Wildfire

  • Misinformation Raging Like Wildfire

    George Wuerthner

    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…

  • Daines and Feinstein Fire Legisation Misguided

    George Wuerthner

        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…

  • Fire and Fish (Aquatic Ecosystems)

    George Wuerthner

    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.…

  • Medicine Bow NF Massive Logging Unacceptable

    George Wuerthner

    The Medicine Bow National Forest is proposing to implement the  Landscape Vegetation Analysis (LaVA) Project, one of the most massive logging operations in the lower 48 states.  As much as 320,000 acres (an area bigger than Grand Teton National Park) will be “treated” by logging and other “vegetation” manipulations. http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=51255 In the 1970s, the Targhee…

  • Bozeman Watershed Project Spills Bad Blood

    George Wuerthner

    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…

  • Depleted Forests

    George Wuerthner

    “Restoration” management on the Deschutes National Forest. Photo by George Wuerthner   You can’t solve a problem if you don’t identify it correctly. When it comes to wildfire safety, the timber industry, the Forest Service, and many collaboratives are selling Snake Oil to the public. The problem for people is not with the forest—the problem…

  • Fuels Breaks Fuel Fires

    George Wuerthner

    Caption: Above Cheatgrass invades fuel break cleared along road in Oregon. Bottom: Fuel break created in Idaho’s Snake River Plain. Photos by George Wuerthner The Department of Interior released a final decision to created 11,000 miles of linear cheatgrass corridors, which they are euphemistically calling “fuel breaks.” Think about that figure. Eleven thousand miles is…

  • Lolo NF Timber Sale Harms Forest Health

    George Wuerthner

    Clearcuts in Montana The Forest Service is once again demonstrating its Industrial Forestry bias with its proposal to treat 3,790 acres by Cruzane Mountain in the Lolo National Forest. An acre is approximately the size of one football field. The District Ranger suggests that treatments will “address insect and disease impacts and improve forest health…

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‎”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

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