Lost Thread sent me this picture last night .. It made me speechless
Thought I'd share this actual pic of the Montana fire....*sigh*....
Posted on 06/25/2002 11:45:58 AM PDT by RooRoobird14
Hubby just called to report on his visit to the local Sierra Club office in Phoenix.
He had tried calling many times yesterday, and couldn't get through on the phone lines.
Their office front doors were locked--he kept knocking and knocking until they gave up and let him in (LOL). The office window shades were drawn, and they obviously wanted everyone to think they were closed.
The woman who runs the office is one PISSED OFF bull dyke(not making this up). She was extremely angry that he was "bothering" them. She said she was "too busy" and "didn't have time to talk to people like him."
He asked her how many lawyers the Sierra Club employed, and she refused to answer. He asked her what the Sierra Club was doing to help put out the fires and she said "that's none of your business.". He asked her how much federal (taxpayer) grant money the Sierra Club got this year; she said "I don't have to answer that question."
There was a young man in the office who was actually polite and willing to talk to my hysband, but the B.D. was an absolute b*tch.
While hubby was in the office, the B.D. was replaying recorded phone messages left for them by angry callers. Hubby overhead three of the messages. All three were from enraged refugees of the fire who left f-word-peppered messages. One man (said he lost his home in the fire) said he was going to get even with them, he had a gun, and he'd take his time to get even. The BD was taking notes and muttering about filing police reports.
While I don't support anyone threatening violence on the Sierra Club, I can certainly understand how some of the displaced residents could be completely enraged at this point.
Frankly, I'm glad Governor Hull set off a firestorm criticizing enviro-wacko groups and how their lawsuits have paralyzed the Forest Service in general. The dialogue that's ensuing is a good thing.
I'll second that ..
Lost Thread sent me this picture last night .. It made me speechless
Thought I'd share this actual pic of the Montana fire....*sigh*....
Yes, this was the great 1910 fire that burned across more then 3 million acres of virgin timberland in northern Idaho and western Montana. "It all burned within two days and nights - August 20 & 21, 1910 and killed 86 people. Most of what was destroyed fell to hurricane -force winds that ripped trees out of the ground roots and all and turned the fire into a blowtorch. Reconstructing what happened leads to an almost impossible conclusion: most of the cremation ocurred in a six-hour period." The map in the Winter 1994-1995 edition of Evergreen Magazine that the above excerpt was quoted from shows the fire started in the south fork of the Coeur d'Alene river in Idaho and burned east to St. Regis Montana.
Public outcry over this resulted in the USFS "10:00AM policy in which the USFS was to man all fires and extinguish them before ten AM the next day. This was met by resistence from westerners who had adopted and continued seasonal burning as practiced by the native americans. Professional foresters with the USFS dismissed the practice as "Pauite forestry'.
Thank you so much for helping get the word out on this. I read the presidents remarks and am cauteously optimistic that there will finally be some reform of the USFS. Surely we can do better as a society then to watch our forests burn up because we are too intimidated by a handfull of pagans.
LOL! It's in the bibliography GD.
163. Clinton, William Jefferson; Executive Order 12986 dated 1/19/96. URL: http://www.epa.gov/docs/fedrgstr/EPA-GENERAL/1996/January/Day-22/pr-765.html.
150. Sierra Club Conservation Policies; Fire Management on Public Lands Policy. URL: http://www.sierraclub.org/policy/conservation/fire.asp.
I wrote a line-by-line critique of this policy once.
Maybe some day I'll post it.
(Gotta burn a few million more acres first.)
There are relatively few forests in California that I wouldn't put in this category.
We have had 90 years of fire suppression as a direct result of the 1910 fire. Prior to 1910, fires burned every 7-12 years on average, so it would only burn up 7-12 years of accumulated dead wood. Now, not only do we have 90 years of accumulated dead wood, we've got thickets of 300 trees per acre with 90 years of accumulated fuel under it.
The druids got it partially right -- we have interupted the natural cycle. But they are delusional to think that letting nature take its course will restore the old growth forests they so cherish. Simply put: we humans created this dilema, and we humans should fix this dilema.
To answer your question, doing nothing for the last ten years has made things worse. We have more fuel and many of the thickets are dying due to overstocking, bugs and drought. When it burns, it burns at an UNNATURAL intensity. Essentially the druids have mortgaged their childrens future to pay for their selfish whims of today.
Your last question where? According to a GAO report, something like half of the western national forests are at risk (100 million acres). I have posted a link to this report before...let me know if your interested and I'll dig it out.
Makes a helluva statement, doesn't it?.
A house is threatened by a wall of flames as a new wildfire moves down a hillside Tuesday, June 25, 2002. The fire originated west of the Missionary Ridge fire, north of Durango, Colo., forcing the evacuation of 90 homes. Smoke forced authorities to close a section of U.S. 550 north of Durango. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Durango residents Tudy Townsend, left, and Richard Taylor watch the Missionary Ridge fire north of Durango, Colo. early Monday, June 24, 2002. The fire has charred 63,000 acres since it started two weeks ago. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Access roads, then clearing brush, then removing snags and deadfalls, then thinning? How long will it take to catch up with ten years of neglect?
If you can give an idea of a reasonable program, I'll go bend my Congressman's ear (he already sighs when his secretary gives him my name.)
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