Quote:
After loggers come through there is a big, denuded open field. A big, denuded open field is also what is left after a wildfire. Better to arrive at the big, denuded open field artificially, avoiding death and destruction while creating logging jobs--since the Douglas fir will be just as happy to grow in the big open field regards of whether nature's fire or people's saws cleared the land."
False! Fires only remove 10-20% of forest biomass, max. A clearcut is closer to 70-80%. They are taling about monocultured stands, which by their very nature are proving to be un-sustainable. The beauty of a fire and other natural distubances is that they leave substantial amounts of biological legacies which add to the structure and nutrient cycling of the ecosystem.
Dan- Firebreaks are great in theory but don't always work. There are many great examples of fires jumping fire breaks. Here is one, in Austrailia they built a 100 meter wide fuelbreak (no fuel, basically just gravel), a fire started, jumped the fuelbreak and burned something like 300 houses. It's not as simple as just cutting down and removing the fuel around your house.
IMO, we will never return to natural fire intervals. The public is simply intolerant of blackened forest, especially when it is in their backyard.
mtbaker- The USFS can't manage shit because everytime they try to do something it often is lawsuited, even if it is a good thing to do. Groups interested in zero resource extraction will stop at nothing to achieve their goals.
I'm not advocating clearcutting, but rather a holistic take on stand management. This means longer stand rotations, multi-storied, unevened aged stands. It all depends on what we want to manage for. Old-growth? Mature stands? Owls? Board feet? Mushrooms? Recreation?
