Posted on 07/30/2016 2:05:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
First the Obama EPA came for coal mines, coal-fired power plants, miners, workers, investors, and all who depend on reliable, affordable electricity. Then the EPA, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and other agencies came after oil and gas drilling and fracking, and the workers, industries and families that need petroleum. Theyre also targeting farming, ranching, airlines and manufacturing.
Its all to stop dangerous manmade climate change, rising seas, warmer and colder weather, wetter and drier seasons, and other unprecedented calamities. Now the Feds want us to believe worsening forest fires threaten communities, wildlife and wildlife habitats because we continue to use fossil fuels.
Thousands of fires have already burned millions of acres, amid yet another dangerous and costly fire season. It happens every year, and has for centuries. But now, the Department of the Interior misinforms us, climate change is making it worse. Wildfire seasons are now hotter, drier and longer than in the past. Sure they are. Wanna buy a cool bridge?
I lived out West for a decade, back in the 1970s, and saw wildfires and dozens of burned-over forests. I hiked, camped and skied during extra wet and ultra dry years. During a flight from Denver to Seattle, I watched multiple fires rage across tens of thousands of acres in four states.
Im in Whitefish, Montana this week, where hundreds of trees are just a few inches in diameter, packed in clusters of a half dozen or more, inches from one another perfect kindling for vicious wildfires. Over time, most will get crowded out and die, leaving just a few hardy specimens to grow into hefty 50-100 foot beauties assuming they are not engulfed in a super-heated inferno first.
Vase stands of densely packed, water- and nutrient-starved trees skinny matchsticks waiting for a spark are far too common in our western states, because land mis-managers refuse to thin the trees.
The resulting fires are not the forest-rejuvenating blazes of environmentalist lore. They are cauldron-hot conflagrations that exterminate wildlife habitats, roast bald eagle and spotted owl fledglings alive in their nests, boil away trout and trout streams, leave surviving animals to starve, and incinerate every living organism in already thin soils that then get washed away during future downpours and snowmelts. Areas incinerated by such fires dont recover their arboreal biodiversity for decades.
Homes in and near the forests become ashes, chimneys and memories. Residents die in their homes or trying to flee the infernos. Smoke jumpers and other firefighters perish trying to extinguish them.
The fires can certainly be farworse in drought years. But droughts are nothing new, either. We all recall the seven-year drought that brought Joseph to prominence in pharaohs Egypt, and the eight-year-long Dust Bowl during the 1930s. Historians describe a 50-year water famine that drove Anasazis out of the American Southwest, the 200-year drought that ended Mayan civilization, and other parched periods in China, Africa, Mesopotamia and other regions.
In short, whatever hotter, drier, longer forest fires we are witnessing today have nothing to do with dangerous manmade climate change. They have a lot to do with idiotic forestmismanagement policies and practices.
Far too many environmentalists, bureaucrats, politicians and judges would rather let forests burn, than let anyone selectively cut timber, thin out overgrown trees or even let loggers harvest usable timber left from beetle kills, devastating fires or volcanic explosions like Mount St. Helens. (Do you suppose theyd alter their policies if loggers promised to use chain saws powered by little wind turbines or solar panels?)
Eco-purists want no cutting, no thinning no using fire retardants in sensitive areas because the chemicals might get into streams that will be boiled away by conflagrations. They prevent homeowners from clearing brush around their homes, because it might provide cover or habitat for endangered species and other critters that will get incinerated or lose their forage, prey and habitats in the next blaze. They rarely alter their policies during drought years.
The Obama Administration spends billions of dollars annually on manmade global warming research, billions more on renewable energy boondoggles for crony corporatist campaign contributors, billions more to convert more private land to federal control. But it never seems to have enough money for expanded or modernized fire control.
Meanwhile, the Administration is gearing up to plant thousands of wind turbines across these areas, to slice and dice whatever raptors and other birds arent obliterated by fires.
In line with environmentalist ideology and Democratic Party ideals, its also expanding efforts to eliminate the last vestiges of drilling, mining, timber harvesting, ranching, farming and property inholdings (private lands grandfathered within subsequently designated parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas) on government-controlled lands in Americas western states and Alaska. (Many call it cultural cleansing, to create private recreational domains for rich and famous liberals.)
The Feds haveguidelinesthat say fires in certain areas can be extinguished if they are of human origin (arson or untended campfires, eg) but must be allowed to burn if they are natural (caused by lightning, for example). One must take it on faith that anyone could make that distinction in the midst of an inferno, and hope that small fires wont become raging infernos. They even havejurisdictional policiesthat prevent aircraft from dropping water on a fire, if the crew cannot tell whether the blaze is on Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service land.
A relatively new product calledFireIcesmothers fires, by taking heat and oxygen away from combustible materials. Dropped directly onto a fire from airplanes, it penetrates through smoke, fire and treetops down to burning trees and brush. It can also be carried to blazes in standard fire and tanker trucks, or blended on location using dry FireIce powder and on-site water. Homeowners can brew up their own batches, using the dry chemical and water, and use the concoction to coat their houses, shrubs and other property protecting them against onrushing flames.
Unfortunately, state and federal officials have employed this highly effective fire killer only sporadically. The results are predictable, as recounted above.
The Justice Department has prosecuted farmers and ranchers for trying to protect their property from current or potential fires, by starting controlled burns or backfires that got out of control and burned a few hundred acres of US forest. But when intentional Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service fires in Oregon or South Dakota got out of control and burned thousands of acres of US and private forestland, forage and livestock, no repercussions, prosecutions or compensation were forthcoming.
As to the Interior Departments convenient claim that todays forest fires are due to US emissions and climate change, lets not forget that rapidly developing countries are emitting increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and methane every year way beyond what the USA can possibly eliminate and there is still no Real World evidence that humans have replaced natural forces in climate change.
Its time to give Americas forest management and fire control policies a thorough review and revision, before we lose more habitats, wildlife, homes and human lives.
“Time to do away with the alphabet agencies and Federal ownership of lands.These are State issues.”
Couldn’t agree more.
Goes for law enforcement, too.
The photo above is a guy?
Or another gay, lesbian member of the democrat party with a chip on their shoulder?
Because the feds won't allow it. I have seen thousands of acres of state or federal forest land in Oregon timber country that have been burned decades ago, and all there is left is weeds and burnt trees, deceased and dying.
The fed policy is no cutting of salvage able trees after a forest fire, because then loggers will burn all the forest so they can harvest the trees. No replanting after a burn either, it needs to be natural.
The number one growing area of Douglas fir trees in the world, southern Oregon and feds and state will not allow harvest of this wonderful natural resource. So us private timber holders are, cut about 25 acres of my timber this year, netted over $175,000. We are going to burn the slash piles this fall, spray roundup on the entire acreage to kill grasses and then plant thousands of new baby trees. Should be ready to harvest in 30 years, our children can do it!
To try and convince the tree huggers that the timber does so much better managed, doug fir are not Sequioa redwoods, they are a production tree that has a life span of about 80-100 years and then it begins to rot inside. Seen plenty of one log and three log loads, rotting inside.
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