Posted on 11/18/2018 6:11:12 AM PST by reaganaut1
FRENCH MEADOWS RESERVOIR, Calif.—Obscured amid the chaos of California’s latest wildfire outbreak is a striking sign of change that may help curtail future devastating infernos. After decades of butting heads, some environmentalists and logging supporters have largely come to agreement that forests need to be logged to be saved.
The current fires are hitting populated areas along the edges of forests and brush lands, including the 142,000-acre Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County. That now ranks as the most deadly and destructive in state history, killing at least 71 people, leaving hundreds missing and destroying more than 9,800 homes. The Camp Fire and the 98,400-acre Woolsey Fire in Southern California were fueled by fierce winds in unusually dry weather, which turned much of the state into a tinderbox.
Another dangerous factor, land-management experts say, is that forests have become overgrown with trees and underbrush due to a mix of human influences, including a past federal policy of putting out fires, rather than letting them burn. Washington has also sharply reduced logging under pressure from environmentalists.
Now, the unlikely coalition is pushing new programs to thin out forests and clear underbrush. In 2017, California joined with the U.S. Forest Service and other groups in creating the Tahoe-Central Sierra Initiative, which aims to thin millions of trees from about 2.4 million acres of forest—believed to be the largest such state-federal project in the country.
The current fires have trained a spotlight on the strategy: Parts of the forest burned in the Camp Fire in and around Paradise, for example, were overgrown with small, young trees, according to a 2017 forest health plan by the Butte County Fire Safe Council, which had planned to thin a thousand acres of land there over the next decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
A liberal can witness an abortion with indifference but will become emotionally distraught watching a tree being cut.
ping
“a thousand acres of land there over the next decade.”
A thousand over a decade. WOW! Thats really hot logging!
Should take a good crew about a year. That 4 men-a longwood operation.
And I dont care how steep the hills are.
If you live near a body of water, at some point, you will be flooded. If you live near or in an old growth forest, you will be burned. It’s that simple.
Gee Wally, if they cut the forest down, how will it burn?
Real smart policy move, libs, really, really, smart.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia about the fires.
“2018 is the most destructive wildfire season on record in California, with a total of 7,579 fires burning an area of 1,667,855 acres, the largest amount of burned acreage recorded in a fire season”
The people of California are fretting over cutting a 1000 acres of trees that can be put to good use meanwhile they let 1.6 million acres burn. This makes no sense. I am so glad I turned down a job offer there earlier in my career. That place is just too bizarre for me and I live in NY.
Logging to what end? Who is going to buy all those logs??
Every few years California has devastating fires, for decades people have been telling them they’ve got to thin their forests and clear the underbrush to keep those fires from turning into disasters, and only when scores of people have died and hundreds of homes have been consumed that those responsible for forest policy develop the sense to tell the Sierra Club and other enviro loons to butt out.
They really need to “thin out” a lot of forests in California, because otherwise (even in a non-drought year!) they become tinderboxes for a forest fire.
Bkmrk
Especially now with the Camp Fire, where over 1,000 people are still unaccounted for. We may have a death toll of over 1,000 dead, the worst since the Peshtigo Fire that may have killed well in excess of 1,200 people.
It makes perfect sense to a California Democrat. A thriving logging industry provides jobs to people who are more likely to vote Republican.
Good move.
I want you to know that it was getting to be as nuts as it is now when I lived there in ‘80 to ‘81.
They have been that way for so long I am not sure that it is even possible for them to really change.
Right ... 1000 acres is a small operation and a drop in the bucket - but it will sound huge to Joe public. A political sop. Sierra Club, Audubon, Pew, Ford, and other lefty trusts will not allow any real changes in policy or practice in logging; the trees are sacred and soak up that life threatening carbon stuff whatever they call it ...
With environmentalists, they say it is all about saving animals, birds and rodents, how many have died in this fire? How many eagles, spotted owl and their nests burned up in the fire? Massive animals, many endangered, have perished in the fires, their habitat destroyed, by the very policies the left supported. They need to be accountable, NOW!
We live on timber property in Oregon, we harvested our trees two years ago, the fear of losing them to drought or fire was too real. We now have 8,500 baby Douglas fir trees growing where we logged doing fine, with no danger of lack of water or fire. Most are already 4' and 5' tall!
That's what I was thinking too.
I live in an old growth forest. We all know it could go up in a minute. We work constantly to clean out the dead wood.
All the Logging companies have already been ran out of the State thanks to the Actions of Environmental Groups such as The Sierra Club and Greenpeace with the help of their friends in the State Legislature and the Courts.
EVERY TIMBER COMPANY SHOULD TELL THEM TO GO POUND SAND,
GET THE SIERRA CLUB TO DO IT FOR YOU!!!
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