need to add title here

The Age of Megafires

September 6, 2009 4:20 PM

Global warming is increasing the intensity and number of forest fires across the American West. Scott Pelley goes to the fire line to report.

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by ssiadmin October 26, 2009 5:33 PM EDT
We have reached the Threshold and point of no return. We do need to do something now, right now. I am a director of a documentary on a project by Global Response Group based in Vancouver BC Canada that has something that can provide early detection, containment, control and will be able to combat even the largest of fires quickly with effective results. Interesting to watch them get into position with some big names involved.
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by xghafla September 13, 2009 2:29 PM EDT
What a pity that America still does not realize that this terror they create outside of their country coming back to their own back yard.
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by origtartuffe September 11, 2009 6:17 PM EDT
The programmer needs to clean this up.
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by jaltonm September 10, 2009 5:36 PM EDT
The bearded "scientist" had no rings that indicated megafires in the past.

I think it's more because those trees DIDN'T SURVIVE TO PROVIDE THIS GUY TREE RINGS IN THE 20TH CENTURY!

Then it's total conjecture that "half the forests will be gone within a century." Talk about blowing smoke! He provided no evidence to back this up, as it is totally preposterous.

Some comments made above about the restrictions on prescribed burns are absolutely right. Even the native Americans did controlled burns 200 years ago. The forests should NOT be "preserved", they should be MANAGED. If you cannot stand smoke, go back to the northeast and live there.
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by callendoudna September 8, 2009 9:47 AM EDT
I'm an unrepentant Republican and we've just had one of the coolest summers on record, tying with 1902. Nevertheless, I will make this suggestion: Hydrogen. Hydrogen can be burned just like natural gas in power plants, cookstoves and cars. I don't mean hydrogen fuel cell cars--which would be horribly expensive. (Fuel cells would require platinum plates in every car.) I mean hydrogen instead of gasoline. Burn hydrogen and you will get water. The water would build up in the sinks of the Great Basin and restore Lake Bonneville which covered western Utah and Lake Lahontan which covered northern Nevada. This would increase rainfall in the region. (It would also turn Las Vegas into an inland Miami and a canal across California would turn Salt Lake City into a seaport--but that's all future.) Hydrogen can be made by running electric current--with platinum electrodes--through seawater. The electricity can be generated by otherwise impractical intermitant sources like waves, tides, wind, or solar. One way to avoid having to buy a different car for every fuel would be steam cars. A steam engine will burn any fuel and a steam car can have two gas tanks: one for all manner of pumpable liquids (gasoline, ethanol, bio-diessel, ect--and a steam engine doesn't care if you mix fuels) and a second tank for compressed gasses (propane, methane, hydrogen, ect.) You could also pop the hood and shovel in coal, firewood, rags, and newspapers. Before you go criticizing steamers you may want to: 1) Consider some of the advances in technology in the last hundred years and ask yourself where cars, telephones, and microwave ovens were a hundred years ago. 2) Google "Doble Steamer". Not "double steamer", "Doble Steamer" http://www.damninteresting.com/the-last-great-steam-car
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by stever518 September 7, 2009 8:38 PM EDT
I'd be curious as to what fires in other parts of the globe have been. This was totally left out of the story. There were two reasons for the fires presented: global warming and controlled burning. The story did not balance the two by investigating other parts of the globe. Russia has extensive forest land at the same latitude. What about their forests?
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by doncordier September 7, 2009 1:08 PM EDT
I am a former professional firefighter with a local county entity in Southern California.

I viewed with great interest the feature titled? The Age of Megafires? on Sunday evening due to my experience and knowledge.

While ?Global Warming? may or may not be occurring (much evidence contradicts the claims of Global Warming believers of which I am not one), the main factor (the primary reason) was not discussed or even introduced!

That reason is due to the actions of a myriad of environmental groups being successful by either threatening or actually bringing legal actions (law suites) to stop most (virtually all) clearing of underbrush and removal or harvesting of dead trees within all but private owned forests.

In nearly all cases, the environmental groups have been successful in their actions. This is most often due to a fear by politicians to opposing these threats and claims for fear of large reprisal from the environmental groups when time for re-election arrives. This is the same situation whether involving local, state and/or federal agencies where it is very undesirable to be threatened, or worse, to actually to become defendants in these actions.

Until this fact is addressed and some common sense comes to the surface, we will continue to experience fires that are larger and more difficult to control and eventually extinguish.

The impact on human and animal life alone is immense not to mention the terrible losses in personal property and valuable forests and is in direct contradiction to the stated desires of these environmental groups.

This is a classic example of ?Stage One Thinking? in that they (the so-called environmentalists) have given no thought or nor any concern whatsoever to the consequences of their actions.

Frankly, as the ?winners? of these legal actions are paid by the defendants (in this case, YOU the taxpayers) and stand to earn untold large sums of money, they will neither consider or care of the real impact of their actions.
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by thurston2001 September 7, 2009 12:59 PM EDT
One thing for sure is the right wing anti-global warming types are incapable of admitting they are wrong about anything, ever.
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by derekcranex September 7, 2009 8:53 AM EDT
The "Age of Megafires" is a 90% fabrication. Stahl did hint at the real problem at the beginning of the segment -- environmentalist efforts to prevent the removal of brush and dead wood- but followed up with a more in-depth report which blames global warming for the conflagration. No mention that the area is naturally hot and dry in the summer or that an arsonist is believed to have started the fire -- no, it's global warming! May I suggest that 60 Minutes follow this story with an investigation on efforts of the Sierra Club, WWF, and others to keep the forests as "natural as possible." derekcrane
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by cmoen2006 September 7, 2009 5:35 AM EDT
WOW. Intellectually dishonest and reprehensehible. A crystal clear example of the global warming gang jamming their guilt on us. The question of how many mega fires there were BEFORE the birth of christ were left unanswered. Just how many of them worked around the clock 24hours a day back then to put of unabated fires then? OOOOPs. And... how many within the last 200 years were arson or man-made? OOOOPs. You didnt even mention that? Unbiased journalism? Perhaps we should all kills ourselves to save the planet.

Look, I dont care that the scientific community waffles on whether eggs are good for you... or more importanly, their bogus that claim that in the '70s we were headed for an ice age (lets not forget, scientist dont get grants to investigate everything is ok) BUT if you want to make the pretentious case that humans are ******* up the planet, at least be honest.

Ive have watched my last 60 minutes episode. Something Ive done over my last 20 years. You should be ashamed. This is the first response I have ever been compelled to write.
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