Posted on 09/14/2020 8:07:14 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
OK here in Texas, this summer and last summer are the first 2 in about 6 or 7 years we didn’t have burn bans most of the summer. Burn ban maps usually covered half the state by mid June. California maps at the same time looked about the same...and while wackifornia burned, Texas did not...
I don’t remember ONE out of control wildfire in Texas, during 5 years (that I was here) of all summer burn bans. I had to figure out a way to store paper trash all summer until they lifted the burn ban so I could get rid of things like envelopes with our names and adderess...
Where I live, it could very seriously affect me, there is a large national forest a mile up the road, if it caught fire I would be in harm’s way in about 2 - 3 hours if the wind were out of the southwest. Which is fairly common. Right now actually...
I don’t know the acreage, but the road I live on runs through the middle of about 6 or 7 miles of national forest. I can still see the remnants of a controlled burn a few years ago. Blackened tree trunks, underbrush just starting to come back...and I see access roads and fire lanes in a dozen places.
Ditto for heavily forested areas in Louisiana where I lived a few years ago, and I’ve hunted in a few wildlife management areas too that were the same. In one, my favorite place to sit was on the side of a fire lane. I’ve seen controlled burns all my life in both states, one of my close relatives was a road grader driver, he kept some of the fire lanes open in north Louisiana.
The forets there continue into Arkansas, in fact the oldest pine tree in north America was just across the Arkansas line when I was a kid, just over 6 feet in diameter at shoulder height. What I see today is nothing. Normal pine trees cut for timber in 1965 were 2 feet diameter and those were not the biggest ones. A log truck with 9 tree trunks was not an uncommon sight. Sometimes that was 2 cut from one tree...Now, it’s uncommon to see a trunk over a foot in diameter...
And with all the timber forests in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas that I’ve seen for 60 years, I can’t remember an out of control wildfire making it into the national news in at least 20 years, maybe more.
So why is Wackifornia burning like it is? Texas has oodles of forest and, drought conditions right now in some of it, ditto for Louisiana and I think Arkansas (haven’t kept track of AR, never lived there)...so why aren’t they burning too? “Climate change” is supposed to be world wide, not just Wackifornia...
So why hasn’t “climate change” started numerous wildfires in Texas, in fact just a mile from where I sit? In fact, wind is blowing directly from that area right now as I type. If it did happen to catch fire, I would be sitting directly in its path in about 2 hours. I would smell the smoke in 2 minutes...literally...Actually, I can see about 80 to 90 acres of young pine forest, not 20 feet tall yet, right here 75 yards away...
Why hasn’t “climate change” burnt down my neighborhood? I just saw at least 5 years of drought, perfect conditions, why didn’t it burn 3 years ago? They were already screeching about climate change then...insulting me because I questioned it...why didn’t it burn me out long ago?
It’s not climate change. It’s not forestry either, at least that’s not what STARTED these fires...bad forestry just made it easy for them to get out of control.
“Would tree harvesting have helped with the beetle infestation?”
If caught soon enough. But, like the Federal and state bums up in the n central USA in regs to the European beech bark infestation. “We are waiting to see.” was the attitude.
They could have at least tried to hold off that disaster. Yet some jackass from downstate who has never even worked directly in the forests and got his learning from a idiot book, saw a bear climbing a beech tree one time and proclaimed that no more beech was to be cut. When explained to him by us REAL foresters, that these trees need to be cut to try and stop that infestation, he said he didnt care. The trees need to be saved for the bears. Now there are virtually NO beech left compared to what was there before.
Beech have nuts on them, and the wildlife fed off those.
“Would tree harvesting have helped with the beetle infestation?”
If caught soon enough. But, like the Federal and state bums up in the n central USA in regs to the European beech bark infestation. “We are waiting to see.” was the attitude.
They could have at least tried to hold off that disaster. Yet some jackass from downstate who has never even worked directly in the forests and got his learning from a idiot book, saw a bear climbing a beech tree one time and proclaimed that no more beech was to be cut. When explained to him by us REAL foresters, that these trees need to be cut to try and stop that infestation, he said he didnt care. The trees need to be saved for the bears. Now there are virtually NO beech left compared to what was there before.
Beech have nuts on them, and the wildlife fed off those.
As to the amount of trees per acre. Its called BSA. Basil Sq feet to the area.
100 is to thick. 80 it OK and 60 should be the target is specific stands.
In softwoods, it might be best to cut to 20 per area. In large timber stands, one tree per acre.
OR, thin until the trees cant beat the hell out of one another when there is a high wind.
Here in AZ, I cant get a count in some areas for BSA. That is how thin they are cutting it. To thin for my opinion. It’ll change to open range instead of forests.
Just remember. One acre of healthy growing forests remove 6 tons of dirt from the air per year. A unmanaged forest will actually ADD pollution. Dead and decaying wood releases carbon that was stored up in the tree when they were growing and healthy. Its the same for all woody plants-if its brush or whatnot.
They site this is the warmest summer in CA history.
It about common sense. You don’t stack newspapers and gasoline together in your garage for rather obvious reasons. And you DO NOT leave deadwood in a forest for OBVIOUS reasons ... so OBVIOUS you now can’t see through the smoke in California.
There are a million dead trees in Lake Arrowhead / Big Bear which is in the mountains right above Los Angeles. They cannot be cut down as the democrats have blocked this. They also have road diets cutting down the lanes in the area so people will not be able to escape the forest fires.
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