Posted on 11/10/2018 7:04:47 PM PST by NoLibZone
Scientists at the cutting edge of ecological research, Dr. Hanson among them, argue that the century-old American practice of suppressing wildfires has been nothing less than a calamity. They are calling for a new approach that basically involves letting backcountry fires burn across millions of acres.
In principle, the federal government accepted a version of this argument years ago, but in practice, fires are still routinely stamped out across much of the country. To the biologists, that has imperiled the plants and animals — hundreds of them, it turns out — that prefer to live in recently burned forests.
“From an ecological standpoint, everything I’ve learned teaches me this is a good idea: Stop putting out fires,” said Jennifer R. Marlon, a geographer at Yale who was among the first to use the term “fire deficit” to describe the situation. “These forests are made to have fire.”
Efforts to suppress fires began in the 19th century, largely motivated by the view that forests should be seen as standing timber with economic value. By the 1930s, industrial-scale techniques allowed firefighting agencies, including the United States Forest Service, to suppress fires across the landscape.
A handful of scientists began arguing decades ago that this was a mistake. Over the past decade or so, the research has crystallized into a new understanding of the role of fire in forests.
Scientists who want to let more fires burn take pains to make clear that they do not mean to put people’s lives on the line. In fact, they believe the government could make people safer than they are today if it redirected funds into community fire-safety projects.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Meanwhile, there are no public health, economic or philosophical arguments supporting the silly idea of “let it burn.”
I’m just tired of subsidizing others’ lifestyles. You want to enjoy the beautiful weather, seaview, woods, whatever? You pay to take care of it and take the loss when it goes sour. Keep your hands out of my pocket.
The public health aspect alone completely demolishes the nonsensical assertions of the “let it burn” crowd.
I don’t really don’t think this is a political spectrum issue... Given that in both CO and CA, the vast majority of the affluent that move into the mtns are liberals. They just aren’t willing to do what is necessary to maintain their property or the larger forests to reduce the overall damage of inevitable fires.
USFS is supposed to manage the forests, working with the timber industry.
Go back and watch what Trump’s Secretary of Interior said about this. He stated strongly that we need to manage the forests better, and they’re doing it.
I don’t think scientists and forest managers are talking about allowing areas that are inhabited to burn. At least I hope not. But, I think they are suggesting areas where people do not live or work should be allowed to burn naturally to remove all the built up brush and immature trees and make the forest a lot stronger and help reduce the frequency and strength of the fires.
I don’t think this strategy can happen in places such as Los Angeles but other areas are already doing this.
Not all forests are national.
I should make my point more clear.
We need to manage the forests by physically removing all the built up brush and immature trees, thereby making the forest a lot stronger and helping reduce the frequency and strength of the fires.
Where fires occur, we need to put them out.
No kidding?
They don’t have to be national for us to manage them.
I don’t think you have read anything I have posted. It seems you are correcting me for saying these exact things.
It never makes sense to let fires burn unless lives are in danger or it’s a controlled burn.
So, you didn’t read what I wrote and/or have no comprehension skills. Thank you for confirming that.
I read what you wrote. You’re wrong, that’s all.
Somehow, who knows how, you’ve bought into the progressivist propaganda that we shouldn’t put out forest fires.
You did not read what I wrote if that is what you got. First.
Second, I truly doubt you are conservative, because conservatives have an embedded culture of personal responsibility.
And, I know this may come as a surprise to you, but forests in the North American continent existed before humans were here. And so did thunderstorms that produce lightening, which caused... wait for it... forest fires. Guess those were left to burn themselves out.
Conservatives have this embedded culture of personality as you say. But they have something else more fundamental—doing what works.
Letting fires burn doesn’t work.
When you observe something from a distance, as you’ve done in studying conservatism, you should go ahead and learn it completely.
The stupid part of Alinsky was probably his most significant. He never understood that the practice of lying will inevitably defeat its practitioner.
When it happens is not very relevant. Truth is not subject to time.
What good does stopping a forest fire do in rugged areas other than risk fire fighter’s live?
Since you are smarter than God who set all of this in motion and created trees that require fire to germinate.
Bringing God into it will not work for the progressive arguments, because they have rejected him.
It’s not possible to be smarter than God. To be sure of God’s will, we read the Bible. In Genesis 2:
15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
All inhabited areas are susceptible to smoke from forest fires.
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