The mismanagement of the fires began during the Clinton years when environmentalist took over the policies of government towards forest management.
I have watched it firsthand.
There is an irony that is lost on most people in this debate. It is this. The left tells us to respect the science and listen to the experts.
The PhD’s for the Forest Service who understand these fires and the forest and forest management have been saying for years that we need to change what we do and actively manage our lands with controlled burns, thinning, logging, and all of the above. Another irony is that this diversity within the forest (does not exist now) would be beneficial for wildlife as well as wildland firefighters!
14 minute video from a man who truly understands this problem! We have too many trees!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edDZNkm8Mas
It began in the early 70s. First it was Old Growth, then the fish, then the Owls, then this and that.
The last seminar I was at last year a report was read about how to expect fire to triple in devastation by the year 2030.
After that, it will be all burned over and then the burned over areas will have multiple layers of timber that had fallen over by previous fires and on it will go from there.
IMO, the only way to handle this debacle now is to set up massive biomass power plants and get in and clear up that mess and then replant after-if anything will grow after those fires that is. There is no surface soil in areas that have burned hot now, so it wont support regeneration.
Maybe seeding by air, pinus banksiana..Jack Pine?
I can guarantee you that I could brush hog ten thousand acres in a month with a few machines.
Years ago (70? 100+?) the SE USA had lots of fires. Then they started managing their forests and forest fires have gone way down. Another freeper mentioned a lot of that is private land.
Again - it is the farmer, rancher, private landowner that knows real conservation. Open up the West to more logging (and more gov’t revenues) and pay some folks to manage the land. Maybe do it private management, and they get a cut of the income off the well-managed forests?
Good video. Excelet identification of the problem.
Except that we have advanced technology now, so we do not really need to go all the way back to old Native ways of forest management. We can clean the forest and get some wood out of it too. I agree with this video wholeheartedly, but I think, I would prefer less prescribed fires and more mechanical cleaning than this fellow does. Specially at this moment, when we really need to do something fast!
Or maybe, he is just trying to be somewhat politically correct. The prescribed fires are a lot easier to sell nowadays than massive mechanical forest cleaning. Either way, thinning forest is the solution!
Timber harvests in national forests began to tank in 1990 - from an average of almost 10 billion board feet a year (for thirty years) to today’s 2 billion.
You know who was President in 1990? - George Bush.
The feds as well as the states have been disasters.
https://www.fs.fed.us/forestmanagement/products/cut-sold/index.shtml
The arsonists should be burned at the stake but the size of the losses is due to three things:
1. The (un)holy grail of absolute fire suppression
2. Total lack of proper forest management by all parties
3. Human encroachment into the resulting hazardous overgrowth and deadwood environments.
In other words, “Stupid hurts”.