Currently viewing the tag: "Wildfire"

The Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park. Photo George Wuerthner 

New legislation, the Save Our Sequoias Act (SOSA) promoted by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy seeks to increase “fuel reductions” such as logging and prescribed burns around California’s iconic sequoia groves.

Who isn’t for “saving” sequoias, the largest and some of […]

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Livestock is one of the major factors in cheatgrass invasion across the West. Photo George Wuerthner 

Wildfire is a big issue in Western states. As climate warming has increased temperatures, created severe drought, and increased winds, wildfire has become more challenging to control, and the annual acreage burned is growing over the […]

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The McNeil Biomass Burner in Burlington Vermont,  is the state’s single source of air pollution. Photo George Wuerthner 

Presently around the West, the Forest Service, timber advocates, and far too many conservation organizations are promoting biofuels and biomass energy as “Green Energy.” The FS and its allies want to cut more wood (which […]

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Chaparral and Wildfire

On January 25, 2023 By

Sandstone outcrops and chaparral along  Hurricane Deck, San Rafael Wilderness, Los Padres NF, California. Photo George Wuerthner 

Chaparral is one of California’s most widespread vegetation communities due to the state’s Mediterranean climate of winter precipitation and summer drought. Chaparral is particularly common in the Coast Range, Traverse Ranges, and western slopes of […]

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New road was created for a forest thinning project. Roads are a major location for human ignition. Photo George Wuerthner 

The Biden administration announced it would spend nearly $930 million fighting wildfire in the West. While the plan includes money for everything from hardening homes to paying for more firefighters, the main […]

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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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Clearcuts below Grizzly Creek in the Upper Yaak Drainage. Photo George Wuerthner 

The Kootenai National Forest proposes a massive logging project in Northwest Montana known as the Black Ram “Vegetation” treatment.

The Black Ram project area includes Northwest Yaak from the Canadian border west to the Idaho border, south to the […]

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The Bridger Canyon Fire by Bozeman burned during a period of high winds and extreme drought. The resulting snag forest is considered by some to be an example of a “bad” fire. Photo George Wuerthner 

I continuously read articles by journalists and others who expound on fire issues that promotes several inaccuracies. […]

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Previously logged Plum Creek Timber Company lands which didn’t stop  36,ooo acre plus Jocko Lakes Fires. Photo George Wuerthner 

Recently Governor Greg Gianforte praised forest management for limiting the spread of two fires near Helena.

Gianforte suggested that active forest management (i.e., logging) helped firefighters to keep two blazes, the […]

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Fire killed trees store carbon for decades. Photo George Wuerthner 

In an Aug. 29 letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, lawmakers — mostly from California — said they’re worried the Forest Service remains short-staffed on wildfire crews. They urged officials not to let up on efforts to […]

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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