Thursday, July 23, 2015

The New York Times Op Ed Page today featured the spot on story about the fact that Congress has it all wrong about constantly claiming that if you thin forests of trees, you reduce the risk of wildfire............As Chad T. Hanson (ecologist with the John Muir Project), and Dominick A. DellaSala (chief scientist at the Geos Institute) make perfectly clear: 1.) clear cutting of forests and commercial logging do not reduce fire intensity,,,,,2.) Patches of high-intensity fire, where flames kill most or all of the trees, create one of the rarest, most threatened and most ecologically important wildlife habitats in Western conifer forests — a snag forest-where a biological wonderland develops post fire............. This article reinforces our friend and Ecologist Goerge Wuerthner's ongoing theme that 1)"large wildfires are ecologically critical to healthy forest ecosystems and not something to be suppressed or villified".....2), "Fuel reductions and other treatments can't stop large fires that are a consequence of climate/weather of high temps, low humidity and high winds"..........3), "Post-fire logging has no benefits, only harms forest ecosystems"...............4) "The only way to protect communities is not through "fuel reductions" which do not work in most instances, but to keep homes from being built in the "fire plain" and for those already there, reducing the flammability of the homes"............George, thanks for your insights and nice to see this reinforcing article today in The Times.




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