[typoon]

One of the causes of these Major forest fires in CA and elsewhere is the fact that environmentalists are against managed thinning of the forests to help prevent such fires as they had in CA. Thinning helps the clear away some of the over growth that occurs and can act as tinder for a raging fire. Not only would thinning of the underbrush and controlled burns help but also thinning of some trees when a forest gets too over grown.

IMO the Environmenalists as well as the person who started this fire and Legistators who prevent such maintenance should be held accountable for damage and death that occurs during major fires like this.

[petehammer]

I'm sure many others will respond to your post (flamebait), I'd like to take on your sig, which I noticed for the first time.

If anything, your signiture certainly clears up Canada and Switzerland for me, their military weakness has caused untold deaths in their countries. Each night I pray for their citizens as the death toll rises from their invitation to agression.

It also explains that with the U.S.'s military might and agression we are never attacked.

Or could it be that because Canada and others don't have foreign policies that piss off the rest of the world they are not attacked... hmmm...

[Developer]

Forest fires naturally happen periodically and take care of the thinning. Preventing the natural periodic forest fires is to blame for the large forest fire when all the underbrush is burning at once.

[MacGorilla]

Managed thinning is one thing, leaving to the the timber industry to do it (Bush's proposal) is quite another.

[finboy]

It really has little to do with Bush, since the situation has been brewing for years. Yes, the lack of thinning and logging access led to the severity of the situation, or at least that's what most experts are saying at this point. And the lack of access roads limited the type of response which could be made in some places. It's the "Law of Unintended Consequences" in action -- people try to do something "good" and it turns out "bad."

[typoon]

Originally posted by petehammer:
I'm sure many others will respond to your post (flamebait), I'd like to take on your sig, which I noticed for the first time.

If anything, your signiture certainly clears up Canada and Switzerland for me, their military weakness has caused untold deaths in their countries. Each night I pray for their citizens as the death toll rises from their invitation to agression.

It also explains that with the U.S.'s military might and agression we are never attacked.

Or could it be that because Canada and others don't have foreign policies that piss off the rest of the world they are not attacked... hmmm...

With the rise of global terrorism it is only a matter of time. Who would have thought that Aussies would have been killed by a terrorist in Bali? They don't usually have policies that piss off other countries either. Why did that Happen? I don't think that was due to US foriegn policy.

Sorry but it's like a kid in school who thinks because he doesn't bother the class bully that nothing will happen to him.

[BlackGriffen]

Re: the sig.
Weakness invites aggression, true, but playing king of the hill lures it more surely than a siren's call lures sailors.

Re: the topic
finboy, not all thinning requires extensive roads. Managed burns, specifically, don't need them.

BG

Edit: fixed metaphor.

[NYCFarmboy]

The answer to this topic's opening question is:


YES

[mr. natural]

First of all, this was not just ONE fire. There were about eleven separate fires all told. One of them started on the Marine Base of Camp Pendleton, and the cause is "under investigation." Another, the "Cedar Fire" was started by a hunter who got lost and thought it a good idea to set a signal fire.

Secondly, as can be seen by the following:



Where's the FOREST?

(And, No, this is not an atypical picture.)

Among the problems here is not that there are too many trees in need of thinning, but that there is an abundance of highly flammable scrub-brush materials, all of which is typical of Southern California. Also this is also a hot and dry region, which is why so many folks have moved there - for the nice climate.

Combine this with too many years of fire suppression (along with extended droughts, oak disease, a "smoke-free" clamoring public, etc.) and sooner and later big fire sh!t happens.

None of this has anything to do with those wacky tree loving environmentalists, some of whom work in the National Forestry Dept., who have been warning us for years that it is the dry and rampant under-brush, along with the lack of controlled fire management that is a bigger issue here; And not that we need to log more trees!

Fire is a natural dynamic of Creation, particularly in this sort of Californian landscape. Folks can try to lessen its ravages with controlled burns of areas in desperate need of such tactics, but then some would probably complain about the smoke. And even with this managed fire tactic, things can get out of hand, like happened in Los Alamos, NM a few years back.

Playing with fire in this way, especially in this sort of dry locale, is bound to go awry. But as we've seen too, not firing up all the under-brush on occasion just leads to bigger fires.

So it goes in Disney Land.

[macvillage.net]

Another nice note is how people fight for years to get retrictions lifed, as the news has been showing.

People fight for years for permission to build homes in a land deemed no-construction... for the very reason they now learn. They fight, and fight, having those lines re-drawn. Finally corupt politicians take some money and let building begin... and people suffer.


Same thing here on the east coast. Used to be there were regulations for building on the shore. Now people get upset becuase their shore home is in the ocean during a tropical storm... meanwhile, they fought for 15 years for the right to rezone and build on that land which they were told wasn't safe to build on.

There are just some places where you shouldn't build. Places where there is a historical/ or evironmental reason to believe the structure will be threateneed.... shouldn't be done.


There were homes several years ago somewhere in the tri-state area, on the side of small cliff... a cliff which was very unstable. So unstable, they spent years figuring out what to do about it (afraid of a mudslide). Years later... decide to just build houses.

Needless to say... they weren't homes for long. A few good storms, and they were all condemned as unstable structures.

And people complain and look who to sue... maybe that's what happens when you build somewhere like that?




Great post btw mr. natural... Good pic.

[BlackGriffen]

mr. Natural

Sometimes I have to wonder if a lot of the people here have even seen what it looks like out west.

It doesn't surprise me that it's brush land burning, though, cause that's what burns in Utah all the time.

Good to know that it's a bunch of trash shrubs lighting up, and not a forest of trees. Too bad about all those people caught up in it.

BG

[kvm_mkdb]

Managed thinning of your teeth would prevent most cavities - experts agree.

So why don't we do that? Because we care about them.

[Spheric Harlot]

DAMN THOSE PESKY ENVIRONMENTALISTS!

Now they can't even be held responsible for the California fires, since it's not forest that's burning, for the most part.

DAMN THEM for having weaseled out of that one, the yellow bastards!

Nice to see that some will try to pin ANYTHING on the left, though - quite revealing, once again.

Better luck next time.

Insert coin to continue.

-s*

[eklipse]

Originally posted by typoon:

That was difficult to read. Try again - without the spin.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by eklipse:
That was difficult to read. Try again - without the spin.

LOL!

[Millennium]

Originally posted by kvm_mkdb:
Managed thinning of your teeth would prevent most cavities - experts agree.

So why don't we do that? Because we care about them.

In other words, because of an "environmentalist"'s sense of aesthetics, which in this case actually runs counter to the natural fire cycle. That's not environmentalism, that's Disneycology.

Forests burn. In fact, many species of plants evolved specifically around this cycle; there are, for example, some conifers with cones which cannot open (thus spreading their seeds) until they have been exposed to the heat of a fire.

If we decide that we are to disrupt this cycle, then that is all well and good, but we have to be sure both that we can prevent as many fires as possible (managed thinning, etc) and respond effectively to those fires which manage to start despite our preventative efforts (via access roads). That is what it means to disrupt a natural cycle; it takes a lot of effort, a lot of resources, and it leaves environmental scars.

If we decide that we are not to disrupt this cycle, then that is also all well and good. But there are consequences of this choice, not the least of which is that people's lives will be put into danger unless they simply leave the areas most often affected by fires. Large portions of the western part of the US would become quite dangerous to inhabit. But the wilderness will be pristine, which is what the Disneycologists want.

But we cannot have it both ways. Humans and forest fires don't get along very well. So which will it be?

[typoon]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
DAMN THOSE PESKY ENVIRONMENTALISTS!

Now they can't even be held responsible for the California fires, since it's not forest that's burning, for the most part.

DAMN THEM for having weaseled out of that one, the yellow bastards!

Nice to see that some will try to pin ANYTHING on the left, though - quite revealing, once again.

Better luck next time.

Insert coin to continue.

-s*

Wasn't trying to pin anything on anyone. Just asking a question. Also because there have been many cases where the severity of the fires could have been lessened due to either selective logging, controlled burns or other types of forrest management that Evnironmentalists seem against.

[kvm_mkdb]

Originally posted by Millennium:
In other words, because of an "environmentalist"'s sense of aesthetics, which in this case actually runs counter to the natural fire cycle. That's not environmentalism, that's Disneycology.

Forests burn.

[snip]

I don't disagree with your points.

What I see as 'Disneycology' is human-managed 'natural environment' - where we take on nature's job of thinning, burning, etc. In that case we have to accept that those are not forests but artificially maintained parks - nothing against that.

If we want to preserve real forests and live next to them, we have to accept the risk to our life and property when nature takes its course and parts of the forest burn.

As you said, we cannot have it both ways.

[mr. natural]

Posted by typhoon:

Wasn't trying to pin anything on anyone. Just asking a question.

Need I re-quote your original post and spell it out for you too? Yeah, I guess I do.

How about: "One of the causes of these Major forest fires in CA and elsewhere is the fact that environmentalists are against managed thinning of the forests..."

It is one thing to *just ask a question* and another thing completely to ASSERT as FACT that a CAUSE of these fires has to do with so-called *ENVIRONMENTALISTS* as YOU WANT TO SEE THEM.

Also because there have been many cases where the severity of the fires could have been lessened due to either selective logging, controlled burns or other types of forest management that Evnironmentalists seem against.

I will grant you this, you do qualify this most recent statement.

*Environmentalists* are not against "selective logging," or "controlled burns."

However, it is the unqualified "other types of forest management" that *most* environmentalists tend to have a problem with, and more often than not rightly so.

Among them is the *unmanaged thinning* known as "CLEAR CUTTING." This just causes more problems than it supposedly solves, and the only ones who benefit are the big logging companies who pay next to nothing while the tax payers get fleeced on the bill before, during, and after this theft. (I.E., We the taxpayers foot the bill for the logging roads, replanting new trees, silted up mountain streams and otherwise damaged watersheds, mudslides, etc, and all that attend such "other types of unmanaged forest management.")

When it comes to the Southern California fires in question, this is a problem that goes back long before the first so-called *environmentalist* decided that tree hugging was a nice thing to do. We (as in the Public/Government "we") decided a long time ago to fight all Forest Fires. So, if you are into blaming anyone, blame this guy:



Yet, the real problem, as Smokey sez, is with us.

For all the years of fire suppression we are way behind the curve here with cleaning out in a manageable fashion all the dead, climate stressed & sickened trees, and the vast array of highly flammable scrub undergrowth. The fact is that the Forest Service in S.CA. knew they had a problem, and they were attending to it to the best of their abilities, with some local volunteer help; they had been clearing away as much of the fire prone materials as possible.

Still, it wasn't enough, and in the such a dry hot locale with houses built right up next to all this flammable tinder, including nice trees dotting the neighborhoods, not to mention all the dry scrubby brushes folks thought looked nice in their back yards that they didn't have to water or mow, the fire disaster waiting to happen finally happened.



I mean, look at this scrubby flammable sh!t in these folks yards! Wooden fences too. How dumb can you be living in such a fire prone locale!

I could post another picture showing the exposed wooden rafters underneath the roof overhangs, but man, it doesn't take much common sense to see these are places dying to go up in smoke.

The real story line here is this: If you want to save your house from a conflagration, try listening to what some smart *environmentalists* are actually saying.

But, like my signature sez...