Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
The spin doctors are at it already, claiming that the wildfires of last
summer weren't so bad after all, since some areas were left unburned.
They particularly point to the Biscuit Fire, the nation's largest of the
summer at 500,000 acres. The feel it is a triumph of the environment
that large acreages escaped completely unburned, and other areas
experienced a smoldering fire that left many trees unburned.

So let's look at the damage. A total of 191,000 acres burned at medium
to high intensity. Medium intensity kills most of the trees, and high
intensity leaves nothing but smoldering stumps. Of these 191,000 acres,
most were on steep slopes where the fire updraft and slope of the ground
assisted the movement of the fire into the crown. The erosion off these
steep slopes will choke rivers and streams with sediment, and seriously
harm fish runs for years.

Many of the areas spared by the fire are so rocky and infertile that not
many trees grow there anyway. The fire dropped to low intensity in those
areas because there wasn't much to burn.

It's quite a stretch to claim that the Biscuit Fire was beneficial in any
way. It did reduce the fuel load in the area, but that's about it.

Good post, Larry! "Only" 191,000 acres burned at medium to high
intensity! Wooo hoo!! Many wildweness areas are set aside because
they had little in the way of resources to extract. Much of that area
will now take a hundred years or more to recover, as long as another
fire doesn't come in and re-burn the rest of the unburned fuels. (Not
that I would want to salvage any of it. It's a wilderness, after all)
Of course, no reforestation can occur, either. Fires are "natural",
right? G

Larry