With the onset of the thunderstorm season in parched southern Idaho, the clean air is probably gone for the summer. I took the photo below June 9this year. It is of the Lost River Range from Copper Basin. It is very hazy today in Pocatello, Idaho today due to all the wildfires lightning ignited yesterday.…
Pocatello. ID. Today huge thunderclouds grew in the record high temperatures of Idaho, SE Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Western Wyoming and Western Montana. The edge of one is grumbling over the mountain range I live under at Pocatello right now. So far all the fire starts in parched Idaho, Wyoming, and much of Utah have been…
This Utah fire is hot, big, deadly, and growing fast. Fires are breaking out all over the Intermountain West and there hasn’t even been a lightning storm. It’s going to be quite a summer. Story. Help on the way for Utah’s weary firefighters. Hundreds from all over nation fight raging Neola North blaze. By Christopher…
Jumping a containment line, the fire forces another evacuation. By Tim Reiterman and Lee Romney, Times Staff Writers. This fire will, as it should, increase the public perception of the problem of people building in areas where fires are expected and normally burn without great loss of property. Update: Indeed the debate has already begun.…
As I sit and write this in Pocatello, Idaho, the high smoke passing overhead (from the Cow Canyon fire) heralds an early beginning of the summer wildfire season, but Cow Canyon is hardly the only fire. Headwaters News today has a “roundup” on the fires. The most damaging one is near Lake Tahoe and has…
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…
Here is a detailed alert from the Wyoming Wilderness Association on your comments on the Bridger-Teton Forest Plan’s desired future conditions. Public comment is being accepted until September 30. Ralph Maughan
There was a gathering of climate experts this week in Helena, MT. The effects of global warming in Montana were described with more and greater wildfires being just one of the most obvious. There has been a furious debate in recent years whether the increase in forest fires is due to bad forest practices, not…
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.