Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Greens have reacted with fury at Trump Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke‘s suggestion that opposition to sensible forestry management is exacerbating fire risks.
Wildfires seem unstoppable, but they can be prevented. Here’s how.
Ryan Zinke, Opinion contributor Published 6:00 a.m. ET Aug. 8, 2018
Actively managing our forests benefits the environment, the economy, and most important, it saves lives.
The flames of the Ferguson Fire in California have become the latest symbols of a seemingly perennial challenge of fighting fires in the West. I just returned from the Ferguson Fire camp, where I met with firefighters who are working to combat the fire as it bears down on Yosemite National Park and its visitors, workers and nearby residents.
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Why we need to manage our forests
There are three reasons for active forest management:
First, it is better for the environment to manage the forests. Wildfires produce smoke and emissions. The release of gases and particles can negatively affect air quality. Fires also damage watersheds, and as we see fires burning hotter and longer, the soil is actually becoming scorched and sterilized, preventing regrowth. In addition, while many of the frivolous lawsuits waged to stop timber harvests cite habitat as a concern, environmental litigants are little concerned when an entire forest burns to the ground and the habitat and wildlife are lost.
Second, active forest management is good for the economy. Logs come out of the forest in one of two ways: They are either harvested sustainably to improve the health and resilience of the forest (while creating jobs), or they are burned to the ground. Jobs matter, and logging has long been a cornerstone of rural economies. Fortunately for all, these economic benefits go hand-in-hand with our goal of healthy forests.
Third, and most important, the active management of our forests will save lives. The Carr Fire in northern California has already claimed half a dozen lives, and the Ferguson Fire has taken the lives of two firefighters. Sadly, these are not the only wildfire casualties this year.
Every year we watch our forests burn, and every year there is a call for action. Yet, when action comes, and we try to thin forests of dead and dying timber, or we try to sustainably harvest timber from dense and fire-prone areas, we are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods.
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Seems sensible – if you clear or burn off excess undergrowth and log a few trees, reduce the amount of fuel, when a fire starts there will be less fuel available to burn.
Not according to greens.
‘No, Secretary Zinke. Record-Breaking Wildfires in California Have Everything to Do with Climate Change’
People who actual understand science, and also care about planet’s future, accuse Interior Secretary of “either being willfully ignorant or purposely deceptive.”
by Jon Queally, staff writer
After U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke over the weekend outrageously and falsely declared that the largest wildfires in the history of California have “nothing to do with climate change,” it was up to people who actually understand the science—and give a shit about the future of the planet—to set him straight.
No, Secretary Zinke. The record-breaking wildfires in California have everything to do with climate change. We must confront the reality that climate change is already destroying tens of thousands of lives, and take concrete steps to avoid its worst consequences. https://t.co/qSfahHcbeS
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 13, 2018
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CWP STATEMENT:
As California Burns, @SecretaryZinke Buries his Head in the Sand. Ignoring science, forestry experts, and common sense, Zinke tells reporters the West’s fires have “nothing to do with climate change.”https://t.co/joanFpMSrI pic.twitter.com/u7SSb8mXKO— Western Priorities (@WstrnPriorities) August 13, 2018
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“It doesn’t matter whether you believe or don’t believe in climate change. What is important is we manage our forests.”
—@RyanZinkeYes, Zinke, it *does* matter if you believe in climate change.
It’s happening. All around us. Right now.https://t.co/8ZnIWWel4S
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 14, 2018
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My question – why do US greens seem to believe advocating forestry management is synonymous with opposing climate action?
Surely it is possible to be concerned about climate change, yet also support sensible forestry management policies.
In my native Australia the issue of forestry management is barely a debate anymore. It is common in winter to see controlled burn operations to clear undergrowth, even in states with green governments, because the alternative is unthinkable. Australia might be famous for our catastrophic bushfires, but we have learned through bitter experience that forestry management mitigates the risk.
Lives will be saved if US greens drop their senseless opposition to effective forestry management.
Smokey the Bear was wrong. That’s why we don’t see him anymore.
I was surprised during a 2001 tour of Yellowstone when the guide stated that when a fire is spotted, a team is sent in immediately, not to fight the fire, but to determine its origins. Anything that is man caused is extinguished. Anything naturally caused i.e., lightning, is left to burn.
50 years of misdirected forest management has left Yellowstone full of burned stumps. But for the last couple decades, Yellowstone has been actively managing the forest using new (ancient) forest management practices – more, smaller fires either as a controlled burn, or letting nature do her thing. Today, new fires do not have all that fuel on the forest floor, and the fire burns cooler and lower, mostly staying out of the trees’ crowns. The trees live, the soil lives, wildlife lives, habitat remains, and the forest is healthier for it. Slowly, Yellowstone is recovering from all those Smokey the Bear years. The forest is returning to its natural balance of growth and fire, albeit slowly. Nature is unstoppable, but not incredibly fast.
The benefit of these natural burns include control of insects and a clearing of the much smaller levels of fallen fuel. Some species of trees actually require a fire cycle to release seeds for the next generation os seeds.
Cali is so whacked out… they reject forest management, and are paying the price. Continuing on the same trajectory of denial and avoiding their own role in these disasters will stop only when the entire state is in cinders.
One can educate the uneducated and uninformed, but there is no fix for idiots.
Stupidity is its own reward.
Smokey Bear’s new motto (to judge by the greens beliefs) should be “only the Paris Climate Accord can stop forest fires”
Though to be fair, the Smokey PSAs IIRC focused on human sources of ignition. Smoldering cigarettes tossed out of car windows, untended campfires, playing with matches, those sorts of things.
They also replaced “forest fires” in the catchphrase with “wildfires” later on, as perhaps a subtle admission that not all forest fires are bad.
The green blob has too much invested in images of clear cuts and Bambi to consent to forest management. Add in an anti-capitalist theme, of voracious exploiters of Mother Nature, and they are stuck in their rhetoric.
Excellent essay by Eric Worrall. Short, sweet, simple and to the point. Both sides of issue presented.
Ryan Zinke offers a rational point of view. As usual the CAGW narrative is the only talking point offered by the brainwashed team of alarmists. I will now read through the comments and expect to see the “doomsday screamers” appear in force. Their numbers and shrill cries will be proportional to the impact Eric’s essay has on their failing narrative. Extreme flak occurs when you are over the target and truth bombs using reason and logic are causing an impact to an indefensible stand.
I’d pay to watch the warmists attempt to convince the forestry professionals who deal with this on a daily basis.
https://youtu.be/3I3oewMq6B0
Unfortunately they don’t have to convince the forestry professionals. All they need to do is convince the politicians who set the policies that the forestry professionals have to follow.
Seems like a few class action lawsuits from land owners and other stake holders aimed at those who prevent the forest management would be in order.
Here in Maine, the most heavily forested state in the U.S. we realize that only a young growing forest is a healthy forest. An old growth forest is a dying forest. Regular harvests keep out forests young and healthy. It drives my enviro friends nuts when I tell them, “The difference between a field of corn and a forest is frequency of harvest”, but it’s true. We don’t mind sharing our rural roads with logging trucks and we appreciate the jobs they provide. By the way, only young growing trees convert CO 2 to oxygen.
In the UK, we have to remove around 7M tons of timber from our woods & forests each year just to keep them healthy!
Having received my forestry education at the University of Maine, permit me a few observations:
1) The forests of Maine, and essentially all of New England might as well be made of asbestos. They don’t burn easily, nor very often regardless of fuel loading. Why? When it thunders in Maine during the summer, significant rain follows. Not so much out west. As an example, I live in far northwest Montana and record precipitation daily. Since July 1, I’ve recorded 0.21″ of rain. And, we have a significant fire ~10 miles away.
2) The essential shut down of logging on millions of acres of western forests, “managed” by the federal government, coincides perfectly with the increase in both incidence and acres burned. When there was active logging on the National Forests, fires were fewer and smaller.
3) As long as a tree remains alive and respiring, it will convert CO2 and emit O2. However, vigorously growing young trees are much more efficient.
Few things in this world are as dangerous as mobs of zealots that just actual know they are right. (No, that’s not a typo)
Proper forest management practices will not be practiced until we have a change in law on nuisance lawsuits. Under our current laws just a single person with deep pockets can tie up timber sales in court until the buyers give up. If a sale does happen they can stop the logging via injunction until the logger goes broke defending their right to log.
The most egregious of these laws is the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), passed in 1980, which forces the American taxpayer to fund these frivolous lawsuits. EAJA needs to be repealed.
Wildfires in the U.S. are easily prevented. Stop causing them. 84% of wildfires are directly caused by humans. If humans stopped CAUSING wildfires there would be fewer of them. (if I’ve got my math right)
While this is technically true, lightning busts are really much more important. These occur during the worst of each fire season, and can quickly overwhelm available resources. Nationally in the US, we’ve been in Planning Level 5 for at least a month now, which means there is a significant shortage of resources. As a result, fires must be prioritized and some go unmanned while others cannot be attacked aggressively. Understand that a major lightning bust can start 500+ fires in just a few hours.
Lost in all the talk and debate over who and what is to blame for the wildfires in California and Europe this summer is the Great Peshtigo Fire of October 1871 here in Wisconsin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire.
Unsurprisingly, it was dry and windy conditions that fueled and fanned the flames of this great inferno. When it was all over, nearly 1.9 million square miles (1.2 million acres) were burned, including numerous entire communities. Somewhere between 1,200 and 2,500 people were killed (the exact number is unknown). And yes, there was a fire tornado in the inferno, like the one reported in California. A good chunk of northeastern Wisconsin went up in flames, although the map in the Wikipedia link above says the flames didn’t make it to Green Bay.
It is granted that the technology and means to fight forest fires that we have today did not exist in 1871. The concept of forest management perhaps did not exist either. But I can’t help but shake my head in despair when the climate alarmists blame climate change for the California fires when I look back at the Peshtigo Fire. So far as I know, the size and scope of the Peshtigo Fire has not been repeated, at least not here in the U.S. If I am wrong about that, anyone out there is free to point it out.
The Great Peshtigo Fire has been largely ignored and forgotten because the Great Chicago Fire happened at about the same time, so the Peshtigo Fire gets eclipsed by it in history. The cause is still a matter of debate, but some even blame meteors because the Chicago Fire happened at about the same time (although I find that very unlikely).
I sincerely hope Secretary Zinke and President Trump have the will and determination to start an effective forest management program in this country, so we can get a grip on the annual summer forest fire issue in the West. They need to stand up to the Greens and fight them as much as they have to so the program can get started…and the sooner the better. And find the damn arsonists responsible and lock them up!
Can’t edit anymore. Allow me to reword one of my sentences above: I can’t help but shake my head in despair when reading about the Peshtigo fire after hearing today’s climate alarmists blame climate change for the fires in California and Europe.
1.9 THOUSAND square miles ?
@Sweet Old Bob:
Oops, you are right. 1,875 square miles according to Wikipedia.
National Weather Service write up on it also says 1.2 million acres burned:
https://www.weather.gov/grb/peshtigofire.
Thanks for pointing out the error.
What has become known as “The Big Burn,” in August of 1910, burned 3 million acres across NE Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. Do the math, there are 640 acres in a square mile.
LKMiller: You are correct, “The Big Burn” of 1910 burned much more acreage than the Peshtigo Fire. It was not as deadly though, with 85 victims.
Just got back from a trip. Met a guy who was an actual forester. He said the greenies’ opposition to logging was the reason the fires could not be controlled. I won’t give his name, might cost him his job.
Just think: Logging could provide fire breaks as well as removing some of the fuel for the fires.
what kind of nut could be against that?
It’s worse than that, green policy has had the forest service rip out logging roads because they are “bad”. Of course the real reason behind ripping them out is to limit public access to public forests. Of course that also limits access to fire fighters.
I agree with you on limiting public access. Another reason is that by abandoning older roads as a matter of record in accounting it increases the opportunity to designate a region as roadless and subject to wilderness designation. I’ve fought that battle and lost.
A typical green, not an extremist, is against rational enviro policy.
Just like a typical parasite, the typical green feeds off of others and produces nothing of their own but weaken the victim.
Extremist greens, like extremist parasites, leave toxins and poisons the host.
“No, Secretary Zinke. The record-breaking wildfires in California…destroying tens of thousands of lives, and take CONCRETE steps to avoid its worst consequences. — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 13, 2018” (Emphasis added)
Hehe…concrete…adds CO2 to the atmosphere…what an ironic use of the word.
It really isn’t the cutting of select trees, if done carefully, that harms a forest. Its the building of logging roads that do the real damage. Figure out how to get significant wood out of the middle of a forest economically without building roads and you have solved a big problem.
I am an environmentalist…not the new crazed activist kind, but the traditional “raised by farmers and hunters” kind. I love pristine forests…I also realize that dry wood and people are a dangerous combination. Just like giving a gun to a person untrained in its use is a really bad idea, putting an untrained person into a dry forest overnight is a bad idea – they tend to start wild fires. Of course you also have the loon-heads who start fires on purpose. So managing a forest so that WHEN it burns, it is less hot and damaging, is a good idea.
What’s wrong with a logging road that is seeded after completion of activities?
What’s wrong with the diversity that the patchwork cutting provides?
Helicopter logging? What a bunch of enviro BS. I observed a helicopter extraction operation that had an old abandoned road going through it. I could have driven an automobile on it just by cutting the brush back a little further that the deer hunters didn’t deem as necessary to drag their deer out.
Real beauty is a fresh (2-8 year old) 30-50 acre clearcut every 1/2 mile in every direction when possible and an access road seeded for wildlife consumption. Do it for the wildlife.
We should stop being emotive and have two test areas, one eco managed and one safety managed and see which works out best with careful monitoring to identify and deliberate arson to distort the test. It is time that just as the environmentalist use possible risk as reason for expensive law suits the victims do the same to the Eco lobby groups.
The probability that more than one in five of the lives lost were caused by the actions of the environmental lobby are put a 100% by one method used by risk evaluators. I wonder what the risk factor would be for the risk of CO2 induced climate change by a similar evaluation designed on the basis of demanding serious levels of proof.
This test has already been done, and is ongoing. Just compare timberlands managed by private companies to those “managed” by the US federal government.
It is interesting that the enviros, at least in what was posted here, didn’t argue Zinke’s points but just threw up the climate change mantra. I know of you got environmental land managers outside the federal government or western states that don’t believe the points Zinke made. And I know several in the federal government and in western states that believe their jobs would be at risk if they dare to objected to the orthodoxy as preached by the green socialists.
Back in the 1990s a group of technocrats out west inside US Forestry were using their “new” internet connections to organize opposition inside federal and state governments and certainly not for wiser management but strictly for the orthodoxy of the greens.
I’m inspired to leave all weeds in my next vegetable garden, and never prune suckers off tomato plants again. Let it grow, let EVERYTHING grow. Human management is eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil. Any management that benefits the QUALITY of vegetative growth is artificial and unnatural. I should eat the partially diseased tomatoes caused by not weeding, … eat around the worms eating my tomatoes — worms caused by not keeping a cleaner, weed-free garden. Yeah, I’m just gonna resign myself to eat the worms too — more protein that way. And think of the many other critters I can help nourish, besides my selfish self. Remember, anything focused on human development and human benefit is sinful, out of touch with the Earth, insensitive to NATURE. Oh, and I’m going to tear down chicken wire protecting my crops, since I have been starving birds, preventing them from exercising their natural instincts to eat tomatoes. And alllllllllllll the creatures of the Earth shall be allowed to feast on my bountiful, green-thumb endeavors. Ah men.
If you do that you will have no tomatoes. Better keep doing what you have and enjoy the homegrown vine ripened tomatoes. A pellet gun or shotgun will help with the birds. There is only one species that hit my tomatoes. Usually only 6-8 birds needs elimination, especially if you get them before they nest. To make positive identification of the guilty species in your area just use one of the ‘pecked’ tomatoes and set on a wire basket and watch. The one that you whack while eating your tomato bait is most obviously guilty! Drop the hammer, sentence rendered. Use only white colored tape for tying them up. If you don’t like your neighbor, buy them a couple of rolls of red or orange survey tape for their garden. It’s worth the money!
I see this repeated over and over again on Twitter and Youtube. They will not accept that there are a record number of dead trees (129 Million) just sitting there, drying out, and ready to catch fire. They insist the “heat” is causing the fires and it’s “irrelevant” that 90% of the fires were either arson or set due to carelessness by campers or someone else in some other way. They are convinced that it’s so hot that the forests are catching fire and that every fire anywhere on the planet is caused by CO2 spot heating that specific area. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
Again, the stats on fire origin are misleading. It is technically true that the majority of wildland fires are started by humans, the situation only gets really bad when lightning busts, which can start hundreds of new fires in just a few hours, strike across the west.
It doesn’t matter if heat, allegedly caused by manmade climate change, is causing the fires. Nothing “concrete” WE (Californiaqns or Americans) do to reduce our CO2 emissions will reduce forest fires because emissions will be rising so dramatically in the developing world that the net effect will be more fires. The only “concrete” steps we can make to reduce fires is to practice active forest management, as the Interior Secretary proposes.
Reality is unwelcome to the “progressive”.
They know everything and have no interest in discussing. The “progressive” demands obediance and expressly rejects the tolerance they claimed to value when they were seeking power.
What was the CO2 concentration in 1825?
Miramichi fire – 1825
Or in 1910? Big Blowup – ID/MT/WA/B.C.
Or in 1950? Chinchaga
I live by forest in Australia. Burning is the last thing we want on our 1.5ha. It dries the forest community out, meaning higher long term risk of fire. What id like to do is take out the tall canopy eucalypt, perfect for firewood and electricity poles, and encourage the rainforest under storey. Rainforest doesnt burn so readily. But Greens wont allow such reason, it goes against their fundamental ideology, despite the fact if man extinct here, in 200 years the forest would be rainforest, no doubt. Rednecks wont allow it either, they just want to burn it because they love it. Neither have the solution.
“Lives will be saved if US greens drop their senseless opposition to effective forestry management.”
Don’t be silly – the Greenies don’t care about anyone’s lives but their own, and they certainly don’t care about firefighters and people who have the unmitigated gall to build houses.
I have recently moved back to our family farm, to take care of the property for my mother. The house has been empty for 2 years, and no one has been in a position to maintain the yard beyond grass cutting for many years. The yard includes two groves of trees, one quite large, plus other treed areas. This is our first summer here, and I have been working my way through one of the groves, cleaning up many years of dead and dying trees and debris. Time and again, I look around and think, “that’s a fire hazard, that’s a fire hazard, that’s also a fire hazard…” Meanwhile, the outer yard is in desperate need of a managed burn, which I hope to be able to get the permits for next spring. We had wildfires in the area this year, and a couple of farms were saved because they had done managed burns, just weeks before. Others were not so lucky, and homes were lost.
Our yard is a little microcosm demonstrating exactly how necessary managing forests is, just for basic fire safety. Our recent wildfires showed how managed burns can save the trees, as well as homes.
Why can’t “environmentalists” understand this?
They can. They just don’t want to.
After every major fire we have either a Commission of Inquiry or a Royal Commission into the causes. They have, without exception, ruled that not thinning and not doing controlled burns turns a simple bushfire into a wildfire. The restrictions on controlled burns have always come from the “Green” camp.
The Secretary is correct, a buildup of fuel in the undergrowth causes wildfires, not climate change.
Reading the alarmists’ objections to sensible forestry management, sounds like they are the ones in (the nile) 😉
The greens are practicing what they preach:
destruction and waste.
And the greens get angry with anyone getting in the way of their destruction and waste.
The Green reaction to Zinke’s statement is nothing but red herrings; they fail to answer why forestry management is not the answer, preferring instead to harp on about “climate change.” It seems to me that, whether caused by climate change or arson, responsible management will reduce the number of wildfires and their accompanying damage to the environment. But, in the end, the Green movement is, at its foundation, an anti-capitalist movement, and litigation in opposition to logging is an effective attack on the capitalist system.
Smoke from wildfires is making Calgary absolutely unlivable right now.
If this is forestry mismanagement caused by more green falsehoods, then they belong in jail.
It is definitely NOT due to “global warming”.
I think it is time for a whole lot of greens to chain themselves to trees in front of the fire, to protest against air pollution.