I'm glad our century+ of gross mismanaging our forests is getting more press. But I think we're still fighting deeply entrenched mindsets that fire is always bad. Across the west, our forests are fire-adapted and need to burn to be healthy, but we're still suppressing most fire and not doing nearly enough prescribed burning.
We're also up against a century of planting trees at 2x natural density after logging. Logging can be a useful management tool, but if we plant 2 trees for everyone we cut we're not building healthy forests, and we're just increasing fuel loads.
Meanwhile, climate change gets most of the press. Yes it is a contributing issue, but it's unfortunately being used to absolve the forest managers of accountability.
A good read is "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan. It details how at its founding, the Forest Service knew the fire suppression regime they were creating was unhealthy. But it was the only politically possible path for them at the time.
We're also up against a century of planting trees at 2x natural density after logging. Logging can be a useful management tool, but if we plant 2 trees for everyone we cut we're not building healthy forests, and we're just increasing fuel loads.
Meanwhile, climate change gets most of the press. Yes it is a contributing issue, but it's unfortunately being used to absolve the forest managers of accountability.
A good read is "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan. It details how at its founding, the Forest Service knew the fire suppression regime they were creating was unhealthy. But it was the only politically possible path for them at the time.