California burning, ****!ng hypocrits!

[donbrown]

That is a good point.
Let nature takes it natural cource sounds nice and all, but as has been seen (such as Yellowstone) it isn't the best way to actually manage a forest.
that's the problem with "green" policies concerning forest/land management.
Enviro's (and ignorant people) love the look of a "wild" forest. They like to think that is the way a forest is supposed to look without man's interference.
They would be correct, that is the way a forest looks without man's interference, it is also the way to destroy a forest.
If fire doesn't kill the forest, overgrowth will choke it out.

A well managed forest system includes cutting timber, clearing underbrush, pest control (chemical and fire), prescribed burns and road access.
Unfortunetly, the forest service has become afraid of the enviro movement because they sue at the drop of a hat. So they don't do what is really needed to control fires and pestilence.
It's too bad really.

I am affiliated with a cabin inside the fire boundaries of the Los Angeles fire by Mount Wilson.

You guys have no idea all the crap and grief we get for having an area leased from the NFS.

A generation ago the NFS was leasing 40 acre plots in this area (burning today) to anyone who would fill out the application and pay the annual fees.

Now most of the land is not leased. There are a few left as compared to the 100's 40 years ago. This area always burns ... maybe not as big as the one today but power lines, arson, car fires, MOTORCYCLE accidents. (HWY 1 out of Los Angeles is the beach, HWY 2 is the forest road)

HWY 2 going thru the forest here is has more road accidents/deaths per mile than any other road in California.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLf2bjsXNBA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgGJXKUtFTs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y-EvGrP63s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcmUH9JfsrY&feature=related

I won't even drive up there past 9AM on the weekends cause most of the time the road is closed scraping someone up or getting them from the bottom of the many cliffs on the road.

I used to be able to sled on access roads around here but people filed compaints (while walking on the land we leased ... yep that is trespassing) saying the tracks made it too aesy to walk and they went too far into the forest and when the snow loosened up they gort stuck

We get sued all the time ... from motorcycles slipping on rocks saying we caused the rocks to be there.
People sueing us for tripping on our road saying it was not maintained properly.
Getting gang taggers to paint all over the cabin and nearby roocks.

The area was classified as recreation at least 70 years ago and all the "city" folk figuire they could litigate "all" the "clubs" up here so they shut down. Then move on to the next recreation area.

First they required a 100 feet from any dwelling all brush cleared. Now it is 300 feet.

 

[Himark]

Their the green state.
They refuse to allow BLM, Forest service or private home owners to clear dead or deseased shrubs and trees.
They refuse to allow the Forest service or BLM to fight bug and desease infestations because they don't want those icky chemicals. It's better to just let mother nature burn it all and blame global warming.
They won't allow the forest service, blm or the fire department to cut fire breaks or access roads into some of the areas with the highest fire danger.
Their policies contribute to the very problem they claim to be against. the fires buring now release more Co2 into the atmoshpere than all the cars in california in a 5 year period.

The fires are so bad as a direct result of their policies and practices and yet they claim to have the moral directive to tell the rest of the country what to do and how to do it.

Actually what Ollie said..I cant believe he is right but by god Ollie is right on on this one!!

j/k yah ollie.

 

[donbrown]

the fires buring now release more Co2 into the atmoshpere than all the cars in california in a 5 year period.

The fires are so bad as a direct result of their policies and practices and yet they claim to have the moral directive to tell the rest of the country what to do and how to do it.

If you can prove this then it should be in every argument to stop more wilderness.

Afterall how much money does it cost to fight a fire?

How many people die from breathing the smoke?

 

[Ollie]

If you can prove this then it should be in every argument to stop more wilderness.

Afterall how much money does it cost to fight a fire?

How many people die from breathing the smoke?

Doesn't matter.
You could prove beyond ANY doubt that the forest fires release more in 1 second than all the cars in the world, it wouldn't matter.

The forest fire is this bad because of global warming and it just goes to prove Co2 is indeed as bad as the enviro's say. It isn't an arguement you can win against a liberal. You can rub their nose in the fact they are wrong and it still won't matter.

I have a friend here at work that ran the math, I will see if I can get him to e-mail the numbers to me.

 

[Rob1334]

Lots of good points.

I actually expected this years fire season to be a lot worse, thank God it's not.

I agree with a lot of the points but just want to add my .02 (don't take anything I say offensive please donbrown, haha, you sound a lot more prepared then others in your area.)

I for one will never take another California fire job unless a LOT of things change. For starters they can not pay me enough to protect homes in that area, overgrown vegetation is out of control, and it can burn off one year and be back twice as strong the next, it is the type of vegetation that grows there that causes this and nothing you can do. Homeowners don't do anything because they want a home in a saddle/chute with lush vegetation surrounding it (face it, who wants a house with clearings of 300 ft around it?) and only one road in and out because it is a private drive and don't want traffic. There is NO WAY I will go into one of these situations with my crew, if you have the money to build a home there, you have the insurance and capital to rebuild there, but there is no way to bring back the lives of me or my crew if things get bad. I want to help save property as bad as anyone, one of my favorite parts of the job is the satisfaction when you do save a structure and see the gratitude of homeowners after, but when they don't help us on their property to give us a fighting chance at a SAFE opportunity to fight the fire I will move on to a property who does.

I also would like a quick solution to the beetle. Burn the crap out of those areas, log them hard. The reason for the rapid spread is stress among the trees. When overcrowded the trees are stressed more, prone to disease, and beetle populations thrive. Thinning and brush clearing from prescribe fire and logging would slow it down, but good luck with that.

Finally, give these firefighters a break. All agencies answer to those above them, usually either high ranking agency officials from the regions or more comonly governors. They are out there busting their body's and minds for everyone. Not all of them make a ton of money doing it, but the danger is there. 2 more were lost yesterday, and if you have the time say a quick prayer for them and their families please do, thank you

 

[donbrown]

Lots of good points.

I actually expected this years fire season to be a lot worse, thank God it's not.

I agree with a lot of the points but just want to add my .02 (don't take anything I say offensive please donbrown, haha, you sound a lot more prepared then others in your area.)

I for one will never take another California fire job unless a LOT of things change. For starters they can not pay me enough to protect homes in that area, overgrown vegetation is out of control, and it can burn off one year and be back twice as strong the next, it is the type of vegetation that grows there that causes this and nothing you can do. Homeowners don't do anything because they want a home in a saddle/chute with lush vegetation surrounding it (face it, who wants a house with clearings of 300 ft around it?) and only one road in and out because it is a private drive and don't want traffic. There is NO WAY I will go into one of these situations with my crew, if you have the money to build a home there, you have the insurance and capital to rebuild there, but there is no way to bring back the lives of me or my crew if things get bad. I want to help save property as bad as anyone, one of my favorite parts of the job is the satisfaction when you do save a structure and see the gratitude of homeowners after, but when they don't help us on their property to give us a fighting chance at a SAFE opportunity to fight the fire I will move on to a property who does.

I also would like a quick solution to the beetle. Burn the crap out of those areas, log them hard. The reason for the rapid spread is stress among the trees. When overcrowded the trees are stressed more, prone to disease, and beetle populations thrive. Thinning and brush clearing from prescribe fire and logging would slow it down, but good luck with that.

Finally, give these firefighters a break. All agencies answer to those above them, usually either high ranking agency officials from the regions or more comonly governors. They are out there busting their body's and minds for everyone. Not all of them make a ton of money doing it, but the danger is there. 2 more were lost yesterday, and if you have the time say a quick prayer for them and their families please do, thank you

I think these are great points.

Mount Wilson Observatory cut out lot of the old growth and fought many lawsuits trying to stop them. Let see if the clearing save the area.

Funny how we lease land from the NFS and MUST have the area cleared up plus many other things down to the type and size of fuel cans.

Where down the road there is some private land where they have a 20 foot "clearing" and multiple items just waiting to fuel a fire. Yet they are in compliance with City,county, state code and don't have to follow NFS rules even though they are surrounded by the national forest.

Most of the land burning around Mount Wilson is Federal, State, County and city land. They control the area to get all the water out of it and send it to Los Angeles.

As far as the trees in that area ... can't cut them (Sierra club)and there are vast areas (measurable in square miles) there hit by the bettle where 85% of the trees are dead. For the area we lease as soon as a tree dies we get the NFS to tag it so we can at least drop it.

After this all burns they look for a "human cause" reason the fire started in the first place so to create even more wilderness.

 

[SkiDoobyDoo]

To be truly wilderness shouldn't the land be allowed to burn without any firefighting?

That would be exactly how nature would handle it.

.

 

[donbrown]

To be truly wilderness shouldn't the land be allowed to burn without any firefighting?

That would be exactly how nature would handle it.

.

Makes sense but are we not part of nature?

 

[SkiDoobyDoo]

Makes sense but are we not part of nature?

Building roads and infrastructure for firefighting is not a natural activity or process. It is more a human logical function.

It comes to us logically to prevent / extinguish fires. However, we are not allowed to certain activities in a "wilderness area". Underbrush builds up, overgrowth of trees, etc...

 

[Yamadoo04]

Makes sense but are we not part of nature?

According to the enviros, "No we are not a part of nature. We are invaders on this planet and shouldn't do anything with anything on the earth."

As far as the trees go we had the same problem with the beetles in out cabin area. 85% of the trees are dead now. By the time anyone knew we had a problem it was too late. If you see the trees turning red its too late. the damage has been done. All that can be done is to burn the forest and many miles of forest in front of the beetles to get ride of them. The problem we have now is there is no market for the trees so the logging in the area is taking forever. I really want to just start cutting down the old dead wood because it is so freaking ugly up there now.

 

[revpilot]

The culprit behind our forest fire problem is......fire fighting! Our forest service policy is to extinguish forest fires as quickly as possible. They do some thinning and prescribed burns and logging, but these things are no where near enough control for forest fires. Preventing fires from taking their natural course causes our forest to become loaded with fuel. It makes the fires more intense and destructive. Forest fire is also the only thing that can control forest pests and diseases. For those who are skeptical about this, take a look at yellowstone national park. The policy in the park used to be stop fires at all cost. Then in(cant remember when, late 70's I think), they changed their policy to the current policy, which is to let it burn and just protect buildings from fire. When it finally burned in the late 80's, It was massively destructive due to the fuel loading of dead fall and underbrush, that would have been naturaly removed by much less intense ground fires.

I did a research project in my forest management class a few years back. Did loads of research.

And global warming doesn't have a thing to do with it. Global warming =
cough(bullsh!t)cough.

Don't think you're seeing the final product of Yellowstone, yes it grew back thicker than ever but a fire now would be so hot that it would sterilize the ground and nothing would grow back for a long time. Check out the history of the Tillemook burn in Oregon. While your checking out Oregon, look at aerials of the Forests. The healthiest forests are private owned and managed or clearcuts from the seventies, the clearcuts look as healthy as the Yellowstone burn without the smoke, devestation to wildlife, loss of fuel source ect.

California used to have a "Birddog Program" in the 70's where if a logger spotted a beetle hit tree, the Forest Service would give them a permit to harvest it and sell it. It kept a lot of old semi-retired loggers in beer money and the forests were healthy. Times have changed and so has the landscape!

Some of the beetles that are devestating our forests are easily controlled by pheromone capsules (Douglas Fir Beetle) and others are not (Mountain Pine Beetle) but thinning is the universal solution to both fire and beetle. If the Forest Service spent half their Fire-fighting budget removing fuel instead of dumping water on it, they'd get a handle on things. Think about this: The helicopter used to pack water buckets into the forest on a hot day can pack at least twice the weight out under better conditions, a skycrane pulling 20,000# turns of dead trees off the hill every 90 seconds would be money better spent than packing 5000# loads of water up the hill every 7 minutes.

The largest part of our Forestry problem is that like the author of the above post, a college student that writes a paper can go to work with the USDA with authority having never experienced a real world situation. A mentor of mine, and forestry professor, David Leatherman told me "you have to touch trees" and "beetles don't read books."

 

[Stuck]

Don't think you're seeing the final product of Yellowstone, yes it grew back thicker than ever but a fire now would be so hot that it would sterilize the ground and nothing would grow back for a long time. Check out the history of the Tillemook burn in Oregon. While your checking out Oregon, look at aerials of the Forests. The healthiest forests are private owned and managed or clearcuts from the seventies, the clearcuts look as healthy as the Yellowstone burn without the smoke, devestation to wildlife, loss of fuel source ect.

California used to have a "Birddog Program" in the 70's where if a logger spotted a beetle hit tree, the Forest Service would give them a permit to harvest it and sell it. It kept a lot of old semi-retired loggers in beer money and the forests were healthy. Times have changed and so has the landscape!

Some of the beetles that are devestating our forests are easily controlled by pheromone capsules (Douglas Fir Beetle) and others are not (Mountain Pine Beetle) but thinning is the universal solution to both fire and beetle. If the Forest Service spent half their Fire-fighting budget removing fuel instead of dumping water on it, they'd get a handle on things. Think about this: The helicopter used to pack water buckets into the forest on a hot day can pack at least twice the weight out under better conditions, a skycrane pulling 20,000# turns of dead trees off the hill every 90 seconds would be money better spent than packing 5000# loads of water up the hill every 7 minutes.

The largest part of our Forestry problem is that like the author of the above post, a college student that writes a paper can go to work with the USDA with authority having never experienced a real world situation. A mentor of mine, and forestry professor, David Leatherman told me "you have to touch trees" and "beetles don't read books."

not sure what you mean. Yellowstone burned 20 years ago and is far from grown back. I was stating that the forest was thicker because the fires had been suppressed under the original park fire policies. And no We are not seeing the final product. The damage has been done to the park and for the forest to recover from these policies will take several hundred years.

I think you need to go back and read my posts over before come on here and flame me. I guess I should go apply for a job with the USDA then, since I have studied and written papers on the subject. Why do you think you know so much about the subject,,,scratch that I don't give a fuk.

Unfortunately son, you don't see the whole picture.

 

[sledin]

Apparently,Californians need to quit starting forest fires on purpose.Nevermind the 105 to 110 degree temps we have in the summer time and the dry summer brush due to overwhelming vegitation in the state that has been abundant since,uh,forever.Maybe we should hire the illegals,which seem to only live in this state,to weed wack all the growth in the millions of acres of forests and foothills?That way it will look desolate like some other states do.

 

[revpilot]

not sure what you mean. Yellowstone burned 20 years ago and is far from grown back. I was stating that the forest was thicker because the fires had been suppressed under the original park fire policies. And no We are not seeing the final product. The damage has been done to the park and for the forest to recover from these policies will take several hundred years.

I think you need to go back and read my posts over before come on here and flame me. I guess I should go apply for a job with the USDA then, since I have studied and written papers on the subject. Why do you think you know so much about the subject,,,scratch that I don't give a fuk.

Unfortunately son, you don't see the whole picture.

Fair enough, you said: Well what should have been done in the first place is use the current policy that is now used in Yellowstone Let it burn is the current policy used in Yellowstone which will result in total decimation in the new thicker forest, hence, my comment. Yes a 28 year old who has studied and written papers on forestry would be a perfect USDA Forester. Since you asked, I know something about the subject because I've packed my lunchbucket into the woods as a private forester for the last 15 years dealing mostly with beetle killed forests. I'm currently working on a Mountain Pine Beetle Pheremone research project for the State of Wyoming (Ant poison things to you).

 

[Stuck]

Fair enough, you said: Well what should have been done in the first place is use the current policy that is now used in Yellowstone Let it burn is the current policy used in Yellowstone which will result in total decimation in the new thicker forest, hence, my comment. Yes a 28 year old who has studied and written papers on forestry would be a perfect USDA Forester. Since you asked, I know something about the subject because I've packed my lunchbucket into the woods as a private forester for the last 15 years dealing mostly with beetle killed forests. I'm currently working on a Mountain Pine Beetle Pheremone research project for the State of Wyoming (Ant poison things to you).

Well, I gave information based on education and limited experience.

You are taking my statement out of context. If you follow the conversation you will see that I am stating that the YNP policy should have been the policy used by the FS. I can respect your experience with beetles. I only researched them a small amount. The bulk of my research was on forest fire history and policy. I did not have much experience with your pheremone capsules(which I never gave a name for, just what they looked like, and I did misinform, sorry). Marcuso, informed me that they were atractants, not poison. If you read closely you can see that I even asked him a question about their use. I accepted that I was wrong, and tried to gain some information on the issue. And I am not going to follow your footsteps into foretstry, so I guess the forest can breathe easy. So, I apologize for my short fuse, I see how my statement on policy was misconstrued. So if you wouldn't mind, lets keep it civil. If you were respectful to me you would have gotten the same in return.

 

[donbrown]

What people should do is educate the public.

The forest wilderness cost this much money.

We could make money thru logging, camping, motorized recreation and use the proceeds to help the forest.

Instead we let it burn away and cause more pollution.

 

[FriscoProx]

Its not a clear cut, its a meadow and there's almost always more wildlife in the meadows than in the trees, especially now since all the trees are dead. Strange that they won't let us make more of them.

 

[donbrown]

Its not a clear cut, its a meadow and there's almost always more wildlife in the meadows than in the trees, especially now since all the trees are dead. Strange that they won't let us make more of them.

Lets not forget the "trails" made by us and used only when the snow is on the ground.

In the summer these trails become animal trails and natural fire breaks.

The trails can be used to access the forest for a medical emrergency and for fighting fires.

Plus the trails are paid by sledders ... for sleddsers for everyone to use.

 

[BigJake]

Amazingly there hasn't been any big fires in the Rockies this summer. With all of the beetle kill, when the Rockies burn, they are really going to burn.

 

[Ollie]

Amazingly there hasn't been any big fires in the Rockies this summer. With all of the beetle kill, when the Rockies burn, they are really going to burn.

And that scares the chit right outta me.
The entire mountain around Grand Lake is a giant match waiting to go up.