Posted on 11/12/2018 9:45:59 AM PST by Hojczyk
Bob Zybach feels like a broken record. Decades ago he warned government officials allowing Oregon’s forests to grow unchecked by proper management would result in catastrophic wildfires.
While some want to blame global warming for the uptick in catastrophic wildfires, Zybach said a change in forest management policies is the main reason Americans are seeing a return to more intense fires, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and California where millions of acres of protected forests stand.
“We knew exactly what would happen if we just walked away,” Zybach, an experienced forester with a PhD in environmental science, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Zybach spent two decades as a reforestation contractor before heading to graduate school in the 1990s. Then the Clinton administration in 1994 introduced its plan to protect old growth trees and spotted owls by strictly limiting logging.
Less logging also meant government foresters weren’t doing as much active management of forests — thinnings, prescribed burns and other activities to reduce wildfire risk.
Zybach told Evergreen magazine that year the Clinton administration’s plan for “naturally functioning ecosystems” free of human interference ignored history and would fuel “wildfires reminiscent of the Tillamook burn, the 1910 fires and the Yellowstone fire.”
Between 1952 and 1987, western Oregon only one major fire above 10,000 acres. The region’s relatively fire-free streak ended with the Silver Complex Fire of 1987 that burned more than 100,000 acres in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness area, torching rare plants and trees the federal government set aside to protect from human activities. The area has burned several more times since the 1980s.
“Mostly fuels were removed through logging, active management — which they stopped — and grazing,” Zybach said in an interview. “You take away logging, grazing and maintenance, and you get firebombs.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
The Head Forest Rangers loved getting rid of logging...they had a lot less work to do..
They run the forest they manage like a dictator..
In Colorado they did all they could do to keep people out..no snowmobiling because of the noise..
In Utah they were letting more recreation...ATV trails..Snowmobling ect
America is being destroyed by our own ignorance.
Absolutely right. One of the most important principles of caring for forested land is the vertical vs the horizontal dynamic. You accomplish this care by clearing the detritus away. This is done best on privately owned land and not by the fed jackbooting their way in. It destroys everything it touches and that, sadly, includes some of our most beautiful areas. Look what they have done to the Adirondacks.
A forester told me that the California Division of Forestry prohibits timber harvesters from replanting. If there were such a thing as carbon buildup, growing trees on harvested lands would act as a ballast, reducing atmospheric carbon.
All those folks in California need to ask some serious questions of the Department of Conservation. All that dried vegetation and older trees that are serving as ready made kindling should have been cleared out on a yearly basis, but that apparently is not happening. Not sure if all those forests out there are state or federal owned. Regardless, shouldn’t there be some sound fire cleaning procedures in place?
Blame the greenies. If you don’t deal with the undergrowth, this is what you get. Environmentalists are the direct cause of the California fires. Not Trump, not global warming. Just leftist, democrat environmentalists. You Californians lucky enough to survive this holocaust should have a talk with them.
The Feds also own land in California managed by other land agencies such as BLM and Park Service.
The Feds own about 46 million acres in California which is about 46% of the land in California.
All federal lands are managed in accordance with the Acts of Congress. There are many acts of congress but the main ones are:'
Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976
NEPA
Endangered Species Act
Taylor Grazing Act
“America is being destroyed by our own ignorance.”
And arrogance!! Too many leftists with no real world experience keep making decisions that people with actual knowledge rejected years ago as unworkable solutions. Whether it is crime, the economy, or the environment, there is nothing new under the sun and all the “bright young thinkers” are simply re-packaging the failures of the past! Too bad we don’t teach history anymore!
But but but Jerry the Fairy says it is climate change deniers causing the problems, not the years of letting the environmentalists keep the forest services cull dead trees and dead underbrush from forests.
My dad and his brother joined together. Dad loved it.
This article is equally-pertinent to this past week, but in my read it became clear something was amiss and then I checked the date.
Date for the Daily Caller reference needs to be changed for the post to August 8, 2018.
Easy mistake.
There is less forest management because it would interfere with the marijuana growers.
He has a degree in political science.
While some want to blame global warming for the uptick in catastrophic wildfires, Zybach said a change in forest management policies is the main reason Americans are seeing a return to more intense fires, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and California where millions of acres of protected forests stand.
AMEN! We lived in Claremont Ca 2012-2013 and we couldn’t even trim a dead branch off our trees! On 4th of July 2013 a HUGE branch as big as a large tree crashed to the ground across the street from us. It was SO LOUD! CRASH!!!! Thousands of people were walking down that sidewalk to the park on our street for the Festivities. FORTUNATELY no one was under that HUGE branch when it fell to the ground in an instant!
Our yard guy told us if we needed any branches trimmed, if he couldn’t get permission from Claremont city hall, he would come trim them in the middle of the night!
Our next door neighbor’s home foundation was being cracked and broken by a tree, planted too close to his house! He couldn’t cut it down. It was destroying his foundation, thus his house.
Claremont is the CITY OF TREES.
Plus, there have always been fires. It isn’t glowbull warming. The giant Sequoias must have FIRE to force the cones to open and release the seeds for new trees. Since there are Sequoias that are thousands of years old, we know there have always been forest fires in California.
They need to clear out the deadwood!
We live in a forested area near Austin and we were told to cut everything down, clear it out, at least 30 feet from our house.
The Feds own about 46 million acres in California which is about 46% of the land in California.’
I know and it makes me SICK that the feds own so much of US lands!!!!!!!!!!
Related:
How Feminism Wrecked the U.S. Forest Service
https://www.thinkinghousewife.com/2012/06/how-feminism-wrecked-the-u-s-forest-service/
Our education in America is nothing more than propaganda.
Yumm, crispy fried Spotted Owls.
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