High-severity blazes are critical to healthy forest ecosystems. Photo George Wuerthner
I read yet another study circulated by UC Davis and doggedly promoted by the national media, encouraging more prescribed burning, thinning, and forest manipulation to reduce large high-severity blazes characterized as “bad.”
The headline from UC Davis proclaims that […]
Continue Reading →Thinning/logging at Newberry Crater National Monument, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner
One of the arguments alleged by proponents of thinning or logging forests is that it will reduce the size of wildfires and hence carbon emissions from blazes. Proponents argue that more trees survive a fire if there has […]
Continue Reading →In May, 2021 I happened to be traveling through northern California on my way to Lassen National Park. When I drove out of Chester, California, I encountered a number of forest thinning projects along the highway. So I photographed some of them, in part, because in many cases large fire-resistant trees were being removed.
Then […]
Continue Reading →Hardly a day goes by when we don’t hear in the media and from the Forest Service that fire suppression is responsible for the intensity and size of wildfires.
According to proponents, a “hundred years of fire suppression” has permitted the build-up of fuels, and by their assertion, more fuel results in larger conflagrations.
However, […]
Continue Reading →The 400,000-acre Bootleg Fire created a mosaic burn pattern from unburned to high severity. Photo George Wuerthner
The Capital Press, an Agricultural emphasis newspaper, recently ran a story about the 400,000-acre Bootleg Fire and the influence of forest management on the fire’s impact upon trees. In particular, the 26 Nov 2021 issue […]
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Clearcuts in Swan Range near Seeley Lake, Montana. Photo George Wuerthner
Several editorials have been published widely in Montana papers and elsewhere by supporters Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act (BCSA) sponsored by Senator Tester. Many are attacking Senator Daines for his attempt to put a poison pill in the legislation […]
Continue Reading →Clearcut and thinning near Susanville, CA failed to halt the spread of the Dixie Fire. Photo George Wuerthner
I recently got a message from Oregon Senator Merkley announcing that he supported more thinning and logging of our forests to reduce large wildfires.
The irony is that logging/thinning is a primary source […]
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Subsidized logging in the name of fuel reductions on the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon. Logging accounts for 35% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner
Congress just passed the big infrastructure bill, and I expect President Biden will sign it—maybe before you read this commentary.
Funding is for […]
Continue Reading →The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon spread across 400,000 acres, burning in a mosaic pattern of burned, lightly burned and unburned areas. Photo George Wuerthner
As another summer of large fires spread across the West including the Dixie Fire in northern California and the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, advocates of “active […]
Continue Reading →The North Bridger Timber Sale is removing old growth forests to “promote” forest health. Photo George Wuerthner
After reading the article in the October 7th Bozeman Daily Chronicle titled “Timber Treatment” about the North Bridger logging project on the Custer Gallatin National Forest of Montana one gets the idea that until […]
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