16-05-2003, 06:08 PM
|
|
|
GAO: Most forest thinning not seriously delayed by appeals
(Aozotorp) writes:
A century of aggressive fire suppression has left forests thick with brush and
small trees that have put 40 million acres at risk for wildfires.
You keep hearing this statement, but I'm getting less and less convinced
that it is true. Is there any evidence that fire danger is higher now
than it was a century ago?
As far as I can tell, the big difference today is that we no longer set
fires as often as we used to. Railroad locomotives used to throw sparks
profusely out of their stacks, and started fires every summer along the
right of way. Logging operations, smokers and campers also used to start
a lot more fires than they do today. A century ago, people were still
clearing land by burning it, and all those fires were in forested areas.
Nowadays they can just chase everyone out of the woods during high fire
danger, and forbid open campfires. That was not possible a century ago.
More than 7
million acres across the West burned in the second-worst fire season in 50
years.
Which illustrates why I doubt that fire suppression does all that much.
Bad forest fire years are closely associated with drought. Add a little
wind, and there is no way to control a forest fire. You can set up fire
lines at major highways or rivers and start backfires, but without the
assistance of the terrain, and eventually moisture, you just won't stop
one. When fire conditions are right, there is no such thing as a
fireproof forest. Old growth and wilderness burn as merrily as christmas
trees. If conditions are not right, a forest fire won't go anywhere even
if you leave it alone.
As I see it, the only real change in the last 100 years comes from fire
prevention. The move to file felony arson charges against the idiots who
started forest fires last summer is another step in fire prevention.
Fifty years ago, those laws had not been written, and forest fires were
"accidental."
There were probably as many homesteads in forested areas then as there
are now, however the homesteaders would have burned everything around the
buildings for fuel and grazed off what was left. They solved the "urban-
forest interface" with an axe, a bucksaw and some sheep.
--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc
|