The Arizona Republic (largest paper in Arizona) published this lead
editorial on August 11th which contains the following quote:

"The destructive, earth-sterilizing effects of massive crown fires
would be a pre-eminent concern of environmentalists, one would think.
But in their passion to demonize Bush and his Healthy Forests proposal
as the lackey and tool of the almighty logging industry, deep-forest
survival passes from the scene."

The editorial is worth a complete "read". It is reprinted on this
site. (The rest of the site is worth a visit as well):

http://www.forestvoices.com/RepublicEditorial81103.htm

Comments?

The Arizona Republic (largest paper in Arizona) published this lead
editorial on August 11th which contains the following quote:

"The destructive, earth-sterilizing effects of massive crown fires
would be a pre-eminent concern of environmentalists, one would think.
But in their passion to demonize Bush and his Healthy Forests proposal
as the lackey and tool of the almighty logging industry, deep-forest
survival passes from the scene."

The editorial is worth a complete "read". It is reprinted on this
site. (The rest of the site is worth a visit as well):

http://www.forestvoices.com/RepublicEditorial81103.htm

Comments?


excerpt from the article:

He could have viewed the work of the White Mountain Apaches, true stewards of
the forest, whose thinning efforts are unencumbered by the disastrously good
intentions of outsiders.
------------------------------------------------
????????????????

http://www.knauradio.org/News/News.cfm?ID=960&c=17



KNAU/NPR Newsroom : Archive features

White Mountain Apache Tribe Slow to Recover from Fire


Source: Knau News Team
July 28, 2003


A year ago the Rodeo Chediski devoured a half million acres of forest,
including twenty percent of the Fort Apache reservation. This summer the tribe
is wrapping up its salvage logging effort, and finding it's not going to recoup
nearly as much revenue as it originally hoped.



Listen with RealAudio

Last summer’s Rodeo Chediski fire was the largest blaze in state history. It
burned twenty percent of the Fort Apache reservation, much of it valuable
timber. The deadline to salvage that burned timber is quickly approaching. And
the White Mountain Apache Tribe, which was hurting before the fire, is finding
it won’t be able to recoup nearly as much as anticipated. Arizona Public
Radio’s Daniel Kraker visited the reservation, and filed this report.
-----------------------------

So, why did so much burn if they were doing the correct Bush Policy????
----------

Next Environmentalists will be charged with allowing grass to grow that can
burn:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2445479/detail.html

Wildfires Continue To Burn In Rural Bay Area

POSTED: 3:11 p.m. PDT August 30, 2003

MORGAN HILL, Calif. -- Grass fires sparked by lightning strikes were burning in
several rural stretches of the San Francisco Bay area, doubling in size over
the past two days, fire officials said.

Firefighters were battling scattered blazes in Santa Clara, Stanislaus and
Alameda counties that had burned more than 23,000 acres of grassland as of noon
Saturday, the California Department of Forestry said. Fire officials said late
Thursday the fire was just under 10,000 acres.

Containment on Saturday stood at 65 percent, with full containment expected
Wednesday.

Officials believe the fires began Aug. 25 when lightning strikes were reported
across the San Francisco Bay area. The collection of fires is known as the
Santa Clara Complex.

About 55 structures have been threatened in a scarcely populated area on the
border of Santa Clara and Alameda counties, CDF spokesman George Hoyt said. No
evacuations have been ordered.

The Red Cross has designated a shelter in Livermore in case residents in
threatened areas have to be evacuated.

More than 2,300 firefighters are battling the blazes. Three firefighters have
suffered minor injuries.

On Thursday night, one of the fires in Alameda County forced 55 firefighters to
seek protection under foil shelters.

"The fire did not jump fire lines but it flared up, really spectacular from
what I understand," Hoyt said.

To date, fire suppression costs have reached more than $5.4 million.
---------------

True message:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...restfires.html

excerpt:

Today's fires can grow unusually fierce because Smokey Bear went overboard. For
decades, the well-meaning policy of suppressing all forest fires allowed too
much fuel—dead wood, underbrush, small trees—to build up on public lands,
especially in the fire-prone West. What might have once been a minor grass fire
now turns cataclysmic, like last year's Hayman Fire in Colorado.

All parties generally agree that many forests need tidying up—by cutting, or
carefully controlled burning, or both.

There, agreement ends. Citing cost efficiency, the Bush administration will
invite loggers to do the thinning and let them cut what they need for profit.
Critics say they'll take the best, biggest trees.

To sort it out, I consulted the nation's best-known fire historian, Dr. Stephen
Pyne, based at Arizona State.

"I am dismayed that they are coupling fire management with commercial logging,"
he says of the White House plan. "Usually fire takes the little stuff and
leaves the big, while logging takes the big stuff and leaves the little."
Logging debris, he adds, is a worse hazard yet.

But both sides, Pyne says, oversimplify. Forests are naturally adapted to fire,
but in different ways. The open grass-tree mix typical of ponderosa pine needs
frequent, mild grass fires. The bigger trees survive, providing key habitat and
pools of cooling shade. Lodgepole pine forests, by contrast, grow thickly and
regenerate every century or so from "self-immolating burns," as in the
seemingly catastrophic Yellowstone fires of 1988.

Jim Furnish, a former deputy Forest Service chief, agrees. In Yellowstone
today, he points out, "you can see all the young lodgepoles growing the way
they're supposed to. Yellowstone is performing exactly as a wild park should."
Lodgepole, in fact, relies on fire to open its seed-laden pine cones.

What are national forests for? A faithful political conservative on most
matters, Furnish wants "to manage forests for values like wildlife and
recreation." Economics back him up: Whether fishing or camping or touring,
visitors now account for 78 percent of the national forests' contribution to
the overall economy, according to a 2000 Department of Agriculture report.
Logging has slipped to only 12 percent.

Furnish offers a way to have both visitors and timber, minus fi He started
demonstration plots in the 1990s to show how loggers can thin second-growth
forests, leaving the large trees and using new lumber technologies to get the
most out of smaller ones. [Indeed, the market for old-growth timber is
declining. Few mills can still handle the big logs, as thick as 50 inches (127
centimeters), but political pressure to cut old growth persists.]

Furnish wants to see forest habitats preserved, not just for that feathered
political football, the spotted owl, but for whole ecosystems, including
vulnerable salmon streams. Take away the big trees, he says, "and you're taking
away the engine that God built."

The Arizona Republic (largest paper in Arizona) published this lead
editorial on August 11th which contains the following quote:

"The destructive, earth-sterilizing effects of massive crown fires
would be a pre-eminent concern of environmentalists, one would think.
But in their passion to demonize Bush and his Healthy Forests proposal
as the lackey and tool of the almighty logging industry, deep-forest
survival passes from the scene."

The editorial is worth a complete "read". It is reprinted on this
site. (The rest of the site is worth a visit as well):

http://www.forestvoices.com/RepublicEditorial81103.htm

Comments?


excerpt from the article:

He could have viewed the work of the White Mountain Apaches, true stewards of
the forest, whose thinning efforts are unencumbered by the disastrously good
intentions of outsiders.
------------------------------------------------
????????????????

http://www.knauradio.org/News/News.cfm?ID=960&c=17



KNAU/NPR Newsroom : Archive features

White Mountain Apache Tribe Slow to Recover from Fire


Source: Knau News Team
July 28, 2003


A year ago the Rodeo Chediski devoured a half million acres of forest,
including twenty percent of the Fort Apache reservation. This summer the tribe
is wrapping up its salvage logging effort, and finding it's not going to recoup
nearly as much revenue as it originally hoped.



Listen with RealAudio

Last summer’s Rodeo Chediski fire was the largest blaze in state history. It
burned twenty percent of the Fort Apache reservation, much of it valuable
timber. The deadline to salvage that burned timber is quickly approaching. And
the White Mountain Apache Tribe, which was hurting before the fire, is finding
it won’t be able to recoup nearly as much as anticipated. Arizona Public
Radio’s Daniel Kraker visited the reservation, and filed this report.
-----------------------------

So, why did so much burn if they were doing the correct Bush Policy????
----------

Next Environmentalists will be charged with allowing grass to grow that can
burn:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2445479/detail.html

Wildfires Continue To Burn In Rural Bay Area

POSTED: 3:11 p.m. PDT August 30, 2003

MORGAN HILL, Calif. -- Grass fires sparked by lightning strikes were burning in
several rural stretches of the San Francisco Bay area, doubling in size over
the past two days, fire officials said.

Firefighters were battling scattered blazes in Santa Clara, Stanislaus and
Alameda counties that had burned more than 23,000 acres of grassland as of noon
Saturday, the California Department of Forestry said. Fire officials said late
Thursday the fire was just under 10,000 acres.

Containment on Saturday stood at 65 percent, with full containment expected
Wednesday.

Officials believe the fires began Aug. 25 when lightning strikes were reported
across the San Francisco Bay area. The collection of fires is known as the
Santa Clara Complex.

About 55 structures have been threatened in a scarcely populated area on the
border of Santa Clara and Alameda counties, CDF spokesman George Hoyt said. No
evacuations have been ordered.

The Red Cross has designated a shelter in Livermore in case residents in
threatened areas have to be evacuated.

More than 2,300 firefighters are battling the blazes. Three firefighters have
suffered minor injuries.

On Thursday night, one of the fires in Alameda County forced 55 firefighters to
seek protection under foil shelters.

"The fire did not jump fire lines but it flared up, really spectacular from
what I understand," Hoyt said.

To date, fire suppression costs have reached more than $5.4 million.
---------------

True message:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...restfires.html

excerpt:

Today's fires can grow unusually fierce because Smokey Bear went overboard. For
decades, the well-meaning policy of suppressing all forest fires allowed too
much fuel—dead wood, underbrush, small trees—to build up on public lands,
especially in the fire-prone West. What might have once been a minor grass fire
now turns cataclysmic, like last year's Hayman Fire in Colorado.

All parties generally agree that many forests need tidying up—by cutting, or
carefully controlled burning, or both.

There, agreement ends. Citing cost efficiency, the Bush administration will
invite loggers to do the thinning and let them cut what they need for profit.
Critics say they'll take the best, biggest trees.

To sort it out, I consulted the nation's best-known fire historian, Dr. Stephen
Pyne, based at Arizona State.

"I am dismayed that they are coupling fire management with commercial logging,"
he says of the White House plan. "Usually fire takes the little stuff and
leaves the big, while logging takes the big stuff and leaves the little."
Logging debris, he adds, is a worse hazard yet.

But both sides, Pyne says, oversimplify. Forests are naturally adapted to fire,
but in different ways. The open grass-tree mix typical of ponderosa pine needs
frequent, mild grass fires. The bigger trees survive, providing key habitat and
pools of cooling shade. Lodgepole pine forests, by contrast, grow thickly and
regenerate every century or so from "self-immolating burns," as in the
seemingly catastrophic Yellowstone fires of 1988.

Jim Furnish, a former deputy Forest Service chief, agrees. In Yellowstone
today, he points out, "you can see all the young lodgepoles growing the way
they're supposed to. Yellowstone is performing exactly as a wild park should."
Lodgepole, in fact, relies on fire to open its seed-laden pine cones.

What are national forests for? A faithful political conservative on most
matters, Furnish wants "to manage forests for values like wildlife and
recreation." Economics back him up: Whether fishing or camping or touring,
visitors now account for 78 percent of the national forests' contribution to
the overall economy, according to a 2000 Department of Agriculture report.
Logging has slipped to only 12 percent.

Furnish offers a way to have both visitors and timber, minus fi He started
demonstration plots in the 1990s to show how loggers can thin second-growth
forests, leaving the large trees and using new lumber technologies to get the
most out of smaller ones. [Indeed, the market for old-growth timber is
declining. Few mills can still handle the big logs, as thick as 50 inches (127
centimeters), but political pressure to cut old growth persists.]

Furnish wants to see forest habitats preserved, not just for that feathered
political football, the spotted owl, but for whole ecosystems, including
vulnerable salmon streams. Take away the big trees, he says, "and you're taking
away the engine that God built."

The Arizona Republic (largest paper in Arizona) published this lead
editorial on August 11th which contains the following quote:

"The destructive, earth-sterilizing effects of massive crown fires
would be a pre-eminent concern of environmentalists, one would think.
But in their passion to demonize Bush and his Healthy Forests proposal
as the lackey and tool of the almighty logging industry, deep-forest
survival passes from the scene."

The editorial is worth a complete "read". It is reprinted on this
site. (The rest of the site is worth a visit as well):

http://www.forestvoices.com/RepublicEditorial81103.htm

Comments?


excerpt from the article:

He could have viewed the work of the White Mountain Apaches, true stewards of
the forest, whose thinning efforts are unencumbered by the disastrously good
intentions of outsiders.
------------------------------------------------
????????????????

http://www.knauradio.org/News/News.cfm?ID=960&c=17



KNAU/NPR Newsroom : Archive features

White Mountain Apache Tribe Slow to Recover from Fire


Source: Knau News Team
July 28, 2003


A year ago the Rodeo Chediski devoured a half million acres of forest,
including twenty percent of the Fort Apache reservation. This summer the tribe
is wrapping up its salvage logging effort, and finding it's not going to recoup
nearly as much revenue as it originally hoped.



Listen with RealAudio

Last summer’s Rodeo Chediski fire was the largest blaze in state history. It
burned twenty percent of the Fort Apache reservation, much of it valuable
timber. The deadline to salvage that burned timber is quickly approaching. And
the White Mountain Apache Tribe, which was hurting before the fire, is finding
it won’t be able to recoup nearly as much as anticipated. Arizona Public
Radio’s Daniel Kraker visited the reservation, and filed this report.
-----------------------------

So, why did so much burn if they were doing the correct Bush Policy????
----------

Next Environmentalists will be charged with allowing grass to grow that can
burn:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2445479/detail.html

Wildfires Continue To Burn In Rural Bay Area

POSTED: 3:11 p.m. PDT August 30, 2003

MORGAN HILL, Calif. -- Grass fires sparked by lightning strikes were burning in
several rural stretches of the San Francisco Bay area, doubling in size over
the past two days, fire officials said.

Firefighters were battling scattered blazes in Santa Clara, Stanislaus and
Alameda counties that had burned more than 23,000 acres of grassland as of noon
Saturday, the California Department of Forestry said. Fire officials said late
Thursday the fire was just under 10,000 acres.

Containment on Saturday stood at 65 percent, with full containment expected
Wednesday.

Officials believe the fires began Aug. 25 when lightning strikes were reported
across the San Francisco Bay area. The collection of fires is known as the
Santa Clara Complex.

About 55 structures have been threatened in a scarcely populated area on the
border of Santa Clara and Alameda counties, CDF spokesman George Hoyt said. No
evacuations have been ordered.

The Red Cross has designated a shelter in Livermore in case residents in
threatened areas have to be evacuated.

More than 2,300 firefighters are battling the blazes. Three firefighters have
suffered minor injuries.

On Thursday night, one of the fires in Alameda County forced 55 firefighters to
seek protection under foil shelters.

"The fire did not jump fire lines but it flared up, really spectacular from
what I understand," Hoyt said.

To date, fire suppression costs have reached more than $5.4 million.
---------------

True message:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...restfires.html

excerpt:

Today's fires can grow unusually fierce because Smokey Bear went overboard. For
decades, the well-meaning policy of suppressing all forest fires allowed too
much fuel—dead wood, underbrush, small trees—to build up on public lands,
especially in the fire-prone West. What might have once been a minor grass fire
now turns cataclysmic, like last year's Hayman Fire in Colorado.

All parties generally agree that many forests need tidying up—by cutting, or
carefully controlled burning, or both.

There, agreement ends. Citing cost efficiency, the Bush administration will
invite loggers to do the thinning and let them cut what they need for profit.
Critics say they'll take the best, biggest trees.

To sort it out, I consulted the nation's best-known fire historian, Dr. Stephen
Pyne, based at Arizona State.

"I am dismayed that they are coupling fire management with commercial logging,"
he says of the White House plan. "Usually fire takes the little stuff and
leaves the big, while logging takes the big stuff and leaves the little."
Logging debris, he adds, is a worse hazard yet.

But both sides, Pyne says, oversimplify. Forests are naturally adapted to fire,
but in different ways. The open grass-tree mix typical of ponderosa pine needs
frequent, mild grass fires. The bigger trees survive, providing key habitat and
pools of cooling shade. Lodgepole pine forests, by contrast, grow thickly and
regenerate every century or so from "self-immolating burns," as in the
seemingly catastrophic Yellowstone fires of 1988.

Jim Furnish, a former deputy Forest Service chief, agrees. In Yellowstone
today, he points out, "you can see all the young lodgepoles growing the way
they're supposed to. Yellowstone is performing exactly as a wild park should."
Lodgepole, in fact, relies on fire to open its seed-laden pine cones.

What are national forests for? A faithful political conservative on most
matters, Furnish wants "to manage forests for values like wildlife and
recreation." Economics back him up: Whether fishing or camping or touring,
visitors now account for 78 percent of the national forests' contribution to
the overall economy, according to a 2000 Department of Agriculture report.
Logging has slipped to only 12 percent.

Furnish offers a way to have both visitors and timber, minus fi He started
demonstration plots in the 1990s to show how loggers can thin second-growth
forests, leaving the large trees and using new lumber technologies to get the
most out of smaller ones. [Indeed, the market for old-growth timber is
declining. Few mills can still handle the big logs, as thick as 50 inches (127
centimeters), but political pressure to cut old growth persists.]

Furnish wants to see forest habitats preserved, not just for that feathered
political football, the spotted owl, but for whole ecosystems, including
vulnerable salmon streams. Take away the big trees, he says, "and you're taking
away the engine that God built."