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Old growth forest along the Salmon River, Oregon. Photo George Wuerthner The Wall Street Journal’s December 21, 2023, editorial board wrote that Biden’s New Forest Plan will “lead to more uncontrolled fires—and won’t help the climate.” The WSJ is upset that the Biden Administration plans to ban logging of old-growth forests on national forest lands,…
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The Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, was an urban blaze driven by high winds. Photo George Wuerthner A new paper, “Wildlands-urban fire disasters aren’t a wildfire problem,” published in PNAS, challenges traditional approaches to wildfire management strategies. The researchers note that most of the large blazes that destroyed homes, including Lahaina, Hawaii, Talent and…
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Severe deforestation on the Wallowa Whiteman National Forest, Oregon justified by fire scar reconstructions. Photo George Wuerthner One of the biggest problems, and also a source of disagreements in wildfire discussions, stems from the use of different temporal and spatial scales. What may seem like excessive wildfire under one set of temporal and spatial assumptions…
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“The grazing of livestock, where established prior to the effective date of this Act, shall be permitted to continue subject to such reasonable regulations as are deemed necessary by the Secretary of Agriculture.” The Wilderness Act of 1964, Section 4(d)(4)(2) Cattle grazing designaed wilderness in the Sonoran Desert National Monument, Arizona. Photo George Wuerthner No…
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Low severity blazes burn up fine fuels like grass and seldom kill mature trees. Photo George Wuerthner This morning, Columbia University released a press release that proclaimed, “Low-intensity fires reduce wildfire risk by 60%, study finds.? Fuel treatments may slow fire spread at strategic locations and facilitate fire suppression. However, like many of these studies,…
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The idea that frequent low-severity blazes as practiced by Native American removes litter but does not kill trees and thus can preclude large blazes is widely promoted by media, the Forest Service and others. Photo George Wuerthner The idea that frequent low severity blazes as was practiced by some tribal people can reduce large conflagrations…
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The notion that fire suppression is the reason for large mega fires ignores the influence of climate/weather on blazes and thus leads to poor public policy. We are continuously bombarded with the message that 100 years of fire suppression and lack of logging drive large blazes. The fire suppression myth is a convenient excuse for…
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Giant sequoia at Sequoia National Park, California. Photo George Wuerthner One significant problem with explaining complex ecological stories is that many journalists are unprepared to interpret scientific research. A recent report in the Washington Post on a University of California Irvine study of wildfire fuels in California’s Sierra Nevada is a classic example of a…
Author
George Wuerthner is an ecologist and writer who has published 38 books on various topics related to environmental and natural history. He has visited over 400 designated wilderness areas and over 200 national park units.