A century of fire suppression is worsening wildfires and hurting forests
As parts of the country typically unaffected by wildfires have been blanketed in smoke in recent months, experts are turning to a centuries-old practice as one way to help manage increasingly severe forest fires.
At the root of the problem, experts say, is the longtime policy of fire exclusion: keeping fire out of the forest.
Two of my hobbies in life have really demonstrated the truth to this. I kept saltwater aquariums for 20-odd years, and I've been trying beekeeping now for maybe 7-8. Both involve putting nature in a tiny box and trying to control the variables. If you just get out of the way, and stop messing with mother nature, she does just fine! When humans think they know better, we invariably fuck it up.
That's certainly what three writers for CBS News and two government employees at the United States Forest Service Fire Sciences Lab in Missoula, Montana would like you to believe.
I wonder how they might explain this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910
A fire that burned three million acres in two days before "a century of fire suppression" and 'climate change' ever really got started. Imagine that.
You'll notice that logging and thinning are never mentioned as possible solutions to fuel loads in overcrowded forests? Only fire is, as far as the Forest Service is concerned. To them fire is "a management tool", even if a small fire or a prescribed burn gets completely out of control (ie: the Tamarack Fire, California, 2021).
Thank you. I shall read it. After reading what the book is about (Teddy Rosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and the earliest days of the Forest Service) you would think it would be required reading for any employee that has input into any of today's Forest Service policies. Sadly, I'm sure that's not the case.
It's hilarious to see the disconnect people have when it comes to weather, and the "climate change" scam. They claim that "climate change" is making it harder to burn each year. Yet, at the same time they show how the old burns weren't done on a regular schedule. The shortest time between burns shown on the tree was 7 years, with the longest being 30 years. Could it be that even way back then, they had periods with many consecutive years in which the weather wasn't agreeable to do a burn?
Bunch of utter BS, out here in the PNW, they have been letting fires burn way too long, threatening homes and towns, yet they want to cry fire suppression? Back when they did logging, they also removed the undergrowth and replanted behind them. We cannot go back to a time before man unless we get rid of man. But that is another story.
Every 5 to 6 years a lightening strike will start a forest fire in the Okefenokee swamp. There are multiple lightening strikes in the swamp every year. There is a forest fire when the underbrush has built up. That is the way the swamp ecology has worked for thousands of years.
They would rather have the forest fires and blame climate change.
ReplyDeleteTwo of my hobbies in life have really demonstrated the truth to this. I kept saltwater aquariums for 20-odd years, and I've been trying beekeeping now for maybe 7-8. Both involve putting nature in a tiny box and trying to control the variables.
ReplyDeleteIf you just get out of the way, and stop messing with mother nature, she does just fine! When humans think they know better, we invariably fuck it up.
No. No. No. Absolutely NO!
ReplyDeleteIt's climate change. 🤔🤔🤔😇😇😇😂😂😂
That's certainly what three writers for CBS News and two government employees at the United States Forest Service Fire Sciences Lab in Missoula, Montana would like you to believe.
DeleteI wonder how they might explain this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910
A fire that burned three million acres in two days before "a century of fire suppression" and 'climate change' ever really got started. Imagine that.
You'll notice that logging and thinning are never mentioned as possible solutions to fuel loads in overcrowded forests? Only fire is, as far as the Forest Service is concerned. To them fire is "a management tool", even if a small fire or a prescribed burn gets completely out of control (ie: the Tamarack Fire, California, 2021).
Timothy Egan wrote a really good book about that fire. It's about the event, but written in a very readable manner.
DeleteThank you. I shall read it.
DeleteAfter reading what the book is about (Teddy Rosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and the earliest days of the Forest Service) you would think it would be required reading for any employee that has input into any of today's Forest Service policies. Sadly, I'm sure that's not the case.
It's hilarious to see the disconnect people have when it comes to weather, and the "climate change" scam. They claim that "climate change" is making it harder to burn each year. Yet, at the same time they show how the old burns weren't done on a regular schedule. The shortest time between burns shown on the tree was 7 years, with the longest being 30 years. Could it be that even way back then, they had periods with many consecutive years in which the weather wasn't agreeable to do a burn?
ReplyDeleteBunch of utter BS, out here in the PNW, they have been letting fires burn way too long, threatening homes and towns, yet they want to cry fire suppression? Back when they did logging, they also removed the undergrowth and replanted behind them. We cannot go back to a time before man unless we get rid of man. But that is another story.
ReplyDeleteEvery 5 to 6 years a lightening strike will start a forest fire in the Okefenokee swamp. There are multiple lightening strikes in the swamp every year. There is a forest fire when the underbrush has built up. That is the way the swamp ecology has worked for thousands of years.
ReplyDelete