Currently viewing the category: "Wildfire"

 

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 […]

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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 […]

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Fire Suppression Myths

On January 11, 2022 By

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, […]

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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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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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This site by Chester, California was treated by thinning and even clearcutting (seen in the background) and later burned in the Dixie Fire. Photo George Wuerthner 

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times on November 8th  (Prescribed burns are crucial to reducing wildfire risks) Los Angeles Times highlights a […]

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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 […]

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Prescribed fire and cultural burning by Native Americans is often promoted as a means of reducing large blazes across the West. There are many reasons to question such assumptions. Photo George Wuerthner 

Here are seven articles (attached below) from today’s news cycle. They promote the idea that our forests need to be […]

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Prescribed burning is often seen as a way to reduce to the large climate-driven blazes now occurring across the West, however, there are many problems that proponents fail to acknowledge. Photo George Wuerthner

It seems everyone is grasping for some “solution” to big fires. And one of the common assertions is that […]

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Thinning Nuance

On July 6, 2021 By

 

Thinning is often justified on the assumption that reducing “fuels” will slow or stop large blazes, but there is more nuance to the issue than just fuels. Photo George Wuerthner

One frequently hears from proponents of thinning that active forest management can reduce fire intensity and thus is a beneficial policy […]

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Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey