Battle erupts anew over 'Healthy Forests'

Sac Bee ^ | 10/29/03 | Stuart Leavenworth

[NormsRevenge]

SAN BERNARDINO -- Southern California's record wildfires have not only scorched hundreds of homes, they have rekindled debate on whether the government could prevent such conflagrations by actively removing brush and other forest "fuels."

Some Western politicians have seized on the blazes as reason for Congress to pass "Healthy Forests" legislation supported by the Bush administration, which would truncate environmental reviews to speed up the thinning of national forests.

[NormsRevenge]

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[farmfriend]

Many forestry experts, however, say the thinning envisioned in different versions of Healthy Forests legislation would do little to prevent the fires now raging in Southern California. "These fires, for the most part, are burning in coastal sage and chaparral, which we can't thin and are notoriously vulnerable to the fires we see now," said Norm Christensen, a Duke University forestry scientist who grew up in California. In addition, he said, many of the fires are burning on private land instead of public land -- the focus of the Healthy Forests legislation.

I know someone who has a solution to this problem.

[Carry_Okie]

Much of this work must be done by a combination of state, federal and local agencies that are sure to face objections from neighbors and air quality officials.

We wouldn't want private companies doing a better job for less? Why not?

In the San Bernardino mountains, residents have tried to get sawmill companies to set up shop and salvage dead and dying wood. But many of the trees are a type of knotty pine that doesn't have much commercial value.

Well put that ol' thinking cap on Mr. Leavenworth, because all that biomass up there is currently turning into...

energy.

There is enough excess brush and tree mass in the 190 million acres currently at risk to provide the residential electrical needs of 140 million Americans.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Pines ? Can you say, PAPER MILL, ?

[MineralMan]

"Southern California's record wildfires have not only scorched hundreds of homes, they have rekindled debate on whether the government could prevent such conflagrations by actively removing brush and other forest "fuels."
"

And who's going to pay for this? In most of the areas being burned in CA, there are no trees whatsoever, just chaparral and other brush. There's no logging to be done there, even though much of the land is National Forest land. There are no trees in most of the burned area.

So, this will not be solved by logging companies clear-cutting the land. Clearing this land is expensive, prohibitive in cost, really.

The biggest problem is the expansion into these brushy hillsides. Developers build tracts of expensive houses on these chaparral-covered hills, but don't clear space around them.

Home-buyers pay lots of bucks for these hillside homes with a view, but don't think about fire protection until the fire starts. Then...we all pay to try to protect their homes, which probably shouldn't have been built in such a fire-prone area in the first place.

So, who pays to clear this land? Me? I don't think so. I live in a sensible residential area...far from any hillsides.

Right now I'm looking out my office window and can see a cluster of homes built halfway up a steep hill that is covered with chapparal. There's one road in, and that hillside has not burned in the 33 years I've lived here.

When the hillside finally does catch fire, and it will, there won't be a prayer of saving those homes, many of which are in the $1M+ price range.

Are the homeowners there trying to get the hillside below them cleared? Nope...it's too expensive. So, when their hillside catches fire and burns down all those expensive houses, I'll be paying the bill, not only to fight the fire, but to my insurance company in increased rates.

The question always is: Who pays for this?

[Carry_Okie]

Raw material prices for paper are in the toilet. Electrical power is at a premium.

[ntnychik]

Wait til the mudslides start in these burned out areas. More homes will be lost, with more taxpayer expense. Meanwhile the government will help with the rebuilding in the same locations.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Liner board and corregated is doing OK. You are correct on California's power cost. In a normal place, you could bring in coal or heavy fuel oil and make your own power and steam--but this is California.
Never mind.

[Roughneck]

These fires, for the most part, are burning in coastal sage and chaparral, which we can't thin and are notoriously vulnerable to the fires we see now,"

Not only are TREES a part of this fire, but trees already blighted by beetles! Those DEAD inderbox trees should have been taken out for that alone.

Blighted, infested trees spread the blight to other, healthy trees, and are fuel for fires!

The environmental lobby in California should be held at least 60% responsible! 20% should be Davis for not releasing water for firefighters, 10% to Pelsoi (just cause she's a beach!), and another 10% for the nut that lit the match!

[MineralMan]

"Wait til the mudslides start in these burned out areas. More homes will be lost, with more taxpayer expense. Meanwhile the government will help with the rebuilding in the same locations."

Yup, and we'll pay again for stupid people who must live on a hillside, but who aren't willing to pay to protect themselves. Construction should never have been allowed in many of these locations, but money talks.

[Prime Choice]

Call me unorthodox, but the forests don't look so healthy when they're on FIRE.

[Oatka]

"These fires, for the most part, are burning in coastal sage and chaparral, which we can't thin . . ."

Roust out all those inmates sitting on their butts 23 hours a day thinking up new scams. A few hours bent over clearing brush might motivate some of them into a career change.

Come to think of it, it would be a good place to utilize all those illegals who we now "catch and release".

[MineralMan]

"Not only are TREES a part of this fire, but trees already blighted by beetles! Those DEAD inderbox trees should have been taken out for that alone.

Blighted, infested trees spread the blight to other, healthy trees, and are fuel for fires!
"

That only applies in a very small portion of one of the fires. Those trees are way up the mountainside. Yes, they should have been removed, but they're not trees that any logger would want, so who pays to remove them? We don't have paper mills in CA, as far as I know, and that's all those particular pines would have been good for, if that.

90% of the acreage burned in all the CA fires were in brushland. There is no commercial use for the plants that grow there. None. So, again, who pays to clear that land?

This is not the forests that burned in Arizona. This is chapparal. Who pays to clear it?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Perfect !

[MineralMan]

"Roust out all those inmates sitting on their butts 23 hours a day thinking up new scams. A few hours bent over clearing brush might motivate some of them into a career change. "

Already being done. Crews of California state prison inmates work all the time clearing brush. They're not trained, however, as firefighters.

[Carry_Okie]

Are the homeowners there trying to get the hillside below them cleared? Nope...it's too expensive.

That's bullcrap. The cost of vegetation management is far less than the cost of a new house and all its furnishings as you know quite well. We just hide that fact by pooling the risk statewide as you pointed out.

So, when their hillside catches fire and burns down all those expensive houses, I'll be paying the bill, not only to fight the fire, but to my insurance company in increased rates.

The question always is: Who pays for this?

It is a rhetorical question at best, considering that all the insurer in a oligopoly market has to do is to raise the rate base statewide. They get to make money in the market playing with more of your cash.

The way it ought to work is to discriminate insurance pricing based upon an independent and individual assessment of the risks involved on that unique property. That way the homeowner has to choose between the cost of maintaining that chapparal versus the cost of other risks, such as landslides. There is a full proposal for how the system should work in the last part of this section in my book.

[Oatka]

Exactly. This is Democrat country and they NEVER EVER cut back.

To this day the area has not recovered.

[MineralMan]

"Call me unorthodox, but the forests don't look so healthy when they're on FIRE."

Interesting photo. What you don't realize is that the fires in that photo are burning exclusively in brushland. There are no harvestable trees in any of the fires in the photo.

Now, the fires in San Bernardino County _are_ burning in some areas with pine trees, but those areas make up a minority of the acreage being burned.

Forestry doesn't come into the picture here, even those these are "National Forests." Your photo shows fires where there are no trees.