Hands-off forest management goes up in smoke

Register Guard ^ | October 10, 2017 | Nick Smith

[Twotone]

Sam Krop’s characterization of catastrophic wildfire on public and privately owned forest lands (guest viewpoint, Oct. 4) doesn’t match the reality of what Oregon experienced this summer. But I can see why Cascadia Wildlands and other special interest groups oppose solutions such as the Resilient Federal Forests Act. These bills untie the hands of our federal land managers, and provide them with more tools and resources to restore the health of our public forests, before and after a fire.

Has “hands-off” forest management reduced the size and severity of forest fires?

Are we choking on less wildfire smoke every summer?

Do we have more access to our public lands, and fewer closures of hiking trails and campgrounds due to hazardous trees?

I don’t know anyone who is proposing to “gut” federal environmental protections and expedite “irresponsible” logging. Yet I do know activist groups have enjoyed a stranglehold over federal environmental policy for the past quarter century, and it’s time to review the results.

[McGavin999]

About time!

[Wuli]

I wonder if this sentiment applies to the fires in Northern California this seasons. Have northern California forests and rural areas been “under managed” as to preventing fires?

[Duckdog]

Some one had to pull some ones head out of their a$$. A million acres burned in just Montana this year alone!

[dsrtsage]

I wish nevada could sue california for totally destroying our air quality every summer due to their krap forest management. Some days we cant even see the sun

[who_would_fardels_bear]

My understanding (and I may be very wrong) is that whenever logging is discussed as a way to manage the forests, the loggers demand that it be clearcutting.

The claim is that culling trees selectively is too expensive and even dangerous. They also make claims of how wonderful clearcutting is for the land.

But this is a no go for the average voter so instead nothing gets done.

[arthurus]

The Indians used to maintain a hands on treatment of the forest in both Americas. They burnt the forest annually. That kept the woodlands largely clear of underbrush and promoted bison and other game animals. It was a different sort of animal husbandry from the modern variety. The first colonists reported that you could march an army through the forest.

1491 Review
get it

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Small forest fires are a natural part of the ecology.

Preventing all fires and allowing flammable biomass to accumulate to catastrophic proportions is not.

[BobL]

“I wonder if this sentiment applies to the fires in Northern California this seasons.”

OF COURSE. We know how to control them, at least to the extent that they don’t endanger lives or property. But for Al Gore types, they DEFINITELY want property destroyed (you can make you own call on lives)...and they’re getting it.

[Trumpet 1]

Clear cut and replant. The replanted area will serve as a fire brake during the 1st year because the new baby trees will be very small and will not be a usefull fuel source for a wild fire.

[Chode]

RATS say there a a million dead trees in ca, yet, they won't let them be logged...

[snowtigger]

Clearcutting is a good way to go, as long as the land is replanted with a mix of trees. Putting it back in a single species limits the species of wildlife which will live there. If the timber companies want clearcutting, then they will have to comply with regulations, just like everyone else.

[QBFimi]

>> activist groups have enjoyed a stranglehold over federal environmental policy for the past quarter century ...

I worked the fires several summers as a radio technician. Met a lot of interesting people. One was high up in the management of an unnamed western state out for his annual field work.

“What’s the solution?” I asked. His answer: “For millions of years, nature did just fine on her own. We’ve been screwing this up for well over 100 years. Stand out in front of Home Depot with a semi load of chain saws; give every swinging Dick with a pickup truck one and tell ‘em to go to it”. I thought he was joking; he wasn’t.

Google “the big blow up” - it’s about the Great Fire of 1910 in Montana and Idaho. Fascinating.

[LouAvul]

I've always contended that these three piece suit overseers of such environazi businesses were getting massive infusions of cash from mysterious donors. Then, when the forest dept was about to do something common sense with the secondary undergrowth, etc, the environazis would file nuisance lawsuits in federal courts, federal courts ruled by similarly radical left wing enemies of common sense.

We've been repeatedly beaten even before we started. I can't see any short term end to that. California's votes are majority commie/fag/all things liberal. And that demographic is, pardon the amateur analysis, clinically and totally insane.

And the elections they can't legitimately win, they will steal. Hence the crimigrants moonbeam brown is desperate to protect.

[Paladin2]

There are some pretty sophisticated tree cutting and trimming machines these days to allow thinning by taking lumber quality trees.

[Wonder Warthog]

"My understanding (and I may be very wrong) is that whenever logging is discussed as a way to manage the forests, the loggers demand that it be clearcutting.

And fires don't "clearcut"??? The only difference is loggers do it in a controlled way, and "Mother Nature"'s way is uncontrolled.

The big problem the eco-nuts have with logging isn't the clear cutting, it is the access roads that must necessarily be cleared. Once there are roads, even very very rough ones, horror above all horrors,.....PEOPLE might actually intrude into the area.

[Twotone]

Something I learned over the years about clear-cutting... One of the reasons it’s done is that the trees in a forest actually support each other in windy conditions. If you take out some trees, the remaining are prone to falling. It makes sense to just clear the area & then re-plant.

As a former resident of Oregon, I remember the media harping on clear-cutting & how ugly it was. They never explained why. Journalists are pretty useless these days, & have been for a while.

[Flag_This]

I spent some time in Colorado and northern California this summer. I could not believe the number of beetle-killed trees I saw. Thousands of dead and dry trees, waiting for a spark. They were everywhere and in many areas that looked to me to be totally inaccessible to anything less than a helicopter, so I don’t know how the threat can be cost-effectively removed.

[Parmy]

"Clearcutting is a good way to go, as long as the land is replanted with a mix of trees. Putting it back in a single species limits the species of wildlife which will live there. If the timber companies want clearcutting, then they will have to comply with regulations, just like everyone else."

In the sixties when I worked for the Forest Service while going to college, we planted mostly Douglas Fir in the clear cuts.

The reason why was because Douglas Fir is not a great competitor and need several years to establish themselves before other species that are more competitive crowd them out.

We also planted other species depending upon the environment and the lay of the land.

[Alberta's Child]

The threat will be removed when those ravaged forests burn. Pine beetles don’t do fire drills.