Posted on 08/29/2011 3:57:54 PM PDT by SandRat
t may have taken the largest wildfire in Arizona history, but for the first time in decades, environmentalists and government officials agree on a key element of future forest management.
The U.S. Forest Service said in a report this month that “intense thinning treatments” can ease future wildfires, by removing trees between six and 18 inches in diameter to allow for additional space between trees.
“Everyone agrees that a lot of the dry forest types need to be treated in terms of removing the vegetation,” said Morris Johnson, a research ecologist with the Forest Service and co-author of the report.
Intense thinning, according to the report, is reducing stands to leave 50 to 100 trees per acre. The study provides scientific grounds for continuing the practice of thinning heavily forested areas, showing that “the model and the reality match,” said Shaula Hedwall of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
(Excerpt) Read more at svherald.com ...
So you might want to mark the tree where you start or remember that tree where you start. Then all the way round until you reach that tree.
Now, there is a debate on the trees that are as wide, or just as wide as the dime. I generally count them all. Some leave out every third tree and do not count them. Count them all. If there is that many, those wont matter anyway.
Another rule..what does the landowner want? Does he want cover/browse for wildlife? If so, then the thinning should be heavier-like a BSA of 50 or so. This is for hardwood woods-like maple etc. Oak wants a heavy cut as they regenerate with near full sunlight. I always like to see Oak logged and pole skidded. That simulates burn and works the ground up. We got problems up here now because they have skidded with forward skidders for years because they didnt want the ground disturbed. Now the fescue grass has taken over and prevents regeneration in a lot of places. That and the dam deer eat the seedlings off as fast as they come up.
Amen! Problem is there's a severe shortage these days.
Ask yourself this: Who is better qualified to manage our national forests? The federal government? Or the timber industry?
Which one has a vested interest in their health?
Who is better qualified to manage our cultivable land? The federal government or farmers?
Which one has a vested interest in their health?
It goes on. And on. And on.
Thanks. My family has property at about 10,500 feet in Colorado. Lodgepoles, bristlecones and silver barked pines. Of course a lot of Aspen.
The National Forest Service land above us looks scary populated with trees. If I were going to thin up there (and of course I would never do that), I would not know how to start because none of the trees would fall over when cut they are so tightly packed.
The pine beetles found us a few years ago, although they haven’t wiped us out the way they have across the hill in Breckenridge.
They are worth learning from.
... This is an archeological FACT.
Excuse me, but are you yelling at me thinking I need to learn somehow that at the time of Columbus the vegetative distribution of nearly the entire continent was an anthropogenic artifact? After having published two books on environmental policy and studied native plant habitat restoration for twenty years, do you really think I'm that dense?
Re that "oak savannah," did you know aboriginals used to prune those oak trees to give them a better shape for climbing and end weight reduction for better acorn production? Sheesh.
There is NOTHING worse for the environment, than Environmentalists enforcing their cultist envirodogma on it.
Thanks for the ping SW!
Something you and I knew long ago!
Forgive me for my ignorance of your work. If I had seen it, I too would have joined your voice.
I live in Foresthill, Ca. surrounded on all sides by forests and on the east side by Tahoe national forest.
Every year we live in fear of forest fires during the summer months.
I’ve seen first hand what the fuelwood projects can accomplish and would love to see our hard working youth(Yes, they do exist)who know how to do the work and need the jobs.
Great!
When do we start?
The Stanislaus NF needs thinning badly, along with some road maintenance to improve access for heavy equipment.
>> “Put cattle back in the forest and the problem will take csre of itself.” <<
.
The cattle are in the forests but they don’t eat Chamese or Manzanita. There are hundreds of head of cattle around our place but all they eat is grass, which is sparse in the heavy timber and brush.
>> “The other way to manage forestland to control fire... is to run fire through it about every other year or so.” <<
.
That method became impossible about 10 years after fire supression policy went into effect.
>> “50 to 100 trees is ridiculous.” <<
.
50 trees would be ok if the chamise is gone, and the remaining trees are cleaned to 20’ above the ground. 100 trees would be a sorry joke.
>> “the problem is the system that gave them the goodies they wanted.” <<
.
Yes, name the issue, and that is always the cause.
I’ve never seen a cow that wouldn’t eat chamise, it is great winter feed. People even harvest the seeds in the right of ways and take it to Colorado to plant it. They don’t consume it completely but they keep it in check.
Dig down into the Willamette Valley and you find layers of burnt vegetation.
The Native Americans that were still alive when Euros showed up gave accounts of how they set fire to the Valley periodically.
I wasn’t yelling at you specifically, just idiots that think artificial human created environments are some sort of climate caused garden of eden.
Are you telling me that the Native Americans in the Willamette Valley of Oregon didn’t periodically set fire to the Valley floor to improve grassland forage for big game? OSU Professors would disagree with your opinion.
In California, Oak Savannah is a more natural occurance. In the Willamette Valley, Oregon, the entire valley floor would be completely covered with swamps and scrub brush without human intervention. Roads would be (literally) impassible without machine brushing every 4 years minimum.
Apparently you didn't read my post for what it said.
Aboriginal burning was seasonal for millennia. OK? Got it? Yes, I knew that. I knew it from Gerald W. Williams' work on the topic in... what do you know, Willamette Valley (in my copy of Kay's Wilderness & Political Ecology it is on p185)! I knew it from Kat Anderson's work on ethnobotany. I knew it when I wrote my first book thirteen years ago. I knew it when I was first shown successive fire scars in grade-school. I knew it when I studied aboriginal California Indians in the SECOND GRADE. I've even knew it when I documented how burning can bring up edible forbs in late summer because the hydrophillic attributes of charcoal are attractive to atmospheric moisture. That photograph was sent to scientists around the world earlier this month and not by me.
Got it? What I don't appreciate is you shrieking at the top of your lungs at me as if I am some sort of idiot without any clue about whom you are addressing.
An OSU Professor (IIRC, Paul Adams of Forest Engineering) bought my first book and told me it was beyond their students' ability to read it.
Oh, and I even have a pile of Stipa pulcra and Elymus glaucus straw on top of the hill for an extreme vertex three variable factorial experiment the purposes of which include (drum roll please) observing the interaction between BURNING A NATIVE GRASS MEADOW with the introduction of mineral nutrients. This meadow, I am told by competent authorities, is perhaps the purest example of such a restoration on the entire North American Content. They were so blown away by it that I've been invited to publish for presentation before the California Native Plant Society Conservation Conference in San Diego this January.
So I'm so very glad to have you inform me; I'd have been lost without the depth of your experience.
Inaccessible Wilderness? Are there really houses I see being evacuated and/or hosed down in the California fires? Can’t be. My eyes are lying. The news people have it all wrong. Those areas are far too remote for human habitation.
At best your argument is specious. Are you really telling me that no forest fire management is better than some forest fire management?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.