides in support of his thesis is either erroneous or misleading (much like the definition of catastrophic wildfire he invents and then discounts) -- although his extensive use of Leiberg was interesting.
In sum, Hanson's work is just more politicized pseudo-science with an agenda; with great photos and formatting.
Face it, Chad and Matt....Fires ARE bad in today's forests!!
From 1945 until 1987 -- during the height of the "old 10 o'clock rule" days -- there were no catastrophic-scale wildfires in Oregon. Since 1987, and the enlargement of Wilderness areas and corresponding reductions in active management on federal lands, there have been several: Silver Complex, B&B;Complex, and Biscuit being the largest and most destructive.
Active management, including thinning, salvage logging and regular prescribed fire, doesn't "break the bank" at all -- just the opposite. It has the potential to create tens of thousands of profitable, tax-producing jobs in the western US on government lands alone, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of locally manufactured "green" energy via biomass productions, and hundreds of billions of dollars for county, state and federal treasuries and the schools, roads, and social service agencies that depend on them.
Such management also has the potential for reducing wildfire costs and damages by tens of billions of additional dollars over time. A paper I coauthored several months ago provided good estimates of large-scale wildfire costs and damages as being ten to 50 times greater than suppression costs alone.
Putting aside the economic issues you raise, active management can also be used to protect our remaining old-growth trees, groves, and stands; improve wildlife habitat and populations; decrease wildfire danger to people, their structures, and transportation and communication corridors; enhance recreational and spiritual opportunities; decrease air and water pollution; improve soil productivity; and vastly enhance forest aesthetics. Precontact North American Indians enjoyed such environmental conditions for generations via active management, and we can too.
Plants in the woods have "evolved to protect themselves" (not a really accurate concept or terminology, but I'll borrow your phrase to make a point), because people have been using fire across the landscape for thousands of years to manage the vegetation. Yes, there used to be a lot more fire a lot more often in our forests. No, it wasn't generally caused by lightning. People use fire. A lot. Always have; always will.
I haven't seen Avatar yet, so I'm not exactly sure what your point is in that regard. I will guess that your world is more urban than rural; more built environment than forested, though, based on your comments.
No one is saying to put every fire out. However, there is NO wisdom in letting natural ignitions burn in untreated, overcrowded, dying forests in the middle of the summer. It's like Vietnam Era rhetoric saying "We have to save the forests by burning them". A start would be to do the required NEPA work on each individual MMA in every forest. I think we need address the impacts of concerted INACTION that has significant impacts on populated and unpopulated ecosystems. I'm not going to take the fire suppression people's word that "there are no significant impacts to letting up to 100,000 acres burn".
In the end, the fires will burn anyway. The Station Fire was a good example of what happens when you ignore the inevitability of extreme wildfires. At some point, we will discover that we can craft forests to match conditions. Vilsack wants to include climate change into forest management, hoping to make our forests more resilient. Alas, wildfires do NOT achieve that goal. There will be many more big fires but, we CAN save important parts before fires incinerate more precious and irreplaceable acres.
You are missing the point. Millions of acres of land are overstocked with crowded, dying, and dead trees. They have market value. "As much as we can afford" is a false limit. This excess fuel can be used to produce jobs, produce energy, and produce a profit. The major cost involved is letting it go to waste and up in flame.
These fuel loads are unprecedented during the past several thousand years. So is the absence of human-caused fire in the landscape. You are trying to impose current conditions and your personal observations on past landscapes, and they won't fit.
You are the one claiming that others are "uselessly" arguing "Forest Fire is evil." No one but you are saying that, so it is a false argument. It is the identical thing that Hanson has done -- set up a false "myth" and then argue against it.
Catastrophic wildfires are predictable and preventable. They are not a "natural" part of the environment. If you want to play ecology, check out the ecology of oak, huckleberries, beargrass, sugar pine, and bracken fern in forested environments. These are plants that depend on regular disturbance -- such as periodic controlled fire -- and respond much better to active management than to passive neglect.
I recommend you read some Kat Anderson, Tom Bonnicksen, Henry Lewis, Robert Boyd, and Omer Stewart to get a more accurate understanding of the role of fire in the environment, and the development of forest plant assemblages in North America, before becoming any more set in your assumptions.
Please. EVERY sale doesn't have to be profitable for a program to be profitable (or at least break even). A super market doesn't make a profit on every single transaction; just (hopefully) the total of all transactions. Besides, on government land the concept of "profit" can better be described as "the greatest good for the greatest number over the long term." It doesn't necessarily need to be measured in dollars.
In addition, one reason for losing sales is just plain poor design. If boundaries were (much) larger, time limits less restrictive, and environmental constraints based more on common sense and less vulnerable to opportunistic litigation, then a lot more sales could be made profitable, even at current scales.
In many industries subsidies are used to encourage sales for other purposes: reduction in wildfire costs; increased rural jobs; improved local "green" energy production and/or conservation, etc., are all currently subsidized, as examples. Well designed subsidies would also increase the likelihood of profit on a broader scale; that is, subsidies could be essentially viewed as a long-term loan, or as investments to meet other objectives.
Catastrophic wildfires (the topic of this article) are, by definition, 100,000 acres or more in size. Forest restoration projects need to be of similar scales (tens of thousands of acres) in order to be effective. Well designed projects of that scale should be able to develop profitable margins more often than not.
Here in California, Federal clearcutting and highgrading have been banned since 1993 (voluntarily so!). Now, small-log mills are closing because the Feds can't get fuels reduction projects through the courts. Legal monkeywrenching is destroying our forests.
On the other hand, fire that originates on private land, and is fought, vigorously, but burn onto Federal land, the private landowner where the fire originated is liable for all the fire fighting costs on Federal land, and damages to Federal resources, including "the loss of grandeur of the landscape."
For the US Attorney and the US Attorney General to sue for, and prevail, for damages that include the log value of timber that would never be logged due to Wilderness protection, or roadless protection, for loss of water quality, for air quality reductions, and for the intangible "loss of grandeur of the landscape" (that is like suing for losing a beauty contenst), proves that there are compensable damages from fire to Federal Lands. There cannot be two sets of rules. The "grandeur of the landscape" is to be assumed that it has its trees, not burned and standing, and that viewsheds and habitats are static and to be valued as such.
That is not my argument, but the successful argument of the US Attorney in California who have sued, successfully, for those very compensable damages. $102 Million from the Union Pacific Rail Road, and $14 million from Pacific Gas and Electric (power line fire from a blowdown tree.) The US Govt has sued for, argued for, and won, damages from fire. That is a court ruling that says that fire damages "the grandeur of the landscape", removes log values from timberland, harms habitat for many species, including ESA listed species, and harms the watershed.
Now, how can "fire for resource use" or "wildland fire use" or any other designation that precludes an active and vigorous containment effort to prevent further destruction of legally proven resource values pass muster with NEPA? With USFS management goals? And the US Attorney General? What is good for the gander is not good for the goose?
I have been addressing you by name. My name is certainly not "you guys." I am a libertarian, not a socialist. If I were a benign dictator most of the government forests and grasslands (excepting parks) would have been privatized long ago, rather than being allowed to degenerate into their present condition.
When I was an Oregon Libertarian delegate to the national assembly in Denver in 1980, my sole agenda was support for privatization of the federal lands. Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.
You seem to want to resort to simplistic name-calling and "scientific" knee-jerk assertions instead of engaging in genuine discussions. You make provocative statements, which are interesting to respond to, but can't seem to find the data or the logic to follow up on them.
I will recommend again that you try the readings I suggested before continuing to publicly display your restricted understandings of history, ecology, and resource management. Until you've taken care of that limitation, this is probably my last attempt to have a meaningful exchange of ideas with you.
Read more and write less is my advice.
Does Chad have an agenda?? I'll leave that for you to decide.
You are playing out of your league here. Dr. Z knows his landscapes inside and out. The evolution you cite "with fire" has a caveat you really need to understand...the fire was INDUCED by humans, millions of Indians who burnt for browse, for food, for war, for hunting effectiveness, for tactical security.
The vegetative communities that resulted were an historic anthropological artifact. The effectiveness and durability of the effects prove out...it was a hundred years between the disease wave and serious white 'infill" yet the results lingered on the landscape.
Do yourself a favor and read 1491, then report back, okay?
Dr. Zybach is our own "wise man", who remembers the "old ways" to live well, in harmony with our homes. Us rural folks don't choose to follow urban societal eco-myths.
Just a mind fart. But the survivors of the pestilence had to be a ragged and scarred and tattered bunch. And some were able to arise again, and other were totally gone from the ether. Like they never existed. The great anthropological mysteries of the bones of old civilizations carved in cliffs, and along streams.
The Spanish arrived with horses, asses, sheep, cattle, and a very different albeit complex aboriginal economy arose out of that circumstance came new Native American cultures. But that was a post-Euro-invasion construct that merely supports all the prior assumptions of great native intellect and resourcefulness. The native peoples evolved with disease, beasts of burden (strangely, all of northern Europe and Asia had native groups with domesticated caribou as livestock and beasts of burden, but that did not happen in North America with the caribou here) and new forms of agriculture. Some were much better at it than others. Languages indicate that native peoples moved great distances and often, and in places like where I live in Western Oregon, there were native groups living within single digit miles of each other who did not vocally communicate due to vastly different languages. On the Coquelle River, there was Athabascan language living next to Koosian language and neither knew a word of the other's voice. And they all got lumped together on the Siletz Reservation in the 1860s. That had to be a rodeo only a Euro-centric white guy could put together in good faith and with help from his God. Today, you just have to laugh at the insanity of it all. Until you realize that Africa is still in similar straits, but armed with modern weapons. There has been little change in the tribal world.
I have read about pygmy hunters providing protein (bushmeat) and honey to slash and burn agriculture practicing normal sized humans for starches, sex, and maybe a metal cook pot. The farming might last two years, and maybe three, and then another plot elsewhere has to be created by felling trees and burning slash. Evidently some of those spots get maintained by forest elephants over time, and are the meadows in the middle of a rain forest jungle. Man creating a favorable habitat for an elephant and other animals, which maintain the habitat, thus producing protein for the pygmies to harvest, eat or trade. The old circle of vegetative forms with humans in the loop. I have to imagine that things were similar across the North American continent. Man as the many millennia habitat creator and maintainer. Which, of course, raises the important question we really don't know the answer to nor apparently want to know the answer to: what is "native", "natural", and "normal?"
And just how many people is not enough? The perhaps 4 million left in 1800AD or the 90 million in 1400AD?
The whole premise of the Endangered Species Act is about the recognition that European economic models favored landscape change for agriculture, mining, slash and burn forestry and ag. And they got at it, and with their bodies came the pandemics that had zero tolerance for folks who were not immune, or were purposefully exposed. Animals were to be slaughtered, and were. Water was to be dammed, and was. And open land was to be farmed, and farmed it was. There was a terrible toll on wild animals and plants. That there was a similar destruction of the indigenous peoples was not recognized in this country until after World War II. The Wilderness Act predates the Civil Rights Act. The ESA came in 1973 under an evil Republican with a Demoncrat Congress.
All kinds of advances have been made in the manner of discovery of historical facts and satellites have been very helpful in mapping land forms. Most of the stuff out there in books, Mickey, has come since you were a student I must suppose. You do have to read more. There are great books on these subjects coming out all the time. Real books. Not proposed Masters thesis stuff from Oregon State with an agenda.
One more thing.... You'll notice that Chad's paper has NOT been picked up yet by the MSM. Yep, even Chad's friends in the MSM are ignoring this paper that is clearly a sham.
"Us rural folks don't choose to follow urban societal eco-myths."
LMAO! What a prejudiced moron and your "wise man" who wants to privatize public lands ROLF.
Fire is a part of the ecosystem whether light understory burns or 100,000 acre plus fires.
All of these burns occured historically and naturally.
USFS needs to stop putting out EVERY remote fire in wilderness areas.
continue to spread your "rural, societal myths" that all people who are remotely conservation minded want all public lands as wilderness and see how serious people take you. Your an ex fire dork who thinks we need to constantly "manage" our forests or they will be lost without our human intervention. Fire dorks traditionally hate wilderness and conservation, and your basically just strengthening that perception.
Your beligerent comments such as the following
"He is no better than the "timber barons" by "extracting" big money from the forests by stopping forest restoration and rehabilitation. He WILL continue to sue the Obama Forest Service and stop active management anywhere he can. Ditto for the CBD, Sierra Club and other preservationist groups who want to make it ALL "wilderness".
accurately display your outdated, prejudiced views.
Give it a rest wing nut.
"prejudiced moron" is the best you could come up with?!?
So, I'll put you down as in favor of "100,000 acre plus fires", which although aren't outside the range of historical extremes, the occurences and intensities of these mega-fires ARE way out of historical norms. And, it is because of us! Bad logging, overstocking, species conversions and other human factors have led to this sad state of affairs and hopelessness for our forests.
Your last remark, Wes, shows your ignorance quite clearly. For many years now, the USFS has had a Let-Burn program that doesn't follow NEPA, is exceedingly expensive, locks out the local and nationwide public, and is extremely destructive to watersheds, airsheds and forests.
You appear to be easily amused. I know what LMAO means, but I'm unsure what you're doing when you ROLF.
Ignorance means not knowing about something. Other words are used to describe people who loudly proclaim their ignorance in the forms of opinion or ridicule. There may even be acronyms for those words that you are aware of.
Yes, fire is a part of the ecosystem. People have made sure of that fact for thousands of years. Most fires occurred before history, so that part of your statement is wrong, too. If by "naturally" you mean caused by lightning rather than people, then you are the one displaying prejudice.
If by "naturally" you mean caused by people, what is your point? "All" is a big word.
I'm guessing you're not in a position to actually be telling the USFS what to do, and it appears that that is a good thing. You have much to learn, carrot stick. Judicious use of the "Send" button might be a good starting point.
I suggest that you stop with the childish namecalling and address the forest facts. I am middle-of-the-road, politically and have my own views and opinions different from the spin doctors and dilatantes who don't want science to rule the forests. I will listen to the Chad Hansons and Lush Rimjobs of the world but, I reserve the right to call them out when they are clearly wrong.
In the end, you cannot restore today's forests without cutting some trees. You cannot reduce stocking levels using uncontrolled fires without killing vast amounts of healthy, green trees. You cannot turn carbon sinks into huge sources of GHG's and call that "natural and beneficial".
Sorry, us rural folks don't believe that burning up our backyard forests is good. You'll never convince us that a brushfield is better than a forest. Beware the snaghuggers!!!
"What is wrong with restoring our forests back to their original stocking levels, structure and species composition??"
Anyone
Anyone??
Anyone at all??!?!?
Humans have fire and use it to maintain the landscape to suit their needs the best they can. Out migrating young look for the same set of geographies, but do adapt to others or change them to reflect their roots on the savannah. The ongoing search is for a place in the savannah.
Fast forward many thousands of years. Now, and back about the last thousand years. The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and a world where humans have power over landscapes, wealth, and people. Wealth enough to have social planning that includes human welfare considerations. Public works. And vast personal wealth to create spaces for family living on deeded ground. What does this look like?
A savannah!!! What is Central Park? What lands get National Park classification? What is a school ground? A college campus? A grand university? A golf course? A cattle ranch? Where are humans most relaxed and comfortable? Always in that place with large grass expanses with copses of trees, and scattered large old trees. Given the time and money, humans will try to cut the forest to create the savannah, plant trees in the desert to create savannah, irrigate grass, create subdivisions with "commons" surrounded by homes, ensure that any municipality has great expanses of grass and trees with water for recreation and general good feeling. It is in our genes. It is who we are. And set fire has been the way to create that landform and vegetative compliment for thousands of years. Europeans were far enough removed from the aspect of stone age people firing the landscape they did not understand the Natives of the New World. However, in the romance and self description of their efforts and bravery, they created the "savage" as the protagonist in their personal and national epics, and it was to conquer the savages and tame this wild land that defined who they were. Create a safe savannah in which to live and prosper. Growing out of that was the realization that all land was headed that way, permanently, and thus the challenge and the beasts would be gone, and what would there be to define your self image as the "frontiersman" or "mountain man", or noble "settler?" (Or today, the noble environmentalist) The romantic idea of the wilderness gained popular support and the writers and then artists and photographers who were capturing the last of the "wilderness" were lionized, and here we are today, still in an argument about who we are and what defines mankind.
No matter how we do it, we still have the predisposition to want to be a part of some savannah. Or a mariner, which is still looked at by the majority as a hugely romantic and brave undertaking. We admire mariners. We admire those who challenge the wilderness. But we are most comfortable spending a safe life in or on the fringes of the savannah.
The argument is how to have you savannah and maintain it without logging or catastrophic fire. And if you don't think fire and its aftermath is catastrophic, there are people around Los Angeles right at this moment who will gladly exchange places with you as their homes are either pushed over the ridge by the mud from last year's fire scorched earth, or just filled by it, as the family car goes rolling down the street, side over side, pushed by mud and water. And they thought they were lucky because their home did not burn in the fire. Short sighted, perhaps. They might think about controlled burns and other vegetation management activities if they want to avoid frequent soil baring fire. Maybe sheep, goats, and grass, with annual wet season burning, would take some of the excitement out of their lives. You know, make the savannah that works to stabilize the landscape and provide a modicum of safety.
Before you write me off as hopeless, do think hard about the places you find the most comfortable, the most relaxing, and then think how they come about. What creates and maintains them. Is there a societal preference for savannah?
WTF are you talking about you babbling right wing psycho.
Sounds "faith-based" and "anti-human" to me!
Chad Hanson is going to have a tough time convincing Americans that 200 foot flames are not catastrophic. That snag patches and brushfields are "better" than green forests. That bark beetle habitat is worth "saving". Sorry to spoil your little forest tea party, Chad!
How did the Enviros (and their "science") ever successfully get control of our nation's resources, policies, courts, agencies, and universities in the first place, as they appear to have done over the past three decades? To those who have always suggested dark conspiracies involving Weyerhaeuser, socialists, liberal Democrats, foreign bankers and investors, etc., I can only say maybe I have underestimated your claims.
The "counter-arguments" are pathetic at best, and the poor grammar and stupid name-calling should be an embarrassment. Has the "talent" fled the environmental industry, along with claims of Global Warming apocalypse and "scientific consensus?" Has the door opened slightly once again for common sense and legitimate applied science in the management of our nation's forests and grasslands?
One can only hope -- and this discussion offers that possibility.
(Leslie Chow, if you are not using a pseudonym, you owe your parents an apology for using their name.)
*****************************
OUR MISSION
Our goal is to ensure ecological management of our National Forests by ending the federal timber sales program and eliminating its system of perverse economic and political incentives that undermine science and threaten native wildlife and forest ecosystems.
*****************************
This report is not science; it is PROPAGANDA! Of course the casual non scientifically educated public has little to base an assessment upon without looking at the statements of the source.
The report quoted in this article would not pass peer review from even college Freshmen in Forest Ecology.
I especially enjoyed the reports complete ignorance of effects to hydrology and aquatic systems.
The tragedy executed here is the raping of science for the purposes of propaganda followed by the blind reporting of what appears to be a very untalented reporter that failed to spend 2 minutes to question the validity of his source.
***************************************
After days of hiking in through virgin woods, Hanson was shocked by the clear-cut. To him, it was emblematic of the abuse private corporations can do to public land for a profit, and it changed his life. He left school and dedicated himself to fighting all commercial logging on national-forest land.
Hanson has a reputation for being uncompromising and radical. Some of his environmentalist colleagues say his rhetoric is too shrill and his politics too extreme. Despite his reputation, or perhaps because of it, he’s been able to win election to the Sierra Club’s National Board of Directors, along with a handful of fellow reformers.
Hanson is also director of the John Muir Project, an organization he founded with his wife, Rachel Fazio. The project is an offshoot of the late David Brower’s Earth Island Institute, the environmental organization Brower formed after being forced out as executive director of the Sierra Club for being too radical. Its sole purpose is to end all commercial logging on public land.
**********************************************
I only wish I could bring formal charges of rape of the truth and science against hanson. This pathetic type of propaganda is killing any credibility that science has left.
Sometimes wildfires help certain kinds of wildlife, and sometimes they don't.
Sometimes thinning can protect homes from wildfire, and sometimes it can't.
Sometimes forests regenerate quickly after a high severity fire, and sometimes they don't.
Sometimes thinning can improve long term carbon sequestration, and sometimes it can't.
Ecology is by definition complex, and there are not simple answers. Many factors must be considered. North slopes and south slopes are different. California and Montana are different. 6,000 feet and 3,000 feet elevation are different.
There will never be a one-size-fits-all solution to forest management, and our land managers deserve the tools and flexibility to operate on the best available information.
You are exactly right, of course.
The key to what you are saying is "land managers." They deserve good information and they deserve flexibility.
The last thing they need is litigation. That is the very process that takes the tools from their hands, and what needs to be stopped so our land managers can do their jobs.
The once proud Environmental Industry is now nothing more than a jaded financial venture, employing an army of smart, well paid, well indoctrinated people to obtain a goal that is not in the country's best interests. It used to be about the environment, but now has become merely a business and a successful one at that. Milking the Justice Dept. for a Billion dollars or more a year is successful. If you don't have that trail open, the campground affordable, you don't have to look any further than the cost of litigation paid annually by the USFS, in terms of EAJA awards, time in house answering lawyers, doing nothing more than defending proposed actions, most of which never get off the ground, to find where the money for land management goes. Lawyers and fire fighters. Our public forests now look like Detroit, a has been city wracked by rot and fire , a place once productive and vibrant and now a sink hole of public money that has no long term benefit.
If you think this is a good deal, just imagine what there would be to eat if agriculture became a giant arena for litigation. You couldn't afford to eat unless you were a lawyer, and a subsistence garden would become a necessity. Maybe that is the future. But public forests are not going to be what they were intended to be, a source of resources from timber to serenity. We now see that. We now see that when your hands are tied by good intentions gone awry, all the bad things that happen are by intent, and are not "unintended consequences." When you know the pitfalls and do nothing, that is a land management decision, and apparently, the one with the most public support. I guess we live with it as there is no hope for Congress
Actually, quite a bit is known about what makes for a healthy and safe forest, because these are value-based adjectives and terms applied with fairly universal meanings and understandings. I'd tend to agree with you on the "fully functioning" thing, though. I just don't get it -- and neither do most of the people who claim they do and then try to explain it to me. Lots of mumbo-jumbo and jabberwocky seems to ensue at about that point.
So far as healthy and safe, though, there is good agreement (some of these characteristics might seem far-fetched at first, but think of African forests or the historical past to put things in context -- and remember that these terms are based entirely on human values):
1) presence of physically and mentally healthy human families and/or communities.
2) absence of warfare.
3) limited risk of, and damage from, wildfire.
4) aesthetically pleasing.
5) comfortable human lives, and limited infant mortality.
6) abundant wildlife populations.
7) abundant recreational and spiritual opportunities and experiences.
8) clean water.
9) clean air.
Anyhow, you get the idea. These are all characteristics of healthy and safe forests, and you can probably add to the list. That "fully functioning" thing is a mystery, though. Functions usually have a purpose, and those need to be stated (and usually aren't) in order to make sense of this concept.
And, despite the wisdom of your father, there are a lot of people still alive today who can readily distinguish shit from shinola. It's not that difficult, really. I think he was probably trying to make some other point when he said it.
I fear that the backcountry is being sacrificed, along with all the amenities that healthy forests provide. I also fear that there will continue to be unstoppable firestorms roaring out the the backcountry, destroying private property and ruining people's lives.
Sorry, Peter, but I feel that I can "read the ground" and quickly determine what that small piece of land needs, as part of a bigger forest environment. I've made mistakes along the way and had to participate in stuff I didn't think the Forest Service should be doing. I loved my job and I feel I've made vastly beneficial decisions over my 25 years. The last clearcut I helped install was back in 1989, and that was a hillside of bug-killed white fir. I just want to share my hard-earned forest wisdom to help restore its previous grandeur and function.
In 2006, not even 20 years later, the numbers were: Harvested--5.8% of annual growth, other mortality was 36.5%, and added to inventory was 57.7% of annual growth in cubic feet of wood. Logging was reduced 90% and the addition to inventory was only doubled as mortality to fire and insects went up by 50%. Certainly there was a gain in trees on the land and their size in the drive away from logging and the harvest of forest products. However, when your increase in mortality is two and one half times what you are logging and 55% more than when there was a robust logging program, something is wrong. Even more so West of the Mississippi River. East of that boundary, USFS lands produce more logs than they did 20 years ago. By a lot. All the robust forestry in the USFS is going on in the East. In the West USFS mortality to bugs and fire is seven times the logging harvest. A sorry state of affairs that has crushed rural communities for no apparent good. Terrible social engineering for rural society, but apparently the urban good feelings are more important. Unless, of course, housing is not affordable.
The real activity of forest management is ongoing in the EU, where forests planted since WWII are being logged and replanted once again, and the EU is exporting logs and lumber products around the world as it has become pretty much self sufficient in timber and lumber products.
On the other hand, Asia continues to level forests, and the Chinese are deeply involved in logging in African tropical rainforests. Guns for logs is alive and well. China is not involved in humanitarian or human rights issues. Their foreign policy and natural resource policies are all about price and availability. There are no moral preconditions. They get logs, and the war lords get guns. China gets minerals, and Africans get more ammunition and weapons. They buy that stuff with the money they make selling shit to the US, and we gobble it up and then send aid to countries with strings attached. We become johns and the recipients become whores, neither being honest with each other. That dishonesty foments more of the Ugly Arrogant American face to the world. But since we are not honest with our own public resources, why should we be any different offshore? Like the fat guy said to the homely girl who told that he was too fat: "I can lose weight, but you can't lose ugly."
The US wastes wood on our public lands at a rate that is beyond the pale of Roosevelt's and Pinchot's thinking, and like in many other areas of national and public policy, the US has lost its way in public forest land management. I hope that will change.
Once again, I would encourage you to actually read the sources that have been suggested to you prior to writing about these topics. It is for your own good. Your persistent ignorance undermines your assertions with nearly every post you make.
Here is a short easy to read and easy to comprehend article that (once again) addresses the exact point you keep trying to make, and seem unwilling to consider:
http://tinyurl.com/Indians-and-lightning
Repeating poor information over and over does not make it accurate through simple repetition. Do some reading. It's interesting stuff and you seem to have a real interest in the topic.
In the FEMA statistical averages from 1999 to 2008, 9/11 excluded, there was an average of 1,634,150 reported fires in the US. $11.6 Billion dollars in annual damages. 3,625 (annual average) deaths per year from fire. 18,765 people injured by fire each year. 48.3% of the fires occurred outside of homes and structures. 35.5% were structure fires. 75% of structure fires were in homes. 16.3% were vehicle fires.
300 million people and we are burners, just as our ancestors were burners no matter where they lived on this earth. Burners by intent, and burners by accident. Fire follows humans where ever they go.
Is it a stretch to think of two 1400 AD Native American kids chasing each other around with a brand from the fire trying to goose each other? Or a kid just picking a burning stick and throwing it into the brush, just because he could? Or was it possible that out of slit trenches and the flies getting bad, that someone set the local vegetation on fire just to kill the flies? Or fire just accidentally got away? Or it was a cold night, and far from where home was at that time, a person found a pitch seam on a tree and lit it off to burn and keep him warm and the wolves at bay for a night? Was there, really, anyone around talking about arson, and litigating property claims against trespass by fire? Fire was fire, and it had a multitude of uses to a much more primitive economy and livelihoods. Fire was used to hollow out logs to make boats. Fire was used to hollow out wood for bowls and other utensils. Fire could be used to remove wood and leave wood. It could harden an arrow. Dry some fish or other meat. Cook camas in my neck of the woods, to convert starches to sugars that could be easily digested. And every time someone used fire, there was that chance it could get away and burn out of control. Or it could be set in certain ways so that control was not an issue, and what was needed to be burned, was. And not much else. We are talking about human beings who lived here for perhaps 30 times as long as Europeans have been here. They came during the last Ice Age, and survived. Not by luck or happenstance, but because they used what was here to support their being, their survival. And they didn't use fire? They didn't manage vegetation? If not, how did they survive? Hell, we have fire departments, fire inspectors, fire laws, fire prevention education, fire use laws, and as an advanced society as we are, able to use space vehicles to "see" the universe through Hubble, and we still can't keep 3,625 people from being killed by fire every year. We still have more than a million and one half fires each year. Accidental, uncontrolled fires. They are not all lightning caused. We cause them. There are stupid people or uncaring people, and they start fires by accident or on purpose. People cause fires. Fires follow humans. All the stats are there from the Nanny State. You can't embrace the Nanny State and not believe their numbers. And if you doubt human brain power, you doubt your own intellect. Were you smart enough to use fire to stay alive? Are you smart enough to use fire today? Or have we legislated ourselves out of our ability to survive in a fuel rich environment? Are we making progress or are we back sliding?
All the dense stands of oaks came from hillside open grown oaks that early settlers left because of steep ground. But they let pigs eat the acorns. And the way pigs eat, the acorns became buried and sprouted over time, into dense stands of young oaks. No acorns on oaks less than 50 years old. There had to be planning to keep oaks around to produce the acorns so long ago. Planning and planting. Long term land management. Before the smart people arrived to make it better.
The very thought of not preburning your way out of being set upon by wildfire is the basis for fire strategy today, as well as long ago. Preventative burning. Burning to bring about an experienced set of vegetative responses. Learning by example.
I actually had a conversation one day long ago, in the cabin of a fishing boat, with an Indian woman who had lived in the city far from her grandmother in Northern California on the Smith River Rez. She said about the time she was to go home for the school year one summer, Grandmother took her on a walk way back into the woods, broke out some matches, and made herself a torch to light the brush on fire. Scared the little girl. Grandmother said if she didn't burn the hazelbrush, she would have nothing to make baskets with. No new sprouts. Whips. Besides, it will rain tomorrow. She said she did have a terrible wet and rainy ride to the railroad in Grants Pass the next day. That happened in the 1920s. Intentional burning of private land in Oregon was done away with in the last Legislature. Logging slash is now piled by trackhoe, and the piles ignited by helicopter in winter. Broadcast burning became impossible to do because of regulations regarding where and when smoke could be present. Most of the smoke regulations were passed in response to the much more frequent large wildland fires in Northern California, and the incidence of dense summer smoke ending up in the lee ends of valleys like in Eugene and Medford. Less than a mile visibility and 90 degrees out is not a tourist favored experience. But USFS policy produces more days of it every year.
You're a lovable nut and a proven catalyst for discussion among people with similar interests and actual research, reading and comprehension skills.
Please refer to the histories of each and every forest, grassland, or savannah in North America that was covered by ice during the last Ice Age (e.g., Bonnicksen). Or Europe. Or any at all in Africa. Or in Australia. Or anywhere else in the world (try starting with Pyne).
C'mon, guy. Try some serious reading about these topics. You'll like it. You have a lot to learn, and learning is fun.
The rudimentary ag coupled with directed fire to enhance hunting and gathering, created landscapes that were not from wildland random fire. Kat Anderson talks about pinyon pine plantations with all the reachable dead limbs beat off each year. Those are directed activities to lessen fire impact, to preserve selected trees. The same came about with mature oaks that produced acorns each year.
As to fire being a part of the deal, I have to agree. You will have fire. Even in a cement house in the year 2010. Humans can cause fire daily, often from very preventable causes. The one on the news last night about the garage door blown off due to a gas hot water heater igniting gasoline fumes from some open source. Second time that has happened at that house in the last 12 months. I don't argue against that. I do have problems with the current scope of fire in the forests and ranges. Too large in a civilized society. Our civilization has advanced beyond our ability to use common sense. Over regulated and governed.
I don't have a dog in the wildland fire fight. Burn it all. I don't care. But there is a basic inequity when you let random fire run free in the name of recreation of aboriginal landscapes maintained by fire. That is disingenuous, at the least. That fire can consume capital value has societal meaning. That public land fire, untrammeled by the hand of man, can trespass on private land without penalty to the land managers, or to the trust that a citizen must place in his or her governance, is simply not equitable nor fair. No claims against USFS fires that burn private lands. Your are not able to access the courts for meaningfully being made whole from a fire not of your doing. However, if that fire originated on private land, and trespassed onto the public estate, then the US Attorney General is wholly and fully prepared to litigate for damages to the public domain. That timber never to be logged is "damaged" and the value of logs are used to determine damages, is unjust. That wildlife habitat gets assigned values in the interest of collecting from the private side, but is not accounted for when the public land burns by intent by Federal land managers, is basically dishonest and poor public policy. There is no accountability to rogue wildfire from public lands, and certain prosecution for damages from private fire gone to public lands. That we now find the US Attny obtaining multi million dollar judgements for "loss of grandeur of the landscape" is shocking. Is there not "loss of grandeur of the landscape" when wildfire is allowed to run wild, unfought, because it is "good" for the ecology of forests? There is double standard at work in the wildland fire issue. Therein lies my discontent with how the wildland fire process is allowed to work in these United States. The Government is an ass. Your allowing them to be an ass does not make you right. Wildland fire will convert one form of carbon to a very mobile form in gases and particulates to move great distance, and to suck carbon in the tens of tons from the very soil itself. It is a process that has been around. So has flooding, hurricanes in New Orleans, tornados across the Midwest and South East, earthquakes along subduction zones and rifts. Does that make them good for you? We can't prevent an earthquake but you can make rules for sturdy construction. You can stop floods, but you can reduce their impacts by having dams and building codes as to where people can live. You can't prevent hurricanes, but good sense would say the you don't build a metropolis below sea level in an area that is subjected to hurricanes on a regular basis. And fire will burn forests and grasslands. But that does not mean that it is the best available management to have periodic burns through ESA listed habitat, but don't allow logging due to habitat concerns for ESA listed species. That is selective social reasoning, not biology.
Yes, fire is there no matter what. But controlled fire, set fire, can take away the randomness, and direct fire to select for some species and not for others. Set fire can create landscapes, and most of what humans have wanted to "preserve" is old growth, and allowing it to burn in stand replacement fire is not an act of preservation. Much of the present "old growth" was established by a succession of pre-Columbian set fires, and has been not fire maintained to where there is now an understory of fuel not present for millennia. Do you preserve the old growth part of the forest by removing the understory and keeping the large spatial separation of old trees, their very route to present survival, or do you just allow it all to incinerate because it is natural.
It is natural that I don't like the dog barking right now across the street. It is also natural that I would go take a stick and beat the thing to where it no longer barks incessantly. But it is not right to do that. We are a society of humans, and live by societal rules. Having government fire burn on private land with no recourse it not natural nor appreciated. Having government smoke impair my breathing all summer long is not right, nor is it wanted that we only see a red orb and not the sun for days on end in the "good" time of the year. Laws prevent setting fires due to air quality concerns. Why don't those laws apply when the USFS has the latitude to not put a fire out? Who is balancing the "good" with the "bad?"
Yes, I am against uncontrolled fire on public land and meeting naturally ignited fire with a piss can and a pulaski. Early and hard. If you want to rid the forests of fuel, turn the fiber into wood pellets, burn them to make electricity instead of fossil fuels, and become less dependent upon fossil fuels. That is what Europe is doing right now. And there are American companies on the East coast exploring the option of taking now lesser value pulp wood and making wood pellets out of it to export to Europe where they get credit for renewable resource use for electricity and lessen their carbon footprint. Using, of course, American forest fiber that the radical left would rather burn in wildfire. I vehemently disagree with the left on the issue. I would rather have jobs in America and use our resources to create them, rather than just burn them because it is easier and "natural." Natural does not mean correct nor does it mean good. Not in my opinion. That and quarter won't buy coffee in the over inflated economy of high government wages pegged on capital risk, and a country rapidly descending to third world jobs opportunity and pay. Put the frigging fires out, fast and early. We can deal with fiber that we have latter. Once you incinerate it, all we have is the grief of bad air and later, bad water. Of course it will heal over time. So will logging.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qRVP02SjfCs/SprnfhgLTfI/AAAAAAAAAnE/ku3-mQrAv7w/s1600-h/Biscuit-owl-web.jpg
More details about the 2003 Biscuit Fire and the so-called Biscuit Fire Recovery Plan can be found in this newspaper primer: http://nativeforest.org/pdf/Biscuit_Primer.pdf
The fact is that matter is that 84% of the Biscuit Fire area was either unburned, or burned at low to moderate intensity. Also, a fair percentage of the 16% of the Biscuit Fire area that did burn at a high intensity was the result of Forest Service's own back burns.
Regarding the backfires, would you rather they just let the fire keep on going through Cave Junction and Grants Pass?!?!? The Biscuit Fire was a Let-Burn fire that was allowed to burn until it became a big threat. If they hadn't let it burn, they wouldn't have had to set backfires. Then they barely stopped it, with big backfires in big timber. I was there! I was on one of the crews that went in and marked "leave-tree snags". Now, that same area is experiencing big insect problems associated with the choice to not harvest the dying trees. The last unit I worked in had a lot of green trees left in it. I recently saw a picture of what it looks like today and more than half of the trees that survived the fire are now dead from bark beetles. I sure hope that area is no longer considered to be "Late Successional Reserve", as it is now doomed to be reset back to zero in the successional order of things.
The Biscuit was a colossal screw-up, all the way around. Coastal towns are now at-risk to floods from the rivers that run through them. The burned terrain cannot, and will not absorb much water, since the ground is hydrophobic (and will be for many years into the future). Tourists will not come to see dead trees and brushfields.
Here's another picture to look at;
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qRVP02SjfCs/SprnfCkto4I/AAAAAAAAAm8/xqVPA_4wuYU/s1600-h/Andrews2-web.jpg
This was taken on the Bitterroot in Montana. Do you think this was a "natural and beneficial" fire? Do you think this area will recover, despite the massive buildup of dead fuels? How many decades will it take for this area to recover? Did any endangered species live in this area? Do any endangered species currently live in this area? Could these trees have been salvaged to help restore this area? Could the intensity of this fire have been reduced through active management?
Questions.....questions.....questions