The influence of fire suppression is exaggerated. The idea that there was a “hundred years” of fire suppression ignores the fact that in the early 1920s and 1930s as much as 50 million acres burned annually. Furthermore, climate controls fires, as indicated by the cool, moist decades between the 1940s-1980s. Courtesy of […]
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Far more ignitions start by roads than in the backcountry. Ironically thinning forests will create more roads, hence more ignitions. Photo by George Wuerthner
Like zombies rising from the dead, legislators continue to push the flawed notion that logging can preclude large wildfires and protect communities.
The “Emergency Wildfire and […]
Continue Reading →Looking down Cache Creek from Republic Pass, Yellowstone NP, WY
One of the many excuses used to justify “thinning” and logging today is to preclude massive wildfires. Notwithstanding, there is considerable evidence that such actions do not impede large fires, which only occur during extreme fire weather; people still use this as an […]
Continue Reading →Hyalite Reservoir in Bozeman watershed. Photo by George Wuerthner
Safeway in ruin at Paradise California despite being surrounded by parking lot–lack of fuel didn’t save the building Photo by George Wuerthner
Back in the Middle Ages, it was a common practice for “doctors” to bleed […]
Continue Reading →“Restoration” management on the Deschutes National Forest. Photo by George Wuerthner
You can’t solve a problem if you don’t identify it correctly. When it comes to wildfire safety, the timber industry, the Forest Service, and many collaboratives are selling Snake Oil to the public.
The problem for people is not with the forest—the problem […]
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Caption: Above Cheatgrass invades fuel break cleared along road in Oregon. Bottom: Fuel break created in Idaho’s Snake River Plain. Photos by George Wuerthner
The Department of Interior released a final decision to created 11,000 miles of linear cheatgrass corridors, which they are euphemistically calling “fuel breaks.” Think […]
Continue Reading →Clearcuts in Montana
The Forest Service is once again demonstrating its Industrial Forestry bias with its proposal to treat 3,790 acres by Cruzane Mountain in the Lolo National Forest. An acre is approximately the size of one football field.
The District Ranger suggests that treatments will “address insect and disease impacts and improve […]
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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is rewriting its grazing regulations to allow more “flexibility” into range management. The agency even proposes increases in grazing seasons and numbers. All of this, of course, is the result of the pressure from the fox (Trump administration) guarding the hen house.
I think most career […]
Continue Reading →In recent weeks, misinformed Douglas County politicians have expressed opposition to the 500,000 acre Crater Lake Wilderness proposal based on the misguided belief that wilderness designation poses a wildfire threat. They argue that “active management,” meaning logging, can preclude or prevent such blazes. But this demonstrates a fundamental failure to understand fire ecology.
Just as […]
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