[ArmstedFragg]

This would be an interesting argument regarding the Trinity fire or some of the other North Coast fires, but doesn't have much to do with the fires in San Diego County.

While there was some forest lost, the vast majority of what burned was brush, and the homes lost were all in areas where brush was nearby. While we do have some enviromental regulations that limit clearing coastal sage, the primary issue here is simply the improved efficiency of firefighters when it comes to putting out the smaller fires. Every time we do that, we leave more fuel to be burned in the bigger ones.

Last year, county officials were presented with a map showing the areas where there hadn't been a significant fire in twenty years or more. All the blases we had this year were in the "red" areas.

The spotted owl issue is pretty much a north end phenomenon, five hundred miles up the road on the other end of the state. It's been a huge economic tragedy up there.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[OldFriend]

An economic tragedy welcomed by the likes of the Sierra Club and it's cohorts in congress and senate.

[Heyworth]

This idea is all over FR right now, that somehow the Sierra Club and other environmentalists are somehow responsible for this disaster. The truth is that there's never been a fight to save the forests of the San Bernardinos because the timber industry hasn't been interested. Logging up there peaked before WW1 and the last commercial logging operation shut down in the 1950s, long before the SIerra Club began making noise. There were just lots of easier places to log up north. And chaparral has so little commercial value that it's a money-losing proposition to clear it.