Wildfire
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High elevation forests like the mountain hemlock seen here at Crater Lake have long intervals between fires. They only burn when there is the right combination of climate/weather. Fire suppression has had little influence on such forests. Photo George Wuerthner The recent piece published in the December 22 Guardian titled: Heat, wind, and a…
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If cattle graze to bare soil, it is true that fires are slowed under such conditions, but the ecological impacts are enormous. Photo George Wuerthner When I worked for the BLM, us “ologists” (hydrologist, ecologists, biologists, archaeologists, geologists, and botanists) used to refer to Range Conservationists as Range “Cons” because they conned the public into…
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The Idaho side of the Tetons, much of it in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness or proposed additions. Photo by George Wuerthner. The Caribou-Targhee National Forest plan to implement prescribed burns on 1.7 million acres along the Tetons’ west slope deserves a response. As reported in the Jackson Hole Guide, the “problem,” according to Fire Management…
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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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Senators Steve Daines of Montana and Diane Feinstein of California have once again introduced legislation, the “Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020” that is based upon misguided assumptions that fuel reductions will preclude the large blazes occurring as the West. Never mind that climate change is the driving force in all these fires…
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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 excuse.…
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Note the lack of plant diversity on the left side of the path which was “treated” to “restore” the forest. Photos by George Wuerthner These two images display a recent example of a forest “restoration” project designed to improve the “health” of a ponderosa pine forest. The area to the left of the path was…