California
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Previously logged and thinned forest that burned at high severity in the Jocko Lakes Fire, Montana. Photo George Wuerthner There are daily news stories about the recent large wildfires in 2020. In nearly all of these media accounts, the large blazes are almost always attributed to a lack of active forest management. In other words,…
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Ponderosa pine forest experiences a “light burn” or “low severity” fire that does not kill the mature trees but reduces “fuels”. Photo George Wuerthner In almost all media reports about the recent fire seasons, one of the chief explanations given for the larger blazes is “fire suppression” and “fuel build-up.” We hear that 100…
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The wind-driven pattern of fire in the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Photo George Wuerthner A new documentary titled The West Is Burning continues to promote a flawed narrative that large blazes are a consequence of “fire suppression” and “fuel build-up.” Starting from this perspective, it promotes policies like thinning the forest and prescribed burning to counter…
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Old-growth forest like this on Admiralty Island, Tongass National Forest should be protected as a carbon reserve. Photo by George Wuerthner The Biden Administration supports protecting 30% of US lands by 2030 or what is termed the 30 x 30 proposal. One of the best ways to meet that 30 by 30 goals would be…
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Forest Service using drip torch for prescribed burning. Photo by George Wuerthner There has been a spate of articles in various newspapers and magazines, asserting that if the Forest Service were following burning practices of Indigenous people, the massive wildfires we have seen around the West would be tamed. Here are some representative of…
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The Clear Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is likely not on everyone’s radar. The refuge lies on the California-Oregon border to the southwest of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Part of the Klamath Basin National Refuge system, Clear Lake, is one of many natural lakes in the area that are important staging areas for migratory waterfowl on…
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The National Park Service has released its management plan for Agriculture in the Point Reyes National Seashore. That is right—agriculture in a national park system unit. The decision to continue livestock production in Point Reyes National Seashore demonstrates once again why allowing any commercial resource use in our parklands compromises the primary goals of our…
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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 Ralph Bloomer. With…