The West is burning!
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charlz
Elite Member
Pretty much all logging having been stopped for the last 30 years coupled with massive pine beetle kill has helped set this all up. By my observation in some places 2 out of every 3 trees are beetle-killed. Until all that fuel is removed we are going to have some busy fire seasons. Environmentalists prevent it from being logged (or 'thinned' as they like to say today) and turned into useful products so the only way to get rid of it is to burn it out. If a fire goes into a wilderness area (and I mean designated wilderness not 'wilderness' which gets thrown around so much today and is really 'forest') they just let it burn. Other areas they just focus on structure protection and let it burn around towns, buildings etc. Eventually fires won't be able to get too big because they will always run into old burns.
Meanwhile trillions of board feet will go up in smoke and former logging communities will continue to suffer while being put on the dole with Federally funded 'thinning' projects instead of paying their own way, creating jobs, paying taxes etc. through logging, saw mills etc.
Meanwhile trillions of board feet will go up in smoke and former logging communities will continue to suffer while being put on the dole with Federally funded 'thinning' projects instead of paying their own way, creating jobs, paying taxes etc. through logging, saw mills etc.
dave1949
Super Star Member
Look at pdf pages 4 and 8 in this link: (sorry, I can't seem to copy the pdf's)
http://www.idahoforests.org/img/pdf/JayOL_IFPC-tour_09-13-12.pdf
Page 4 (need to scroll down to bottom half of page) is a graph showing acres burned in wildfires 1916-2012, in eleven Western states.
Page 8 is the total Idaho timber harvest by land ownership category, years 1947-2011.
http://www.idahoforests.org/img/pdf/JayOL_IFPC-tour_09-13-12.pdf
Page 4 (need to scroll down to bottom half of page) is a graph showing acres burned in wildfires 1916-2012, in eleven Western states.
Page 8 is the total Idaho timber harvest by land ownership category, years 1947-2011.
dragoneggs
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Very interesting presentation and data. I wonder though if part of the reason the big increase in acres burned in recent years is due to our better technology and surveillance ability and as a result, has inflated the numbers. I suppose now I have ignited a heated discussion on global warming!
dave1949
Super Star Member
Very interesting presentation and data. I wonder though if part of the reason the big increase in acres burned in recent years is due to our better technology and surveillance ability and as a result, has inflated the numbers. I suppose now I have ignited a heated discussion on global warming!
Oh no! Not global warming. :laughing: Lordy, don't mention that or this thread will be whisked off to (Un)Friendly Politics.
In reading some about the Idaho timber industry, a 2006 report noted that wood products plants in Idaho have trouble securing the supply of wood they would like to have. As an Easterner, I don't have much insight into the Federal lands usage controversy that exists in Western states.
We have a generally strong environmental ethic here, and the paper mills and other wood plants get all the product they are able to sell to the best of my knowledge. The demand is very cyclical for volume and tree species. People here have largely accepted that a working forest is better than many of the alternatives, as long as the forestry practices are well regulated. We do have a real shortage of mature and old-growth forests from a habitat perspective.
People do object to large housing/resort developments being plunked down in the Maine woods, such as Plum Creek is planning around Moosehead Lake. That is an environmental disaster in the making and it also takes that land out of timber production.
dragoneggs
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Sustainable forests are great and not that I am an overly green person as I drive two V-8s but I do like the idea of no more cutting in old growth forests. Sadly the 'developing' countries are wiping their own out fast. I think we are doing pretty well in the US.
300UGUY
Super Member
One of my uncles worked up in Washington at a mill, and he told me back in the 80's and 90's, that a lot of small mills were being outbid on good timber, the japanese were buying the best stuff, and shipping it back to japan to be milled. A lot of folks blamed the government ( spotted owl ), yhe feds are a convienent whipping boy.
300UGUY
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aczlan
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The problem is that you either have to cut in those old growth forests, or it WILL eventually burn as the deadwood piles up, the bugs (pine borer?) kill trees and one lightning strike will set the whole thing on fire...
Aaron Z
dave1949
Super Star Member
I picture a truly old-growth forest as one with lots of standing live trees that have seen better days, but still kicking, and some fallen trees that are rotting. There will be new growth colonizing the area exposed by the hole in the canopy from fallen trees. There will be disturbance areas from wind and fire, but that is natural. An old-growth forest is not just a pile of wood waiting to burn, it falls, it rots, etc.
Rotting wood doesn't burn very well, and the full canopy of a mature forest will contribute to higher moisture levels at ground level by reducing evaporation, ground exposure due to the mulching effect of rotting materials, and air movement.
If what you picture were the case, forests would naturally extinguish themselves on a large scale and become grasslands. It doesn't happen in a normal process. What is abnormal is the damage (fuel) caused by the bark beetles combined with generally drier and warmer conditions.
Huge, abnormal outbreaks of insects can indicate that an ecosystem is not in balance. Climate shifts are contributing to invasive insect problems here in Maine too.
In this article, natural predators are being studied:
New control strategies for 'bipolar' bark beetles
"The pine beetles produce pheromones, chemical signals, that attract enough competitors and predators to prevent outbreaks," says Sharon Martinson, a member of the research team and first author on the new paper. "Leaving more dead trees in forests can provide habitat for competitor beetles that rarely kill tree, and for predators that eat both beetle species."
