Posted on 09/09/2002 9:01:17 AM PDT by cogitator
Sparks Fly at Hearing on Bush Fire Plan
Since this is a long article, I won't post the full text (too many picture captions to cut out). I'll provide two excerpts and you can click the link to read the rest, if interested.
Excerpt 1: "According to the secretaries' testimony, active forest management includes thinning trees from unnaturally dense stands to produce commercial or pre-commercial products, removing biomass such as downed trees and shrubs, and igniting controlled burns.
The first piece of the Bush administration's proposal would aim to reduce forest fuel loads in areas that pose the greatest risk to people, communities and the environment, including forests around community water supplies, the wildland-urban interface, and areas affected by forest disease and insect infestations.
This proposal would extend a blanket exemption from all environmental analysis, public comment, and administrative appeal to fire management projects on millions of acres of federal forest lands with high fire risk. The proposal also mandates "expedited" interagency consultations regarding the impacts these projects might have on endangered species."
Excerpt 2: "During today's testimony, all the experts - whether from conservation groups or the forest industry - agreed that some action must be taken to reduce wildfire risk. But while House Republicans and the timber industry called for widespread forest thinning with few if any restrictions on the areas that could be mechanically thinned, or the size of the trees that could be cut, other experts disagreed.
In this thinned area, fire creeps along at ground level. Fire experts noted today that even thinned forests can be wiped out by wind driven flames. (Photo courtesy The White House)
David Callahan, a retired firefighter from the Pacific Northwest, argued that logging large trees in many cases may make wildfires burn hotter, and noted that most natural forest fires are "a good thing" for the environment.
"We need to remove the premise that logging mature trees is a substitute for thinning," Callahan said. "Thinning the forest will not prevent wildfires."
Todd Schulke, forest policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, noted that arguments for removing any mature trees - such as logging only diseased trees - ignore the fact that "diseased trees are a natural part of a healthy ecosystem."
In fact, diseased trees form the only habitat for some specialized species of wildlife, which require trees with holes in them, or with softened wood that can be penetrated to find insects or build cavity nests, he added.
But Dr. Wally Covington, a forestry professor at Northern Arizona University, argued that mechanical thinning - in some cases, even of large trees - is necessary to protect healthy forest ecosystems. He noted that prescribed burning does not always remove small trees and brush without killing mature trees, for example.
"You can not safely remove the trees that need to be destroyed … with prescribed burning," Covington testified.
I really like the first paragraph about active forest management. There's no doubt that one thing which has to be done is the removal of the brush and deadfall which would be normally eliminated by natural fires. The problem with that aspect of forest management is that there is little profit to be made doing just those activities.
The U.S. Forest Service would beg to disagree.
On July 4th, 1999, a windstorm blew though the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, part of Superior National Forest. Trees were blown down on 367,000 acres of land, millions of them. The fear is that naturally occurring lightning-ignited fires would burn out of control, despoiling the BWCAW and spreading out of it to the populated areas around it. The plan adopted to manage this is to set controlled burns over about 76,000 acres of land inside the BWCAW over the next few years. Logging was not considered because "timber salvage and related road construction is not consistent wtih the 1978 BWCAW Act (Public Law 95-495, Octover 21, 1978) or the Wilderness Act of 1964 (Public Law 8-577), as well as Forest Service Policy or the BWCAW Management Plan. In addition, salvaging timber from the BWCAW is economically and operationally infeasible because the area is roadless and road building or helicopter logging would be very costly and time-consuming." (page 38, Record of Decision, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Fuel Treatment). This document is the summary of the Environmental Impact Statement for this issue and the solution. I have a copy of said EIS, and it's about 3.5 inches thick.
You can see info on the web about this here. The EIS goes into great detail on the different kinds of burns, and how to create burns that get rid of the excessive fuel overburden without long-term damage to the ecosystem.
My point being that the Forest Service apparently thinks this problem can be managed by prescribed burning. It's also been my observation that when logging is done, the loggers take the logs and leave the slash (the branches cut off of the trees) behind. The slash is a tremendous fire hazard, putting tons of potential fire fuel on the ground. It's not particulary economic for the loggers to pick it up, so they don't.
One was within city limits. The fire department arrived immediately, it was extinguished within several hours, and burned less than 5 acres.
The other one was just outside the city's limts. The Forest Service watched it without acting, for several days, then tried (but failed) to put it out for more than 2 weeks, during which time this fire consumed more than 15,000 acres.
Yet nobody "gets it" and nobody knows what to do. Isn't that totally strange?
Around here (Oregon) they pile up the slash and burn it when the weather conditions make it safe. Of course, the eco-weenies whine about that nasty smoke too... Maybe they should move back to the East coast where they can enjoy the cleaner air!
Same thing in Idaho...they use brush blades on dozers and use excavators to pile slash and burn it after the first snow.
There is no way to stop forest fires...there are many ways to stop the catastrophic, total-stand replacement fires that burn multi-hundred thousand acres. Logging for fire control is the most economic and fastest way to stop these huge fires.
Start giving away federal land to homesteaders again until the feds only have the 10 square miles in DC and land for arsenals, magazines, forts and needful buildings.
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