To U.S. resident

[Drizzt]

Surely you all from U.S. know better your president than the rest of the world.

So, the "To prevent fire we only need to cut down all the trees" idea, is only a joke from him or are european journalist that have invented the whole story?

[Dr Mordrid]

It's not a joke if you know ANYTHING about forest management.

As old, dead growth and dry underbrush accumulates, especially during a drought as 50% of the US has been suffering from for 5 years, the risk of wildfires increases exponentially. When this condition exists every lightning strike or screwed up hiker becomes a potential fire disaster.

As ANYONE who has lived in the wooded regions of the U.S. countryside can tell you the ONLY fire prevention method that actually works is to go in and get rid of the dead wood and dry undergrowth in mass quantities. Been there, done that myself.

This summers bumper crop of wildfires in U.S. shows this effect in spades. We have lost forest land numbering in the millions of acres just this summer, and it's not over yet.

Wildfire prevention by such means was what the Forest Services "Smokey the Bear" campaign was all about, but of late the enviro-wackos have over 80% of the undergrowth clearing projects tied up in court.

This not only delays into perpetuity the very necessary clearing of highly flammable debris, it also diverts the Forest Service's resources to courtrooms instead of where it's really needed.

What President Bush is trying to do is break this legal logjam and get the dead trees and undergrowth cleared before we have any more disasterous fires.

I find the enviro-wackos position on this laughable given how much time they spend trying to defend "endangered" species in these same forests. Whatthehell good does it do to protect these species if they get turned into ashes in a wildfire?

Yes, I put quotes around the word "endangered".

Most all of these "endangered species" being argued over are identical to very numerous versions of the same animal with the only difference being a slight coloration difference.

In short; they are vaiants, not distinct species.

This, IMHO, does not make them elegible for protection.

Dr. Mordrid

[Drizzt]

Doc, please, I KNOW a bit about this subject and know how prevention works.
And, me too think that enviro are often a bit "out of head". So, please, don't over react


If you noticed, I have wroten "or are european journalist that have invented the whole story".
For what I have heard from TV, it seems that Bush has stated that it's not a matter of overgrown trees, it simply a matter of trees; and he was not referring to U.S. but to all the world. For this I was asking

[Dr Mordrid]

I heard his speech live on TV and he made the clear distinction that he is targeting dead trees and underbrush.

In terms of who's making a big issue of it, it comes down to two groups;

1. the left-leaning media over-reacting to please their audience and sell papers

2. the enviro-wackos are trying to use this "issue" to get extra donations from their supporters by throwing them into a panic. Their donations have been down post-911 and they're tring to get back their share of the $$ pie.

The people who actually have to live in these regions are all for clearing out the fuel for these fires before it burns....bigtime....regardless of their political leaning.

Wildfire prevention is becoming a huge issue, especially in the West...so much so that even liberal congressmen out there are now "getting the fire prevention religion"

Dr. Mordrid

[SpiralDragon]

i ve worked with several Enviro groups.. inclouding the UN environment program.... i can tell you one thing; the idea of saving the environment is a nessesery issue but unfortunatly just like in the world of politics, most environmentalists are ****ing liers.... a few years ago a new group of people forumulated a government here in lebanon... they set out to punish all those who where wityh the previous government ... (they called it reform) unfortunatly those who got "reformd" (read: sent to prison) where the people working under the real culprits.... "environmentalists" set out on a salem wich hunt kind of fetish where several of the leading enviros where debunked and replaced by their oponents.... ots all about politics and money.... but that doesnt mean we should go ahead and destroy forests or increase grean house gases.... after all we still have to live on this plant and quite frankly i would rather not having to put on a gas mask every time i want to go out for a walk (i have a very sensitive nose )

[Drizzt]

However, I think that world has gone well for millions of years with trees doing all that they wanted without stupid humans having to cut them.

Enviromentalists are often a bit out of reality, ok, but...
Is it possible that we [humans] go so proud of all our tech and then the only thing we can do is destroying the world to adapt it to us, instead of adapt ourselves to it?

Bah...

[Wombat]

However, I think that world has gone well for millions of years with trees doing all that they wanted without stupid humans having to cut them.

Yes, back when letting forests burn to their own contentment was the solution. It's a tough call: let nature take its course, or save tens of thousands of homes?

[Dr Mordrid]

Exactly. And these fires are widespread enough that they moved out of the wilderness areas and into places that have been populated for a long time.

When are we supposed to start preventing them, after Denver or San Diego burns down?

Dr. Mordrid

[SpiralDragon]

eventualy the human fate is that of the dinasour....... but there is no reson to accelrate that fate ..... be it by not preventing wild fiers or by continuing to play around with the force of fier that we know so litle about.....

[Marshmallowman]

yeah forest fires are dilema.

Here in Australia we have a similar situation, but our forest/scrubland has to BURNT off regularly because I lot of trees/plants need the fires to reproduce and grow and the dead wood/underbrush are nesting sites and homes for a lot of birds and animals.

so we can either have a healthy woodland area...or a safe one.

[Dr Mordrid]

No...you can have both as long as you don't have a single contiguous layer of dry underbrush and deadwood spanning hundreds of thousands of acres.

Unfortunately these are exactly the conditions we have in the western US right now because the enviro-wackos have effectively stopped clearing operations with their court battles for over 20 years.

Dr. Mordrid

[Marshmallowman]

what we use around here is small burns every year.
I think the burning bit is only a necessity in Australia, as we have plants that need to burnt otherwise some seeds will not germinate and regrowth will not occur...australia bushland NEEDS to be burnt.

If you leave the burn for to long .

A. it gets too dangerous
B. the temperature of the fire kills seed, trees and animals

My understanding is that european/american forest are different and don't require burning so clearing out some of the underbrush would work well.
You just got make sure the people who go into to do the clearing/collection don't just pick the rare/valuable trees instead of the common forest tree's

If done properly the forest is great RENEWABLE resource that should be used, not usesing it wasteful (and can be dangerous)

[Dr Mordrid]

Your understanding of American forests is correct in that clearing is better than burning most of the time, but there is a wide variety of forest types here and each area's needs change according to the amount of overgrowth and the drought conditions.

One of the largest fires this year was actually caused by an attempted controlled burn. The problem was the conditions were so dry that it would have been much safer to use clearing techniques, but the envionmentalists sued to prevent clearing in the theory that it would somehow benefit the lumber companies

The end result of this kind of madness is that over 5.9 million acres have been burned to dust this year.

At any given time there has been 50 or more major fires burning since June, mostly in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. .

Dr. Mordrid

[Marshmallowman]

that is so F#$Ked...over here we have "environmentalist" saying don't burn, when we should...and you's guys have burning when you should be clearing.

wait a sec...I know "who" we should burn

[Wombat]

There are a number of varieties of American coniferous trees where the seeds only sprout after being scorched by fire.