[BlessingInDisguise]

Forests need to burn in order to sustain themselves. The whole ecology of a forest is built around fire. Many types of trees cannot even reproduce if fire does not melt the wax around their seeds. Every forest can use about two major fires every century in order to clear brush and regenerate itself. Otherwise they die.

[kaktuskid]

Unfortunately these fires are burning so hot that they STERILIZE the soil meaning nothing will grow for a long time.

[cake_crumb]

"The whole ecology of a forest is built around fire. Many types of trees cannot even reproduce if fire does not melt the wax around their seeds"

Yeah, the Jackson Pine. Big deal. Controlled burns CAN be an aid to the overall health of forests in general, I agree...HOWEVER when the fuel outweighs the living flora it is nothing but a recipe for ecological and economical disaster.

The probelm with the environazis is that they are so totally brainwashed that they are able to see the "forest" - which is a microcosm - that they cannot see the "trees" - each individual of which is important to the continuing functioning of that particular microcosm.

We have gone from one extreme - the farming of the macrocosm - to the other - being so centered upon the macricosm that we fail to see the individuals which comprise it. Human beings, like it or not, no matter what end of the ideological scale you are on, are an integral PART of that macrocosm. We are neither "husbands" of the earth, nor it's "shepards". We're every bit as much a part of the food chain as everything else on this planet, and I'm tired of being told we don't have as much right to be here as everynody else. Walk out into the woods and meet a cougar or a bear. Puts things into perspective IMMEDIATELY.

Wolves, BTW are different. They are social animals more like us...which is why our ancestors were able to turn them into the ancestors of the modern dog.

[crz]

Fire is not now a viable management tool. Nor should it ever been made a management tool. With the types of forest management offered and practiced in this day and age there is no reason to see it used....EVER!

[Paulus Invictus]

You've bought the enviro's forest control prevarication. It's taught in every school and college. The govt has bought it too and post signs and send out press releases all saying that what you claim is the truth. Forests do burn due to lightning strikes and careless campers or arsonists etc, but they burn a lot hotter and over far more acres when the dead fuel underneath the trees is not cleared and the trees are not killed by bark beetles.

[driftless]

The same theory applies to prairies. Park rangers in many prairie states burn portions of prairies in controlled fires every year.

[Lester Moore]

Every forest can use about two major fires every century in order to clear brush and regenerate itself. Otherwise they die.

I got it from a forest ranger in these AZ pine forests that an area would burn every 3 to 12 years.

I also think most of the stage for this inferno was set by the Smokey The Bear policy of the FS in which all fires were always put out, letting fuel stack up. Of course once it was stacked they couldn't just let hot fires burn thru the forests. Still it was fed. policy that created this monster.