US Forest Service fakes Sierra photos

[mr_gyptian]

Anyone been to Yellowstone lately???

this is from Gregg Easterbrook's weblog...EASTERBLOGG


NATURE'S REVENGE ON THE CALIFORNIA RECALL: Why is Southern California burning? Because it's supposed to, as far as nature is concerned, at least.

Before people began interfering with forests in the arid Western United States by "managing" them--and research shows that indigenous Americans were engaged in significant forest management long before Europeans arrived--a natural cycle of forest fire and regrowth was standard. Douglas fir, the grand tree of the Pacific Northwest, has been specialized by evolution to rise rapidly in open fields where there is no shade. A tree can't spring up in an open field naturally unless nature has just cleared the field, by fire. (Most tree species of the humid Eastern United States are "shade-tolerant" and evolved to grow slowly amidst other trees, because forest-leveling fires are rare east of the Mississippi.) California's lodgepole pine makes cones sealed in hard resin. Toss a lodgepole pinecone on the ground and nothing will ever happen. Toss one of the cones into a fire, however, and heat melts the resin, releasing seeds. Natural selection conditioned this tree's seeds to survive wildfires and then repopulate the forest.

When men and women settled the American West in large numbers in the nineteenth century, they began fighting wildfires. One result was that forests became denser, because the periodic minor conflagrations that occurred naturally in the West, removing brush and tinder ("fuel," to foresters) stopped occurring. When Lewis and Clark and others of the period arrived at West Coast forests in the nineteenth century, they described open woodlands through which anyone could easily stroll. Today, most forest areas of the West are so thick you can't go off-trail without a machete. Periodic small fires no longer take out underbrush and "understory," the medium-sized vegetation that dies, dries, and provides fuel to heat trees to the temperature at which they burn. Stopping periodic small Western forest fires allows fuel to accumulate, increasing the chance of an eventual fierce, uncontrollable fire that heats trees to the flame point across a large area. Stopping periodic small fires, and thus allowing the woods to grow dense, also means the condition people think of today as "natural" for Western forests--thick growth and lots of very old trees--is in most cases artificial.

About 25 years ago environmentalists, preservationists, and others began to argue against most active management of forests and other public lands. Nature should be left to its own devices, they maintained: including the ending of deliberate "thinning" of forests to reduce fuel, and the resumption of natural fire cycles. Managers of Yellowstone National Park adopted a let-it-burn philosophy and the result did not take long to arrive, in the form of the catastrophic Yellowstone fire of 1988. As far as nature is concerned, Yellowstone is already fine again--forest regrowth was spectacular and rapid, since natural selection conditioned the species of Yellowstone for regrowth in the wake of fire. The "real" property (buildings) destroyed in 1988, on the other hand, did not regrow. The money spent rebuilding them could have been used on something else. Health care, say.

Because standard assumptions about forests and other public lands have in the last 25 years trended toward disdain for active management, especially toward disdain for fire management, the time-line of wildfires shows they were common in the nineteenth century; declined in the first three-quarters of the twentieth century; and have been on the rise again since. Here is the National Interagency Fire Center's chart of "historically significant wildfires". Nineteen of the 32 historically significant wildfires have happened since the year 1980.

Although environmentalist sentiment is behind the fad for disdaining forest management, it's important to bear in mind that Sierra Club lawsuits and similar things are not, of themselves, to blame for the recent surge in wildfires--a charge sometimes heard from the Tom DeLays of the world. Fire cycles are natural; no form of woodland management could prevent all fires. In addition, people's voluntary choices have, over the last generation, increased the likelihood of wildfires, and the likelihood they will do significant property harm. Recent decades have seen construction of millions of homes too close to forested or brushland areas (sometimes, of course, spectacular vacation homes built by people who consider themselves environmentalists), putting men and women increasingly into the natural paths of wildfires. Also, building expensive homes in places that might burn increases the property-loss consequence of wildfires. The Sierra Club is not to blame for the fact that affluent Americans want fancy homes with spectacular views.

But the disdain for (and, in recent years, sometimes legal banning of) human "management" of the woods plays a role in the rising of dangerous wildfires. Time to drop the illusion that everything can be natural in a society of 285 million citizens. People are here and we're not going to go away; people and forests and brushlands are in closer contact all the time; this leaves us little choice but to return to some version of managing lands to exert power over natural fire.

"Thinning" must be practiced in many forests--enviros don't like it, but the main effect of thinning is to restore, mechanically, the pre-European open-forest condition. Environmental restrictions on some lands must be eased. Many "scrub" lands in southern California have for about 20 years been off-limits to anything much beyond game wardens on foot, owing to lawsuits involving the California gnatcatcher; the result is buildup of scrub land undergrowth, which has now dried and caught fire. What foresters call "defensible areas"--the boundaries between housing developments and forest, the sorts of places lighting up in the current California fires--must especially be managed to prevent wildfires. There's no pure-ecologist theory that can describe any of this. What's needed now are pragmatic steps to manage wooded areas so they don't erupt into uncontrollable flames.

Note that, since it is fashionable to deride George W. Bush's environmental policies, the president's "healthy forest" initiative, unveiled months ago, contains many provisions aimed at exactly the sort of pragmatic management that would reduce wildfires. The "healthy forest" bill was blocked in the Senate by Democrats and enviro lobbyists, who expressed horror at the thought of artificial intervention in the forest. Wednesday, as San Diego burned, the Senate passed the legislation 97-1. Bush's plan is far from perfect, but will move forest management back toward realism.

And, yes, the Bush plan will lead to some increased logging. 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.

[lemon boy]

Summit-

You're argument is somewhat of a perversion of the "facts."

1. In the US we have only had about 50-60 years of "effective" fire fighting (coinsides with the mechanization of the country), even then we don't have as much control as you're implying.
2. The fire return rate (rate between "natural fires") ranges from a couple of years (CA chapparall) [2a] to several hundred years (most of the old growth forests and the big stands of timber as in CO, OR, WA, MT) [2b].

So it depends on how you combine these two things for what kind of answer you get for policy making purposes. You've coupled 1 and 2a, if I couple 1 and 2b then it is just as true to say that humans have had almost no effect on the fire cycle in the nations forests. Pretty neat huh?

The shorter the fire return cycle is in an an area the greater our impact has been and the converse is true with long cycle forests. Some forests do benefit a great deal from thinning projects and others benefit very little. Guess which kind of forest the money is in....

Of course the "danger" is there for both but the 2a combo is the one with the most danger, caused by us humans. As the urban/forest interface grows larger and deeper this will start to become a bigger problem. The unfortunate complication is that most of the lands that would give the most thinning benefit are those least likely to actually get logged. Even here in CO, the front range is a perfect example. So much of that land is private and the people living there want to live in a FOREST, not a clear cut so they oppose logging (NIMBY) but outside forces push for logging of public lands that are adjacent to the private danger lands, yielding no real benefit to the residents or the forest.

The value of a forest is much more than its combined board feet. And yes, I'd rather see some burn than get logged (btw- logging takes nutrients locked in the trees OUT of the forest). I am also not against logging, I just want to see it done right.

Telenater sent me this link a while ago, great read:
http://geography.uoregon.edu/whitloc.../Floydetal.pdf

BURN BABY BURN

[L7]

You should try living in a national park with a Canadian gov't bureaucracy doing the spin doctoring. Whether it's grizzly protecition, ski hill development, mountain bike trails, wolves, elk (non native), snails, or convention centres they will make a decision based on whatever criteria and then do surveys and environmental studies slanted towards justifying their decisions. On one hand if you think about it too much you would go crazy on the other hand a pipe bomb at a policy board meeting seems like it could clear a lot of useless burearcrats.

[grrrr]

Originally posted by Dantheman
So require fire breaks around homes in wooded areas and let them burn.

It is actually more complex than that, but essentially, you are on the right track. We are heavily invested right now in a program that teaches homeowners how to manage their own property for fire safety and ecosystem maintenance.

As I said before, If you live in a fire ecosystem, you are responsible for your own home.

Fire is generally less expensive than mechanical thinning, but there still is a cost, and it is a cost we as a society have not shown ourselves capable of paying. It requires several things: an educated populace, personal responsibility, tolorence for smoke and flames, and a willingness to adequately fund prescribed fire management.

Hell, we can't even fund reactive fire management adequately, how the heck will we ever buck up to do the rest of those things.

[Dantheman]

Originally posted by grrrr

Hell, we can't even fund reactive fire management adequately, how the heck will we ever buck up to do the rest of those things.

Isn't reactive fire mangement (i.e. putting out fires as soon as possible after they start and thus letting fuels unnaturally accumulate) basically the root of the problem?

And mr. gyptian, using fires in Southern California chapparall to justify thinning in conifer forests is ludicris. Those two ecosystems are in no way comparable.

[The AD]

That Easterbrook piece doesn't mention at all one of the other big problems: lots of second-growth forests. These previously logged areas seem to be one of the big culprits for dense growth. Contrary to what he says ("the condition people think of today as 'natural' for Western forests--thick growth and lots of very old trees") the old growth forests I've seen DON'T seem to have thick growth. There are fairly widely spaced, large trees without much growing under them.

It seems to me more clearcuts isn't going to solve this problem. If anything it will make it worse down the road.

[grrrr]

The idea that the "10 am policy" is the root of the problem is an oversimplification. In addition to fire suppression, there is climatic change, ecotype regression and special invasion.

Further, simply dropping a suppression policy without regard to the current status of our wildlands would be disastrous, not only to homes, but also to the wildlands. For example, here, we are slowly trying to combat fir-pine invasion into oak savannah. The former grasslands are now dense reprod lodgepole and fir. Fires would be stand-replacing events, and would severley damage even the fire-resistant species, such as the Garry oak or the local endangered prickly pear.

It would takes years, perhaps even decades, to reach the point of being able to step back from suppression entirely.

[Viva]

Originally posted by The AD
That Easterbrook piece doesn't mention at all one of the other big problems: lots of second-growth forests. These previously logged areas seem to be one of the big culprits for dense growth. Contrary to what he says ("the condition people think of today as 'natural' for Western forests--thick growth and lots of very old trees") the old growth forests I've seen DON'T seem to have thick growth. There are fairly widely spaced, large trees without much growing under them.

It seems to me more clearcuts isn't going to solve this problem. If anything it will make it worse down the road.

DING, DING, DING!!!!

[Viva]

Originally posted by grrrr
...and special invasion.

Great, now we're talking about Iraq again?

[summit]

yes fire is cheaper... but not so easy... when a forest is primed to blow up and burn out of control, thinning is usually the easiest and safest way to go

controlled burns are really hard... you have to have *just* the right temp, humidity, wind direction, available personel, etc etc etc

they have been wanting to do a control burn here on Swan Mountain... but for SIX YEARS they have failed to have appropriate conditions for a safe controlled burn...

connifer forests are competely different yes... but they are mostly much the same in that they too have massive amounts of available fuel... dangerous amounts.

i dont think the healthy forests initiative calls for clear cutting... does it?
clear cutting wouldn't solve the problem so much... its supposed to call for thinning, removal of sick/dead trees, and removal of fuel i thought

[grrrr]

AD - Again, it is a complex issue. In the case of Coastal Fir-Cedar-Hemlock, then logging does in fact dramatically increase the fire danger. In those forests, the fire return interval drops from 300-500 year to 30-50 year. (BTW, some models are showing significant likelihood of fires in this forest type this season. If that occurs, then watch out. They are the largest and deadliest fires.)

"Thinning" and "clearcutting" are two separate animals. In the case of ponderosa, thinning dramatically reduces fire danger, while clearcutting increases it. One issue with that is that thinning generally costs more than can be recovered by the product removed.

[The AD]

Originally posted by SummitCo 1776
i dont think the healthy forests initiative calls for clear cutting... does it?
clear cutting wouldn't solve the problem so much... its supposed to call for thinning, removal of sick/dead trees, and removal of fuel i thought

I'm not sure. It was my understanding that it calls for thinning--like you said. I was responding to this from the Easterbrook article: "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."

[grrrr]

Originally posted by SummitCo 1776
i dont think the healthy forests initiative calls for clear cutting... does it?
clear cutting wouldn't solve the problem so much... its supposed to call for thinning, removal of sick/dead trees, and removal of fuel i thought

One major problem with the HFI is that it removes environmental review from small scale logging projects - regardless of whether the project is actually a fuel reduction project or a logging project. So, yes, they can now clear cut on Forests with much less red tape. It was a bone the Bush administration threw in to his logging supporters

[Buzzworthy]

Originally posted by Dantheman
If forests need to be logged and managed to be healthy, why did they grow so well before we came along?

And we know they were healthy how before we came along? If I would have paid a bit more attention in college I could tell you the state of our forests at that time. Although I did get my BSF in Natural Resouces Management in the College of Forestry does not mean I was paying attention the whole time, so I am by no means an expert. I now wish I did.

I get the point you are trying to get across, but the fact is, NOW more than ever our forests need managed, for a variety of reasons. Healthy forests do not just mean that the trees are standing up, there is disease, insects, excess fuel, growth percentage, how you "manage" the forest, cuts (sustainable yield or thinning or selective thinning)........

Fire season alone is enough to tell you the state of health our forests are in. Some fires are meant to be, a natural process, but not to the extent they run these days. But that is a whole nother story and Char and Shera would be way more knowledgeable on this subject.

Management is needed.

[mtbakerskier]

Fuck the Forest service, there just a bunch of buercratic dipshits, and cant effectivly manage shit.

[char]

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?

[Blurred Elevens]

Thanks a lot you guys.

Instead of SummitCo172833848 picking up a snowmobile trailer and dropping off slide film he's been asked to do for a month, he wasted yet another day arguing about shit on the internet with people he's never met. Please ignore him and remind him of these two things in REAL LIFE that he needs to get off his ass and do. Thanks for your participation in the SummitCo1235823485 intervention plan. Many Colorado crew maggots appreciate your cooperation.

[Arty50]

Just in case some of you haven't read this it relates to this somewhat:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm