Wildfire
-
A week ago, eight prominent scientists sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) declaring that the agency’s proposed Tri-State Fuel Break (TSFB) is flawed and will endanger sagebrush ecosystems. The Final Environmental Impact Statement (“FEIS”) and other project documents are available on the agency’s website at https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/42341/510. To quote the scientists: “If…
-
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…
-
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…
-
The influence of fire suppression is exaggerated. The idea that there was a “hundred years” of fire suppression ignores the fact that in the early 1920s and 1930s as much as 50 million acres burned annually. Furthermore, climate controls fires, as indicated by the cool, moist decades between the 1940s-1980s. Courtesy of Ralph Bloomer. With…
-
Far more ignitions start by roads than in the backcountry. Ironically thinning forests will create more roads, hence more ignitions. Photo by George Wuerthner Like zombies rising from the dead, legislators continue to push the flawed notion that logging can preclude large wildfires and protect communities. The “Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act…
-
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.…
-
Hyalite Reservoir in Bozeman watershed. Photo by George Wuerthner Safeway in ruin at Paradise California despite being surrounded by parking lot–lack of fuel didn’t save the building Photo by George Wuerthner Back in the Middle Ages, it was a common practice for “doctors” to bleed the “bad blood” from sick patients. If the…