Wildfire

  • Wildfire May Benefit Spotted Owls

    George Wuerthner

    Northern Spotted Owl Photo US FWS A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting of the Deschutes Collaborative. Spotted Owls and wildfire was the topic that day. The meeting was a classic example of how collaboratives selectively use science to justify more logging of our forests. The two-hour meeting featured a biologist with the…

  • Antidote For Rural Sprawl–Land Use Zoning

    George Wuerthner

    Rural subdivision in Gallatin County, Montana. Photo George Wuerthner Back when I was a student at the University of Montana in Missoula, I had a girlfriend who managed to rent a house adjacent to the Bitterroot Mountains near Hamilton. All of us were very jealous of her luck in obtaining a place to live so…

  • The 99-Year Old Grandmother Argument–The Bias of Forestry Advocates

    George Wuerthner

      To many foresters and others who advocate for “active forest management,” a fire that results in high tree mortality is considered evidence of an “unhealthy” forest. Photo George Wuerthner  This past week I was invited to present my views on forest health and fire ecology to a group of Washington State residents and legislators…

  • Institutional Bias of Forestry School Research

    George Wuerthner

      Foresters want to remove large old-growth fir trees greater than 21 inches from the Blue Mountain Ecosystems in the name of forest restoration. Photo George Wuerthner  Institutional bias doesn’t just exist in race relationships. The Forest Service and Forestry Schools have been the handmaiden of the timber industry for so long they do not…

  • The Active Forest Management Scam

    George Wuerthner

    Previously logged and thinned forest that burned at high severity in the Jocko Lakes Fire, Montana. Photo George Wuerthner There are daily news stories about the recent large wildfires in 2020. In nearly all of these media accounts, the large blazes are almost always attributed to a lack of active forest management. In other words,…

  • South Plateau Timber Sale Another FS Con Job

    George Wuerthner

    Lodgepole pine forests like these in the South Plateau Timber sale tend to burn at fire rotations of hundreds of years, yet the FS wants to log them to preclude a future fire that may not occur for a century or more. Photo George Wuerthner The Custer Gallatin National Forest proposes to log and otherwise…

  • Critique of “Fire Suppression” Mythology

    George Wuerthner

      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…

  • Does Cattle Grazing Preclude Large Blazes?

    George Wuerthner

    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…

Subscribe to get new posts right in your Inbox

‎”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

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

Latest Posts

×