Missoula News

Are we the only homeowner on Missoula's West side that experienced torrential rain?

I dont think I have ever seen so much rain come down in such a short period.

Crazy stuff.

So the Piss Fir Willies pay people to monitor a 1/10th of an acre fire they did not put out so it would burn for "resource uses." Has anyone seen the NEPA document that covers that fire, that Forest Plan?

I once had a USFS timber sale officer tell me that there were three limbs plugging a culvert on the haul road about ten miles towards town from the sale area. Wrote it up. I had to visit with the District Ranger when I told the timber sale officer he was the stupidest thing ever to crap behind a pair cork boots for the whole deal. I asked him if he had any, one iota, a bit, of responsibility to the whole of the Public Resource, because if he went and left them there, and they were causing a problem, right then, he was a derelict SOB and ought to get his ass canned. Don't you come an try to get me to sign some document that says there are three sticks in a culvert inlet I have not seen or know about. You stop the pickup, get out in the rain, and pull the sticks. It is the public's road. You are the public servant in charge of that road. You do have a job, and part of it is to fix small problems that can cause bigger problems. And I will make sure your lazy ass is commented upon.

The guy filed some sort of pissy deal about me. I asked the District Ranger if his babysitting job paid well, because this document, by its existence, shows what kind of idiots and layabouts you have putting in their time, stealing wages from the tax paying public. The Ranger apologized. That is why he was a Ranger, the dolt was a meaningless paper pusher with some sort of power issues.

I see nothing has changed. If you send someone to a 1/10th acre fire, and they don't or can't put it out, there is a real problem. If they want a fire for "resource use", file a plan, put it before the public, and then go light the son of bitch. This deal about having someone out there blowing on it so it will burn, fanning it with a book of regulations, is insane in and of itself. And if the damned thing grows, and the inevitable bad day comes, and it blows up, as have so many before it, where will the damaged people find the wimp that made the decision? Those people need to be able to talk to the person who decides to not put a fire out, up close and personal, if the fire down the road causes damage to private properly, personal health, loss of recreation and outdoor activity due to smoke, the closed roads, the rest of the crap you get with stupid decisions. The taxpayers are paying to buy "clunkers" to clean the air, and this deal just fills it with smoke. What is the message? Climate change? I don't buy it. The USFS certainly is not.

bait

putting out every fire has got us into this situation

all you do is post negative, nonsensical ramblings

go back to clear cut or

bait your just an angry logger who raped the tongass at taxpayers expense. How dare you come out and tell everyone how to manage fire and land issues.

Putting out every fire in the heat of summer is a lot better than conflagration. But some can't wrap their minds around that. We will get all the conflagration we need. I have seen no NEPA opinion, paper, that conflagration is best for forests. Produce it and I certainly am able to change my mind.

I am not a proponent of no fire. I am a proponent of smart fire. Of set fire. Of prepared for fire. Of planned fire. If arson by accident is public policy, I want a hearing. I want the proponents, bureaucratic and elected. to be on the record.

Jesus H. Crumbbum. If Native Americans, and whoever was before them, had it figured out ten thousand years ago, and developed a means to an end having only common sense about wind, fuels, and weather to set or not set fires, and construed the forest environment to this green cathedral of ancient trees, well spaced, that allowed for all sorts of fire benefits and human benefits, and we cant' get there from here, today, says a lot about how that old saying by your immigrant grandma "Young fella, you are getting too schmart for your britches!!!" The young Turks of forest management can't do a thing, and in place of not knowing, not wanting to know, and having little appetite to challenge anything or anybody, just "let it burn." Smarty pants forest management. Wave the white flag and go quietly. After 100 years, burn it all so that we might start over? What kind of public policy is that? There has to be a better way and most likely is, but there is SO much money in environmental advocacy that the Greenies stand in the way of common sense, and have since their beginning.

I always tell the tale of Phenola (sp?) Smith, Mutt Smith's wife (both are buried on the Rez at Smith River, CA), who over Russian tea brewed in her handed-down samovar from the Russian days on the northern California coast, in the cramped quarters of their salmon troller one stormy fall day tied to the dock, and her telling me about staying with Grandmother at Smith River for the summer, and it was the day before Phenola was to return home up north. Grandmother got a big box of sulfur matches, and out the door they went, and they hiked for quite a while up the creek and then up a small tributary, and there Grandmother struck a match, and got a brand afire, and began to light the brush. Phenola was terrified and asked Grandmother why she was burning the forest. Grandmother told her that the hazel brush had become too big and old for baskets, and needed to be burned so that new sprouts would follow the fire and there would be many switches with which to make baskets. Besides, it will be raining by midnight and would not quit for two days. And they left the fire in the firs and redwoods, and walked back home, smoke billowing behind them, and after dinner it was raining hard. 1930s in far Northern California. I think the southerly winds that day, the rain, reminded her of Grandmother. And better times.

Grandmother set the fire when the fire would do good, and then go out. Concept!!! This deal of leaving a lightning strike alone in late July is patently insane. In September, fine. Start a fire there in September. Or October. Have a plan. The old Indian woman had a plan. Fire is great. It is needed. But on man's terms, like it has been until the environmentally ignorant Europeans showed up with with maps, metes and bounds, land grants, lawyers, and lobbyists. This letting a July lightning fire burn is like population control started by doling out handguns and bullets in a women's prison. You know you will get something accomplished, but exactly what and how much, that is all up to unknowns and fate, and no guarantee of the changes being good or bad. On the other hand, maybe progress is measured by how much we devolve as a society. The liberal way of doing things. ObamaNation. Picklenose Clinton policies showing up like a fat chick's thong at a reunion kegger.

Fire is a tool. To use tools, you need training. You need a plan. Letting lightning strikes have their head in July is abdication of all common sense to a casino gambling chance of doing good. Add up the total good and the total not good, and tell me chancing conflagration in July is a smart bet. It takes 100 years to get back what you lose. So it take two more years to accomplish a controlled burn. What exactly is the hurry? What is to be gained? This hurry up and burn it mentality is destructive, wrong headed, and needs to be stopped. In its place a plan to restore forests, to reduce fuels, to develop diversity in areas of monocultures is in the public good. I have looked at the Englemann spruce seedlings planted 5 years ago in a stand of old growth candelabra topped spruce destroyed by fire not long ago. I walk by them each fall to go hear the elk bugle, and maybe call a bull in for a bow hunter. They have grown, the surviving seedlings, about two inches, maybe, in 5 years. Micro site planted, and a good job too, they are sitting there in nutrient deficient soil just hanging on. It will takes decades to regain the soil qualities and quantities lost in the conflagration. Fire is not preservation of Wilderness or wildlands. That is flagrant waste of a resource. Dereliction of duty. Piss poor public policy. Exactly what not putting out a lightning strike is July is.

Planned, controlled, set fire is good public policy. And the public needs to know that not every one will behave as predicted. But that is what management is. Calculated risk, with a plan to achieve the desired result. WFU, "fire for resource use" in the heat of summer is not the answer. It is a crapshoot. My government can do better and must.

The woods are in an unatural condition due to human fire suppression. I agree letting every strike burn could be disastirous however I have to laugh when there is a helicopter and 10 hand crews on a one tenth acre fire trying to collect hazard pay. Even controlled fires are anything but controllable. The fact we think we can control and manipulate a force as powerful as fire in the rockies by digging a line or dumping retardant is absurd.

Pardon me, Tracker, but is your serious illness cranial?
Bear, plus a whole bunch of anthropologists, plus an increasing number of people, are coming around to the idea that the "pristine" North American landscape isn't a product of nature, but a historical artifact. The vegetative communities, as well as the animals that eat the vegetation, all that is a direct result of thousands of years of human interference.
The concept of "natural" fire having a dominant role is complete, ahistoric, ignorant hooey. Fire was a management item.
Let's put it this way...Indians didn't have much law enforcement, so let's say they had to be very observant of their surroundings in order to get through the day. And one doesn't need to be very observant, no matter one's race, to see that fires at certain times of the year have certain positive, or negative, effects.
Start thinking induced fire. Go talk to a good tribal forester.

also skinner

do you always spend your summers blogging away and then calim your a rugged outdoorsman or do you just ride your bike down the road and curse enviros for bettle kill. I work and spend almost all my free time in wilderness and roadless areas. You seem to be the first to comment on a lot of these articles, is that what you wait and live for ...to blog.

Picking on someone and making fun of their illness becuase they dont agree with you just prooves your a coward and an incredibly mean spirited and malicious one at that.

Runswithelk: your house destroyed an ecosystem. Your existence is part of the problem. I don't have to destroy anything because I am not a logger, just a lowly farmer. I take water out of the creek and irrigate berry fields so the urban swells might eat something healthy after a night of cigarettes and booze...excuse, microbrews...pinot Alottmorh.

On the other hand, the "fire for resource use" proponents are burning up valuable resources, but at the least, a US District Court has ruled those resources do have values tangible and intangible even if off limits to resource development. Evidently "habitat" has value, and when burned, no longer has that value, expressed in dollars for damages. Fire for resource use destroys habitat and individual animals and plants, plus removes top soil, humus layers, and changes water budgets. But if you never have to go through the NEPA process, you don't have to evaluate the results or the state of the prior habitat.

"Fire for resource use" is lazy silvaculture. It is sloth management. At the least, the folks here before the Europeans knew how to use fire for "resource purposes", and that was to set them at appropriate times in appropriate places. This national fascination with lotteries, Indian casino gambling, internet poker, all is right in line with "fire for resource use". A crap shoot. Management by crap shoot. And supported by Kool Aid drinkers of the under educated set.

skinner

your a lowly coward becuase you take cheap shots at people's illnesses. You bring it to a new low skin. My post rate is high becuase I cant work or be outside at all right now. You seem to always blog regardless. I would'nt be posting at all here...whats your reason. You may think your mightier but your just a joke to most readers here. I never opposed controlled burns, I have performed them. You cant replace and conrol all fire in the vast rockies with controlled burns. Does your mightiness alow you to control all fire skin?
Look at you taking shots at my puncuation is that the best you can come up with? That is indicative of your immaturity and lack of argument. You dont even understand that I dont oppose you; once your ignorant mind is made up you dont listen.

you may form more complete sentences but they dont make any sense or have a ponit.

your pathetic and mean leave me alone skin ya wing nut.

I would humbly suggest you read my posts more carefully, Trackster. I have said nothing about replacing and controlling all fire.
But a lot can be done with timber harvest to change fuel profiles in order to prevent ahistoric fires based on unprecedented fuel density and continuity.
If you are on a fire crew and don't understand that, you have the wrong job. Get well soon.

Tracker: So you lose the argument with foresters when you talk about thinning. If we are to RESTORE forests, we need to remove wood fiber in vast amounts, and space trees for accepting fire. That is one hard ass thinning. Most thick stands cannot stand the needed thinning in one entry. Sunburn, physically being able to stand after their crutch cohorts have been removed, are but a couple of reasons that the first entry has to be light.

It might take three entries before you are spaced well enough to stand ground fire. And then the introduced ground fire will claim more trees. It will take a long time, and a lot of effort and treasure to restore forests to a condition that can suffer fire with little harm.

Trees cast seed every year there are cones and viable seed. Lodgepole cones will expel seed on the ground if hit by direct sun under some conditions. Most of the problems with trees, stands, and fire concern regrowth from prior burns and logging. Stand replacement fire, and clear cut logging result in too many trees on the acre in time. Planting will ensure trees sooner than later, but later will produce inseeding, "natives" in the reforestation jargon, and the result is usually overstocking and fuel loading.

To me, a practical person, in non Wilderness areas, removing the excess fiber, and then using set fire, prepared under burning, to create zones in which fire can be realistically suppressed and protect lands not wanting or needing burning, is justifiable. However, there is a vocal, organized, single minded segment of society hateful of business, profits, resource use, who will and do oppose any and all actions of the Feds to try to be proactive with to restoration of forests to pre-European invasion quality. Someone has pumped smoke up the collective ass of these people to have them believe lightning fire is the best way to accomplish forest restoration. That can work under very controlled circumstances in accessible and appropriate terrain. And then maybe only for a while. A panacea it is not. More like a sure path to occasional conflagration.

Fire does damage, and that has been determined by the US District court in California. The Feds have sued to recover the value of lost assets, which included timber, habitat, animals, and ESA animals and plants, and the Feds have prevailed. So this "benign burning" is a plate of hooey, by court decision, and damages awarded. "Fire for resource use" is no more than "we are burning it up so we don't have manage it," and is a sham, a huge waste of public resources (tangible and intangible) that are to be "protected" by the US Govt in their trust relationship with the American people. Say goodbye to that.

Who the heck is Breath?