Posted on 11/10/2018 7:04:47 PM PST by NoLibZone
Scientists at the cutting edge of ecological research, Dr. Hanson among them, argue that the century-old American practice of suppressing wildfires has been nothing less than a calamity. They are calling for a new approach that basically involves letting backcountry fires burn across millions of acres.
In principle, the federal government accepted a version of this argument years ago, but in practice, fires are still routinely stamped out across much of the country. To the biologists, that has imperiled the plants and animals — hundreds of them, it turns out — that prefer to live in recently burned forests.
“From an ecological standpoint, everything I’ve learned teaches me this is a good idea: Stop putting out fires,” said Jennifer R. Marlon, a geographer at Yale who was among the first to use the term “fire deficit” to describe the situation. “These forests are made to have fire.”
Efforts to suppress fires began in the 19th century, largely motivated by the view that forests should be seen as standing timber with economic value. By the 1930s, industrial-scale techniques allowed firefighting agencies, including the United States Forest Service, to suppress fires across the landscape.
A handful of scientists began arguing decades ago that this was a mistake. Over the past decade or so, the research has crystallized into a new understanding of the role of fire in forests.
Scientists who want to let more fires burn take pains to make clear that they do not mean to put people’s lives on the line. In fact, they believe the government could make people safer than they are today if it redirected funds into community fire-safety projects.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Both timber harvesting and allowing more fires make sense. And getting them to accept the latter will actually probably make acceptance of the former easier.
I could well see controlled fires as a prudent management technique.
I remember the fires in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan and the huge replanting effort.
We don’t see forest fires on our Indian Reservations as they clear dead wood and practice sound land management, as opposed to the US Goverment.
Control burns have been going on in the south for hundreds of years...
The Feds tried to stop it in the 1950s. but we’re told to go to hell..
THis was done by farmers and timber companies. ...not federal and state forest...
the issue is raised. Are animals and plants that prefer a burned over habitat ore important than those thaat prefer original growth?
Promoting burns is ecological discrimination
In 2011 we lost almost half of the ranch to wildfires, first one took out six square miles and the second one eight. Tall dry grass and overgrown pockets of juniper and mesquite were taken to bare ground. Didn’t lose any structures, wells, tank battery’s or livestock. We did lose close to 24 miles of fencing. We were lucky! Within two years those same pastures have come back lush and green with new growth and winter forbs almost doubling it carrying capacity. Those fires were actually the best thing that would have happen to those pastures. When something gets overgrown it tends to suck the life out of the soil starving out other undergrowth that’s important to wildlife and grazing domestic’s. Elk and deer do not feed off of grown tree’s but the undergrowth. Find an area that’s been burn’t or logged and watch the wildlife come in for the the new growth. Around here the deer bed down in the Juniper patches but move out to the open area’s to feed. Fire can do in short order what it would take thousands of man hours and millions of dollars to achieve and it leaves behind fresh fertile soil for regrowth.
Archaeologist says fire, not corn, key to prehistoric survival in arid Southwest.
Conventional wisdom holds that prehistoric villagers planted corn, and lots of it, to survive the dry and hostile conditions of the American Southwest.
But University of Cincinnati archaeology professor Alan Sullivan is challenging that long-standing idea, arguing instead that people routinely burned the understory of forests to grow wild crops 1,000 years ago.
Like a detective, Sullivan has pieced together clues firsthand and from scientific analysis to make a persuasive argument that people used fire to promote the growth of edible leaves, seeds and nuts of plants such as amaranth and chenopodium, wild relatives of quinoa. These plants are called “ruderals,” which are the first to grow in a forest disturbed by fire or clear-cutting.
So if prehistoric people were not growing corn, what were they eating? Sullivan found clues around his excavation sites that people set fires big enough to burn away the understory of grasses and weeds but small enough not to harm the pinyon and juniper trees, important sources of calorie-rich nuts and berries.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171127152055.htm
“Effective forest management would keep the forest healthy and free from horribly destructive fires.”
Private industry and landowners do this.
California does the opposite.
Idiotic. Who cares about the people?
We have about 330 million people today as opposed to the few million at the beginning of colonization.
he breeding range of Kirtland's warbler is in a very limited area in the north of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. In recent years, breeding pairs have been found in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, and southern Ontario likely due to the rapidly expanding population. Breeding habitat is typically large areas (> 160 acres) of dense young jack pine (Pinus banksiana). Kirtland's warblers occur in greatest numbers in large areas that have been clearcut or where a large wildfire has occurred.
There are places here in the Rocky Mountains it makes sense to let fires burn. And it does good for the forest. Right now we have massive beetle kill in the trees and a good fire would clear out those trees that can’t be logged due to terrain and prompt the forest to regrow.
There is a fire that just got under control along the CO/WY border because winter came. The info on the range this fire went through stated it was 40-50% dead trees. Burn it out.
The problem is as we become more affluent, we put more and more of our population into these forested areas but we don’t ensure that those homes can withstand a fire. Just like living on the coast, if you are going to live in this type of area, then you have to be able to take care of the property.
After the Hayman fire a decade or so ago, I think, CO started looking a some other ways to manage forests. Some of the outcomes of that were to have slash piles in the forest to slow the fires down. Last year, I think, some pot smoking bums started a fire in Boulder Canyon. Those slash piles saved homes.
Why is out stupid? It makes sense to me.
This theory should be fairly simple to validate with a one or two simple questions.
The first is: do areas previously burned by wildfires burn again? One assumes they do, then what is the scale of those fires?
Second....and most important WRT these fires and suppressing them is: How many firefighters are paid to suppress these fires? There seems to be a correlation to the number and scale of these fires, the number of firefighters employed, and a lack of timber management.
Less timber management = More fires & more intense fires.
More frequent & intense = need more firefighters to suppress them.
Sort of has a circular logic.
Exit question: If the timber is more effectively managed, are the fires fewer and easier to control?
Since I don’t live on the west coast and am not intimately familiar with this in granular detail. So just aking the questions.
We never had these fires before the spotted owl stopped the lumber industry from proper forest management. This is avoiding the real issue.
Go here: www.ForestsforOregon.net and find the truth of what is going on.
The concept “taking care of property” includes managing the forests.
“as we become more affluent”
This is the real problem. Progressives don’t have the confidence in their own beliefs to just come out and say what they’re really thinking.
They want to destroy the free market system of our liberties.
I’ll take your word for it that it makes sense to you.
If it does make sense to you, then you will be able to explain your reasoning in clear terms. So go ahead, I’ll respectfully analyze what you say.
I thought I asked you the question.
Letting it burn means
1. whoever lives within 100-1000 miles has to breathe the smoke.
2. we don’t get the economic benefit from the wood
3. we’re neglecting our duty to manage the forest (think of the term “steward” often used in related conversations)
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