[J_Sheridan]

Ohhh you saw it also?

[Destructor]

"The federal government has so grossly mismanaged the national forests by permitting them to be overgrown and clogged with tinder that it's like we're sitting on a keg of gasoline - one that covers many hundreds of square miles."

All of the mismanagement happened on President Clinton's watch! Under Clinton the government engaged in one of the biggest land grabs in U.S. History. The result was too much Federal land, and not enough employees to manage it all.

[brityank]

Today one of our local firemen told me that the condition of the forests a hundred years ago was healthy - big trees didn't burn, and there were many many fewer trees per acre - fire thinned out the underbrush but didn't incinerate the total forest as it is doing today, and will probably do for weeks to come. The fires are burning so hot that they are burning everything, so hot that they are turning the ground to a glaze, through which water cannot penetrate - setting the stage for massive floods when we finally get rain.

If anyone has any doubts as to why the idiotic watermelon policies of the Federal Government are so destructive, reread this.

Here is some more reading for deep background (click pic):

The wildfires that have ravaged the West in recent years have focused national attention on the condition of our forests. Why are they so susceptible to severe fires? And how can we prevent catastrophe? In Forests on the Sierra Nevada, George Gruell examines these treasured woodlands through repeat photography: rephotographing sites depicted in historical photographs to compare past vegetation--its distribution and condition--to present. The paired black-and-white photographs document natural and human-wrought changes in the Sierran ecosystem during the past 150 years--from the varied and generally open-canopy habitats of early European-American settlement days to the dense, declining forests of today.

Gruell's comparisons show just how much damage that the misguided policies the ecoterrorists have wrought in the past few decades. The 'roadless initiatives' will create more conflagrations that they will use to keep human activities out of the forests and stuff us all into 'sustainable communities'.

[KirklandJunction]

With all due respect to the author's OneNoteSamba, the Rodeo fire is now declared arson.

The fire over near Heber was also arson.....someone got lost and started a signal fire!

Sadly, between those two and that Barton in Colorado, the tinhat vigilantes are mumbling about patrolling the forests on their own, with a walkytalky as their second weapon.

Real good time to vacation in Florida.

[MissAmericanPie]

It's very hard to tell if it is government mismanagement of forests or part of the United Nations plan to run people out of areas and return the "resources" to the wild. No depth of corruption is above either entity.

Either way, the fed is getting what it wants, what happens to these inhabitants is of no consequence to them.

[Boonie Rat]

We shall therefore take over these lands and manage them ourselves by appointing local management to so do.

I don't forsee this ever happening. The reason: The fedgov will tell the states: We won't send you back 30% of the funds we steal from you to do your road repairs with and the states will kowtow, drop their pants, and smile. The states don't ever realize at this day in age that they, as creators of the federal government, dictate the rules!

Boonie Rat

MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66

[KirklandJunction]

More bad news:

1. Due to the last four/five years of below average rain, the average humidity of living Ponderosal Pine in n.e. Arizona is below ten percent. Consumer lumber in retail stores is around nineteen percent.

2. More wind today.

[Ben Ficklin]

The Big Burn of 1910

[glory]

THis is such a damn shame! We just moved from Arizona 6 mos. ago and this area is such beautiful country. We used to camp in the area quite regularly before we had children. It's sad to know it's being scorched and that possibly better managment may have contained the flames.

[lodwick]

bttt

[Valin]

The federal government has so grossly mismanaged the national forests by permitting them to be overgrown and clogged with tinder that it's like we're sitting on a keg of gasoline - one that covers many hundreds of square miles.

So good to see my tax dollars aren't being wasted.