[HiJinx]

Dammit, man! Now my screen is all bleary!

I'm headed up to the rim country next month, a few miles west of the Rodeo-Chedeski devastation, to hunt elk.

I love our forests in Arizona, and the lanscape you've shown just tears my heart out.

Why did we let the Watermelons do this to us? </rhetoric>

[Carry_Okie]

The RICOnuts are afraid of logging. I hate to tell them that most of that timber was virtually worthless trash as timber, good only for pulp and fuel, certainly not lumber. Look at the aspect ratio of the tree in the last shot by comparison. When the trees have enough room the trunk develops some mass. The stuff that burned is scraggly overcrowded material that bolted for light. It's all set to blow up again, and if it does the fire may be even hotter.

The ground is an open growing medium set for weed infestation. There is no cover because they didn't seed it before the recent rains. They'll lose the nutrient and kill the streams with alkaline silt.

We are going from bad to worse.