Posted on 08/21/2008 10:35:03 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Two months ago I toured the embattled Butte Lightning Complex fire area and spoke to a homeowner the day after she had lost everything. She was wandering down a dirt road near Paradise looking for her lost horse, stunned, and asking, "Why did this happen?"
Why did this happen?
The devastation caused by wildfires this year and in past years is heart-wrenching and horrible for the rural communities of California. This year we are suffering from the worst fire season the North State has experienced in the last 30 years.
I watched the lightning bolts light up the skies last June and awoke the next morning to learn that there were over 1,000 active fires in California. In all, more than 2,000 wildfires have erupted across California this summer.
Fifteen people are dead - including a group of nine firefighters who were killed recently while battling the Buckhorn Wildfire in Trinity County. More than 1 million acres of timber and grassland have burned in the state, with the cost of these wildfires currently at $1 billion and growing.
And that's not counting the incredible cost of over 500 homes lost and the uncertainty and stress caused by wildfire sweeping toward neighborhoods around the northern part of our state.
While I am proud of the incredible efforts by Cal-Fire and multiple other agencies that battle these blazes, the evidence is clear that there is so much that could have been done to prevent such catastrophic wildfires.
We know that current government rules and restrictions on thinning activities and other forestry management practices have led to increased severity of wildfires in California.
We know that proper forest management practices can and have reduced both the number and the severity of wildfires.
Last week, some of the most-respected people in forest management and fire appeared before a gathering of federal and state lawmakers to discuss what can be done, including the State Fire Marshal and representatives of the Forest Service.
Everyone agrees that one action we must - and should - take is to reduce the fuels that turn a fire into a catastrophic wildfire.
We know the answer and we can look to the experience in Lake Tahoe for it.
After last year's Angora Fire in the Lake Tahoe area, the governors of California and Nevada created the California-Nevada Tahoe Basin Fire Commission, which resulted in real action, not just words. They initiated:
• Real emergency action to permit removal of hazardous fuels in our forests that endanger our communities.
• Real emergency action to set aside red tape that prevented homeowners from removing trees that threatened their homes.
• Real emergency action that forced local, state and federal agencies to work together to get things done.
These actions have changed the way fire is viewed in the Lake Tahoe basin - the people of Lake Tahoe are not waiting for the next catastrophe - they are taking action today and government agencies are facilitating that action.
The people in other rural parts of California deserve the same kind of protection for their homes and their communities.
Our state government, led by the Governor, should call on the Forest Service to expedite thinning projects and fuel load reductions in our horribly overcrowded forests - and not settle for a non-answer.
The Governor should issue Emergency Orders to do everything necessary now - not next year-now.
The people of Northern California do not have time for obstruction or inaction. Their homes, their jobs and their lives depend on real action. We must take steps today to prevent tomorrow's catastrophe.
As long as the CA environazis put the welfare of a rat, lizard or bird over the welfare of the folks that live in the area it’ll only continue to get worse.
Today is the clearest day we’ve had in weeks....won’t last. We’ve been living with the smoke from these fires going on to 3 months now. I hope the envirofreaks are happy.
And as long as those same enviro-whackos say they would rather look at a burnt forest than one thinned nothing will happen. We had 23,000 acres burn on our mountainside this year, to within 1/2 mile of our house. And this was after the whackos killed a permit to thin the slash from the mountain to feed a bio-mass electrical generation plant. That thinning would have saved 50 homes and probably slowed the fire to only 5,000 acres. So now we get to look at a burned mountain for the rest of our life. And the environmental whackos are saying it is what we deserve for wanting to live close to the mountain.
If there is one group that I hope burns slowly in hell it is the environmental whackos.
50 years of suppressing every fire and 50 years of no logging have left a huge amount of material in the forests ready to burn. Then when fires do start they are catastrophic. No surprise, huh? And the FS guys know this. Which is why they let fires burn once they get started because they KNOW they’ll never get permits to do the control burns that would save lives and property. The air quality laws won’t let them. Wake up people! We humans have got to take an active management role in this if we won’t let nature do her thing.
We know that current government rules and restrictions on thinning activities and other forestry management practices have led to increased severity of wildfires in California.When I mentioned the culpability of environmentalists to a native Californian who had moved here (Oregon) she was startled that I would even consider such a thing.We know that proper forest management practices can and have reduced both the number and the severity of wildfires.
These people have their heads in the sand and the move to other States, bringing their habits of thinking with them.
With the population of California growing in rural areas, and throught the United States, people need to re-think how we treat our forests. We either cut down on the population, some how, or cut down the trees. The more people you have in these areas, the more chances of fire. It’s just life. It’s a problem we will have to come to grips with eventually. The envirowackos need to take a back seat for awhile until an answer to this problem is arrived at.
They are a corrupt bureaucratic roadblock to firefighting.
Another good comparison made was the White Mountain Apache Tribe's forest that didn't suffer near the devastation that the NF did, because of the good stewardship from the tribe. The program also calls for pretty much 100% removal of the resultant slash.
The citizens were pissed and the enviros were feeling the heat and okayed the program (basically, they agreed not to sue to stop it).
Lake Tahoe, one of the most beautiful places ever, IMO!! I used to live close to that area, and agree that controlled burns are a necessity. That area seems to get sssooo dry it turns into a tinderbox when provided with a spark. Seems that controlled burns are a no-brainer.
Rinse and repeat.
This is because it's not nor ever has been about the forests or the environment - it's always been about political control and the feeling of 'power,' an escape from their own lack of control over their own lives.
Lift the restrictions, let the forest service revert to people who actually know about forest, stomp the crap out of any environmentalist idiot who wants to save the 3 legged, one eyed snail and run them out of the country. Then, and only then, will we start living a free life again.
Inmates and homeless should be put to work thinning brush.
After the controlled burn got out of hand in Los Alamos Co
a few years back I’m not a big fan of them near populated areas.
Not to worry. California is one state targeted for a nuclear bomb detonation by a foreign nation. No more sales tax increases or Arnold RINO issues.
When the mountainas were burning here, central New Mexico, the Ojo, Anderson, Trigo, and Big Springs fires the Forest Service, Emergency office, Sheriff, etc. had numerous meetings with the evacuees about progress on the fire, safety concerns, what to do, etc.
The question of thinning and removing trees around your house was brought up. The Forest Service Biologist made the remark that the animal populations had the same problem as the humans do, i.e., forest fires. She said the animals did one of three things. They either moved away, they adapted, or they died. She then said make your choise. She was emphazing you needed to adapt and modify your behavior if you want to survive near a forest. So do the brush removal, thin the trees, etc.
It is so sad when homeowners are not allowed to maintain their own property because of stupid laws by environmental whackos.
Non-violent inmates, homeless, non-violent drug offenders, delinquent daddies, first time dui offenders, and all of the gang wannabe`s. Shouldn`t just be the rule in CA, should be the rule across the USA. The cities and roads would be spotless. IMO, my taxes should not be used to incarcerate these individuals. Make them keep thier own gardens and keep thier cities clean.
It’s the same reason you get all sorts of floods in agricultural areas in California that you never used to get. In the 1800s the “pioneers” built an extensive system of levees, sloughs and drainage canals to carry away excess water from the fields. In the 1970s our enlightened governments began to call them “wetlands” and they could no longer be maintained. They either filled up with weeds, or farmers filled them in when no one was looking. The result is now when you have heavy winter rains, the water has nowhere to go.
Ah, I love the smell of toasted kangaroo rat in the morning.
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