Thread: Forest Thinning Does Little to Stop Wildfires
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Old 20-06-2003, 08:08 PM
Larry Harrell
 
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Default Forest Thinning Does Little to Stop Wildfires
(Aozotorp) wrote in message ...

Seems the problem is in Historically removing the large fire resistant trees in
clear-cutting. I remember large sections in the Colorado front range that were
clearcut in the 50's and 60's. Then in the clearcut there were 300-400 + small
trees growing in the clearcut areas. Never thinned out no doubt. The shallow
analysis you gave is indeed the wave of the future!

Actually, much of the blame has to go to those same loggers and
foresters who cut most of those big trees way back when. Clearcutting
has always been a problem in the last 40 years. The problem continued
on when foresters weren't allowed to cut any trees in the last 15
years. Fixing these problems will take a similar plan to Bush's
Healthy Forests Plan. There ARE areas which do have overstocked timber
that many would consider to be "large fire-resistant trees". When you
have 30-50 of those larger trees on a given acre, those groups do need
to be thinned in order to save the trees we want to keep. Take a look
at the forests surrounding Los Angeles. Do you want all our forests to
end up like those which have nearly 100% mortality of those "larger
fire-resistant trees"?

Larry