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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See all 37 CommentsI 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.
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.
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.
See this link:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM300.pdf
This is a report which uses actual data to show that Carbon Dioxide is not causing the warming. We are about to do much harm to our economy based on faulty science.
Science is not a popularity contest. Galaleo showed that when popular views were that the earth was flat!
Let us all find the scientific proof, not hunches about carbon.
Here in the central Oregon Coast Range, between 1848 and 1868, there were four fires that averaged a half million acres. During that same time, east of Salem, Ore. the Silverton Fire was nearly a million acres. Every tv news crew in the country reported on the Biscuit Fire in southwest Oregon in 2002; they said it was the biggest fire in history. It was a half million acres - from an historical standpoint, just an average fire.
People have lived in N. America for thousands of years and they actively and consciously managed the landscape. People (i.e., Indians) were removed and we put out the fires. The black oak is disappearing as is the ponderosa pine. The duff that was burned by the Indians has built up and only the white fir germinates. This fir provides ladder fuels and the artifical sequouia forest is ripe to burn. John Muir would not recognize the "ancient" sequoia forest he saw.
In eastern Oregon, the Indians set the forest afire before they left the high country. In this way, the next summer, the grass was lush for deer and elk. The fuels were burned so that, if ignited by lightning, there was little to burn.
Yes, the US Forest Service has a century of fire fighting. With the removal of fire there is no longer anything to keep fire sizes down. The forest has over grown and is over-crowded. It has been stressed due the land having exceeded its "carrying capacity".
Western forests are prone to insects and has led to the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Of course, logging to mimic what fire once did would do the trick but our politicans treat the forest as a political object. They simply do not have the political gumption to do what is right and put aside politics. They need to manage with biology. (I'm not holding my breath as I wait for this to happen.)
Southern California is a fire landscape. Of course, if you put out every fire for several decades, the vegetation will be changed. Fuels are going to build up and, given a spark at the right time and place, catastrophic fires will occur. It is just common sense.
While global climate change may be playing a role, people's changing of the landscape has played a much larger role. Put out fires, refuse to log -- a prescription for bugs and fire.
I'd suggest a walk on the trail as the forest today is unbelievably prestine. And a tribute to the effort of Ranger Edward Pulaski, who became a hero at a place called the War Eagle Mine, led men with prayers on their lips through a pitch-black darkness punctuated by exploding trees and waves of flames that arced across the night sky.
Where was global warming in 1910?
http://www.idahoforests.org/fires.htm
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