You have all seen those photos of forest fires that stopped abruptly when they reached a stand of thinned timber. That can be very misleading. There are plenty of times when the thinning made no difference, and George Wuerthner has some of these “politically incorrect” photos.
Wuerthner is on tour speaking in community after community about the realities of wildfire, and countering the years of political propaganda about wildfires motivated by agencies seeking big budgets and the timber industry trying to justify more logging.
I listened to Wuerthner recently. I think he sometimes goes a bit too far in other direction, but given the magnitude of the propaganda machine he faces, his occasional hyperbole is useful.
Thinning forests is not an all purpose way of stopping wildfiires, nor are wildfires necessarily bad. Guest opinion by George Wuerthner in New West.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
