Enviros down in flames

WorldNetDaily ^ | June 23, 2003 | Barbara Simpson

[gaucho]

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Enviros down in flames

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Posted: June 23, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The inferno continues in Tucson as I write. It's one of at least eight wildfires in Arizona and the fire season's just beginning. With the heat, wind and drought, it'll be a long, hot, dangerous summer.

It also sets the scene for more battles between the Bush administration and environmentalists.

By the time you read this, who knows what this fire toll will be. Right now, there's zero containment of the fire at Mount Lemmon, 7,000 acres burned and no estimate for containment or control.

In other words, all bets are off with residents and firefighters at the mercy of 60-mph winds, parched brush, piles of dead wood and nature.

Residents of Summerhaven were evacuated shortly after the fire broke out last Tuesday and by Friday night, at least 250 homes had been destroyed with others threatened.

At the 6,000-foot level, Summerhaven has hundreds of vacation cabins as well as the homes of some 100 year-round families.

The area is wooded with ponderosa pines providing respite from Tucson's desert heat. It's beautiful country with spectacular views but with the beauty, there's also a constant, deadly threat – fire.

Fire was always a threat here. Western history is filled with terrifying descriptions of devastating prairie fires devouring everything in their paths. Forest and brushfires were no less destructive. Whether the blazes were deliberately set, an accident or just nature – think lightening – the damage to everything in their path, was stunning.

For humans – natives or settlers – fires were regular torments, destroying lives and livelihoods. For animals, it was a horrible and frightening end. There's never an accurate toll of wildlife lost in such blazes.

For nature, such fires are devastating, healing and nurturing.

Trees and underbrush are burned but it's not a death knell. Only dead wood is lost – healthy trees survive and become stronger. For some plants, the fire helps seeds to germinate and stimulates new, healthy growth.

In fact, wildfires are natures' way of "cleaning house," burning out the debris on the forest floor and allowing life to continue.

But nature's plan doesn't include people and people don't like fire. We don't want forests and fields to burn. We especially don't want homes, possessions and businesses turned to ashes. We don't want animals killed – any animals.

So we've spent the last 30-plus years "preventing forest fires." Overall we've done a pretty good job – for years, the number of fires decreased.

We've also – at the instigation of environmentalists – spent the last 30-years plus protecting the forests, putting thousands of acres under government control and making new laws and regulations to limit what can and can't be done with the trees and underbrush.

In fact, if enviros had their way, nothing would be done with the forests. They came closest to that during the Clinton administration, gaining passage of laws to support a roadless policy: no more roads in wilderness areas and eliminating use of existing roads whether fire roads or those used for recreation or logging. Don't build new ones and eliminate old ones.

Their ideal scenario is lots and lots of wild country untouched by humans; preferably, land not visited by humans at all.

Unfortunately idealistic dreams of virgin forests don't include common sense. "Preventing" fires meant clean up didn't happen; dead debris piled up. Then enviros decided we shouldn't clean up the forests at all. In other words, if insects killed trees, the dead wood was left untouched. If branches dropped, leave them there along with the needles and leaves that piled more than several feet thick.

As a result, when there are fires, they're so hot they'll actually kill live trees. What might have been a "normal" forest fire becomes an inferno beyond natures' intent.

That's what's facing the more than 1,000 firefighters on the line in Arizona. According to an Associated Press report, "The blaze consumed pine trees ravaged by years of drought and an infestation of tree-killing bark beetles." Thank the enviros for that.

If natural fires had been allowed to burn or if loggers had been allowed to haul out the insect-ridden trees before they died, this fire wouldn't have the enormous fuel it has.

Estimates are that hundreds of thousands of acres will burn before it's out.

Barely two weeks ago, the Bush administration reversed the roadless policy hoping to prevent scenarios like this.

Naturally, the enviros screamed foul. They don't care about people or even common sense. That's what makes them so dangerous.

The battle lines are drawn and the flames are high. Let's see who wins.

[gaucho]

So true - liberals destroying the environment once again.

[nwconservative]

environmental ping

[marsh2]

I went on a tour of a local forest this weekend. Government agency foresters, wildlife biologists and their private counterparts conducted the tour. We visited a stop where they had done a "prescription burn." This is where they first go in and mechanically thin, brush, and chip poorly growing trees and forest floor biomass BEFORE they burn. If they didn't, there is so much fuel buildup the fire would burn hot and kill trees and climb up ladder fuels to the crowns where it travels extremely quickly.

We also visited an LSR - late seral reserve (the Algomar LSR in McCloud.) It is supposed to be untouched "old growth" for critters like the spotted owl. An insect infestation had gotten into it and it looked like a game of giant pick-up sticks. Rather than a shaded thicked, it was completely open to sun with dead trees on the ground and scattered broken off standing trees. If (when) a fire goes through it, the fire will be hot and devastating.

Indeed, another LSR in a nearby forest - the Barkhouse, is ash and blackened sticks.

There is SO much management that needs to be done BEFORE fire can be reintroduced. The USFS budget is now being spent on fire fighting, rather than preventive management. The inclusion of some green trees halps to pay for the treatment.

I have seen them take a core sample this weekend from trees of different diameters. The spindly skinny ones were the same age as the big thick trunked ones. Thinning takes out these poor producers and removes them from competition for sun and water with the bigger ones. It makes a healthier, more fire resistent forest.

[Ronin]

but...but...but....

they have such GOOD intentions!!!!

*retch*

[goldstategop]

I like I said the enviro wackos are pagan worshippers. They may not care about people but they sure as heck despise natural beauty too.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.

[js1138]

Bring on the goats to eat the underbrush.

[blackie]

Protect Private Property Rights!

Stop the attacks on our Freedoms by the wacko, extreme left-wing, lunatic fringe, dirt worshipping Green Jihadist, enviro-nazis terrorist's and their toadies in the media!

Protect The Forest...Eradicate The Greenies!

Fighting Irresponsible Radical Environmentalism!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For!

[Carry_Okie]

An insect infestation had gotten into it and it looked like a game of giant pick-up sticks.

It's enough to make you sick, isn't it?

BTW, when the undergrowth gets too thick there's no way for a spotted owl to get to its prey.

[Carry_Okie]

Bring on the goats to eat the underbrush.

They don't do so well on dead pine twigs.

[countrydummy]

DATE: Friday, June 20, 2003
FROM: Action@landsense.us
SUBJECT: Healthy Forests Legislation in the U.S. Senate

Update on the looming battle ahead in the U.S. Senate over the Healthy Forests Restoration Act:

Next Thursday, June 26th, the Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a full-day hearing on the House passed version of The Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The hearing will feature a number of expert scientific witnesses and will be chaired by Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho. There will not be a vote at this hearing.

Sometime in mid-to-late July the full Agriculture Committee will vote on the legislation and send it to the full Senate. Due to the Senate's August recess, it is very likely this legislation will not go to the floor until after Labor Day.

Be ready to act.

Parts of the West are already on fire and we need to make sure we reinforce the potential resources at risk if nothing is done in the Senate.

In the coming weeks we'll need your help in making calls and sending e-mails to Senate offices. This will be a difficult battle and one that will get significant media play, especially with fires already burning. We will be asking that you contact your Senators and ask them to protect our nation's natural resources by supporting this important legislation.

Thanks for your continued help and support. Keep up the fight!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[AAABEST]

lol

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the ping.

Barbara Simpson, the Babe in the Bunker, is one of our best weapons re exposing the dangerous BS of the enviralists.

[clamper1797]

It is my opinion that the worst damage done to the environment is by the environmentalists.

[Carry_Okie]

Do they want this:

Or this:

Both photos were taken the same day. Both burned in the same fire. One of them is logged and grazed.

"Healthy Forests" will end up making healthy bureaucrats and lawyers. They don't even plan to keep up with the growth rate when the forests are overstocked already. It's too little, too late, and the wrong way to do things, but it's better for the forest than nothing.

That's not saying very much.

[headsonpikes]

"The battle lines are drawn and the flames are high. Let's see who wins."

I'm betting the fires bake the watermelons.

[BurbankKarl]

I was listening to a story in Socal...where public storage lockers in San Bernadino are sold out...a lot of people are emptying out their cabins and homes in Lake Arrowhead, Mt Baldy and Big Bear Lake, CA