National Forest - Bush road building misinformation?

[wacki]

Look last year the US spent $ 1,326,138,000 dollars fighting forest fires. That's fire suppression, not prevention.

In 2002 it was $ 1,661,314,000 and 5,260,825 acres burnt.
http://www.nifc.gov/stats/wildlandfirestats.html

1.6 billion dollars and 5.2 million acres.


Last year:
13 major fires in Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties in California covering 800,000 acres (3237 km²), killing 24, displacing 120,000 and destroying 3,600 homes in October 2003. Damage estimated at 2 billion USD.

That means forest fires cost the US atleast 3.6 billion dollars last year.

It's a problem that can't be ignored. And the current problem isn't a natural one. The natural fire dynamics of the wilderness is offbalance in large areas of the national forests do to poor management policies in the past.

Next time you post, please include links/facts, because your not helping anyone. This is a very complex situation. In some areas you can do controlled burns. In some areas you need dirt roads to serve as fire breaks even if they are many many miles apart. All I'm saying is maybe we should listen to the experts. If the experts say no to loggers, then we should say no to loggers/roads. If the experts say they are needed, bring them in.

I suggest you read:
http://jfsp.nifc.gov/link2.htm

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
I spent 2 wks in 1988 fighting fire in Yellowstone. The fire was only extinguished when the snows of fall came. The roads in the park provided very little help. If you do some research you'll see that roads and logging are of little help in stopping fires. Some of the hottest fires burn in logged areas because the biggest most fire resistant trees are the ones that are removed.

Roads create their own set of problems, such as increased sedimentation.

I realize that fire suppression for decades has created a set of conditions that are not normal. Also the drought the west is experiencing exacerbates these conditions. I believe what the fire ecologists have to say even though they are drowned out by the loggers and politicians. Logging/thinning is not the answere.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have any links? I'm not questioning what you say, it's just that the NIFC website doesn't seem to have alot of information when it comes to "the good, the bad, the ugly" of it all. The website isn't very helpful. What you say about removing the biggest of trees makes sense. When I need information about biology/chemistry/medicine I goto PubMed, NIH, or NCBI. Is there a good source of information for papers/reviews published by fire ecologists?

I have done research, that much should be obvious. I need someone like you to help point me in the right direction though.

Also what kind of sedimentation is being caused by roads?

At the NIFC website the links to papers like:
"Wildland Fuels Management: Evaluating and Planning Risks and Benefits"

and

"A Risk Based Comparison of Potential Fuel Treatment Tradeoff Models"

All seem to be dead. It's very frustrating. Please keep in mind, I only meant that we should follow the experts advice. All I've really said is that if the experts say they need roads/logging then road/log. If they say control burn, then control burn. It's a totally different. I want to get to the heart of it all and find out what the experts are saying. If letting the loggers in is wrong, then I want to know. If you looked at the first two links I've posted, it looks like there are people saying roads/bulldozers are a good thing. Your comments are making me think twice. It's getting hard to know what is real and what isn't on this subject.


Do you know who the leading fire ecologists are?

[Ed I]

www.ems.org/wildfires/ecology.html

www.firelab.org

www.fisheries.org

I don't know much about doing searches and I'm lazy to boot. I hope these sites will be of some use.

[Cyrus]

What are you re-posting that for?

I already conceded that Bill Clinton, by forbidding road building, mining, or drilling in federal forestland, was acting as the ENEMY of the environment. While George W Bush, by rescinding Clinton's order, shows he is the FRIEND of the forests and the environment.

You convinced me already! What more do you want? Kill me?!

..Oh, my aching, aching sides.

[WDC]

That reminds me of the cops in San Fran. I think. that shot a guy to stop him from committing suicide.

[cardcounter0]

I thought we were talking about National Forests and Wilderness.

"13 major fires in Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties in California covering 800,000 acres (3237 km²), killing 24, displacing 120,000 and destroying 3,600 homes in October 2003. Damage estimated at 2 billion USD."

Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties???

800,000 acres displacing 120,000 people? So about 1 person per 6 acres? That doesn't sound like wilderness to me, more like a suburb.

Doubt if these people would be in favor of a logging operation next to the park where the kids play.
[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[cardcounter0]

No, we need to build logging roads across Wyoming because of the great damage fires do in Las Angeles County California.

[CORed]

Most of the misinformation is coming from the Bush administration. Fires are a real problem in the West. However, the "Healthy Forests Initiative" was primarily a ploy to relax environmental regulations and allow subsidized logging to resume. Most timber sales on federal land lose money for the government. For many years, the Forest Service hid this fact by not including the costs of road building in the equation. The Clinton administration (correctly IMO) tried to make sure that timber sales made money for the government.

Fire is a naturally occuring event in most Western forests. Much of the problem, especially in Ponderosa Pine forests, is that the Forest service has done such a good job of fire suppression that dead wood has accumulated, and the forests have become much denser, with lots of small trees to act as "ladders", to cary the fire to the crowns. Allowing fires to burn in wilderness areas will actually alleviate the problem. In populated areas (which is a fairly high percentage of western forests) a "let it burn" approach is not feasible. Prescribed burns are. Logging to thin forests has some value. The trouble is that the most fire prone forests, with dense stands of stunted trees, are of little value for lumber. These are not the forests that will be logged under the "Healthy Forest Initiative". Old growth forests with large, commercially valuable trees will be logged, and in a few decades, be replaced with more fire-prone secondary growth.
The "Healthy Forests Initiative" will be just as effective in controlling forest fires as the Iraq invasion has been in ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction.

[CORed]

I believe that logging can be done in an environmentally responsible manner, and that, in some cases, can reduce the fire hazard. I don't believe that the Bush administration has any intention of doing it that way. I think that if they have their way, logging will be done to the sole benefit of the logging companies.

[CORed]

You have totally bought into the logging company propaganda. Big trees are not the problem. Big trees are what the logging companies want. Brush and small trees are the problem. Roads can sometimes help in fighting fires, but the truth is, if you have a wind-driven crown fire in a dry forest, nothing stops it. Not bulldozed fire lines, not roads, not slurry bombers, not even large rivers (I remember reading about a forest fire in Montana many years ago that jumped the Missouri river). When faced with such a fire, wildland fire fighters cut line on the rear and sides of the fire, and get out of the way of the leading edge until the wind dies down. The only way to prevent such fires is to have more frequent, less intense fires, and reduce the load of small fuel. This can be accomplished by letting fires burn in wilderness areas, and by controlled burns in populated areas.