US Public Land Forest Managment & Fire

[Taildragerdriver]

First I want to make sure this thread is making sense to people since we seem to be mixing a US fire discussion with the exisiting fire situation in Australia? Do we need to split the thread I'm ok either way. What I am talking about today is very relevent to both continents although I am going to address it with papers from the US. There are similar ones in Austrailian literature.

 

Today I want to address a single discussion point Cedar & I have been discussing.

 

Subject

Native American (Aboriganl) Burning or Fire Managment

 

My first reference is a paper by Germaine White a Native American from the Salish and Kootenai Tribes of North Western Montana

 

Firewise » Restoring the Cultural Landscape, by Germaine White (Firewise Newsletter - May 2005)

 

He says "What that story is about, in part, is the tribal use of fire to shape and maintain a landscape abundant in the things we care about and depend on for our sustenance."

 

He is advocating for a return to cultural mangment. "It is as if Indian people’s presence on the land for thousands of years has been invisible. What we need to be talking about now is the restoration of a cultural landscape." he talks about how fire was given to the people by Coyote because the world was a cold dark place. He talks about how it was seen as a gift from the Creator. That is to say that what Europians found when thay came here was not a wild land but a land shaped by Native culture.

 

He states "Perhaps our people did not possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the land, but they had an intimate knowledge based on a collective, multi-generational understanding of how natural systems work over millennia." then he tells about how his grandmother's memory of a place that no longer exists because of the exclusion of fire. "The place name in our language is lq lq lex, it describes it as a big prairie, and in our language the literal translation is “many little clearings”, a series of prairies in one place. She described how beautiful it was when she was a child. Now there is a little bit of a camp and only a small prairie left. It was a fairly vivid description of what happens when fire is excluded from the landscape."

 

He also talks about a person who was skilled at fire. "Salish tribal elder and historian John Peter Paul, talked about the Salish name of a person whose role it was to set fires on the land. That person was called Sw paam, a person dedicated to fire, to burning."

 

He also tells how the Salish were diswaded from their traditional use of fire. "They were traveling east on a buffalo hunt when two of them were shot and killed by “the officers of the International Line” for setting a fire on the plains. That’s a fairly powerful disincentive. It did not take long for all Indian burning to stop. When the animals and plants and people rely on a cultural landscape that has been shaped and maintained by burning for thousands of years, and then the burning suddenly is halted, there have to be repercussions. We are seeing those today."

 

I will let the rest of this paper speak for itself this is a very eliquent description of what I have been trying to say in earlier posts and relvent to one place on the landscape.

 

A second example I want to use is an example of data from US Forest Service Research. Charles Kay of the Northeastern Research Station

 

http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/technical_reports/pdfs/2000/274%20papers/kay274.pdf

 

When you get to this site click on "View and Print this Publication" and you will bring up the text.

 

Kay talks about Native fire Management in:

 

Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

Southern Canadian Rockies

Yellowstone National Park

Arizona and New Mexico

California

The Eastern US

 

There is a great picture with a horse and buggy in an open park like stand. The kind I have been talking about earlier.

 

In his conclusions he states "Prior to European discovery of the New World, aboriginal use of fire was widespread in both western and eastern forests. In fact, the Americas, as first seen by Europeans had been largely crafted by native people, not created by nature.

 

The last site I will refrence is a US Gological Survey website

"Native Americans Were First Land Managers of California’s Coastal Ranges"

 

Native Americans Were First Land Managers of California’s Coastal Ranges 4-24-2002

 

Dr Jon E. Keeley states “By subsidizing natural fires, these first land managers living in the coastal ranges of California were able to thin out or displace shrublands, possibly changing one-quarter or more of the landscape from shrubland to grassland”

 

He describes how very large native populations were able to exist using fire managment to elimate the chapparral that is such a problem today. There were many benifts and large native populations existed because of the resources that were available due to the managment of the land and the reduction or elimination chapparal. He describes the consequences of removing that fire and the reasons why we have what is there now.

 

I have not been able to find any references that talk about this kind of managment for Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan so fire may not have played the same role there. I don't know but it seems to have played a very important role though out the rest of the United States.

 

These references and many more document the science that supports the current ecological concepts that are reshaping the managment of US public lands in the west and south to my knowladge and likely elsewhere. I will address that in a later post with some references.

 

To me this is the past and must be the future. The native species that live on our wildlands are adapted to this cultural landscape not the natural landscape that it seems we think we are creating. These cultural landscapes have existed for thousands of years so the species had to adapt to them, any that could not are long since gone.

 

I'm not trying to say that we can implement the goal of recreating this cultural landscape in the same way the Native Americans did. I would find it difficult to believe that US residents would consider these methods acceptables to recreate this cultural landscape. That is not to say the model of this cultural landscape is not a good start for a future landscape that can closely minic that conditon.

 

I'll end this discussion for now.

 

My responses will become slower in future because I will be trying to find supporting references for my posts which is more time consuming than just a response from personal knowladge.

 

Thanks

 

Talidragerdriver

[Taildragerdriver]

This is a fork of the "Bush Fires" Thread to continue discussion of Forest Management and Fire issues which has been going on in the "Bush Fires" thread. The "Bush Fires" thread is a discussion of the current and onging wildfire situation in Austrailia.

 

This thread will be developed around the concepts of Land management of public lands in the US and the Fire impacts and related discussions.

 

Taildragerdriver

[Cedars]

9,000 year fire history via charcoal/pollen sampling:

 

http://www.ria.ie/publications/journals/procbi/2001/pb101i1-2/pdf/101b1206.pdf

 

 

Biscuit fire region and fire occurance history:

http://geography.uoregon.edu/envchange/reprints/pdfs/Briles-etal-QR-2005.pdf

 

 

Excellent reference page for wide variety of eco related info. Will give you username/password for reprints:

Environmental Change Research Group -- Publications

 

I have not had a chance to browse all of the above publications yet.

 

I am not arguing that natives did not use fire in the NW. Nor am I saying suppresion of all fire is a good thing in any parts of the eco-systems of the USA. What I dont agree with is its implied impact on fire severity, its long term effect on the forests, and whether or not people understand all of the natural process/related factors enough to start burning areas under the auspices of forest management and whether its long term impact will achieve the desired results.

 

What native populations did via fire and how it should be used today, with the higher concentrations of people, the areas that are no longer forested (an artificial buffer zone) and the Native Americans use of fire revolving around much more than good berry picking/hunting, all have to be taken into account when using prescribed burning. The fact that much more acreage is taken out of its natural state (via encroachment of civilization) compared to the forest areas burned via native custom need to be calculated for impact in the remaining tracts of wilderness available to the portions of the ecosystem which rely on its structure to continue.

 

For example: There are consenquences to encouraging areas that support high deer/elk populations that will have a negative impact on forest regeneration/health in the long term. We are dealing with that here in some of our parks. It is believed that the increase of white tailed deer are a primary contributor to the lack of white pine regeneration after logging in MN. White tailed deer LOVE the seedlings of the white pine.

 

Managers of Fort Snelling are struggling with the same issue in the decidious forest there. Fort Snelling, now acheiving old growth status, has no seedlings breaking thru due to predation of deer, according to their assesment of the situation. Even in the clearing areas, where the young trees are expected to sprout thru and take the place of the giants when they fall are not there.

 

Another impacted hunting bird in MN is the Ruffed Grouse. This bird has natural cycles up/down and we are seeing a steady decline in grouse numbers. Several factors are sited, but the primary issue is the loss of old growth forests which these bird rely on to maintain their numbers.

 

When I visited Teddy Roosevelt in N. Dakota this past summer, elk management has become a problem. In the past enough hunters applied to hunt these animals and kept the numbers in check. That park has seen a significant drop in the number of hunters and the park service is now struggling over what to do. They talked about the damage to new forest growth occuring there (along with other issues affecting other areas of the park). I believe this is a concern in yellowstone also.

 

 

I spoke of a WMA area that I frequent (my very favorite bird watching area and noted by Audoban as a biggie). They use control burnings to achieve what they call the natural state. There is controversy now as some (myself included) think they burn a bit too frequently. They try to follow a 6-10 year burn pattern. I think due to the variables nature provides, these prescribed burnings must include 20 year breaks on occasion to really mimic what occurs in nature. They also have a problem with deer and canadian goose populations. The area is between 30,000 and 40,000 acres with a 2,000 acre refuge in the center that no one is allowed to hunt. Canadian goose hunting is not allowed anywhere on this WMA, due to the past when overhunting wiped out the canadian goose population. Now geese are the primary waterfowl and other duck populations are being affected by the competition for nesting sites. Deer predation on new growth is becoming a major factor there, and also and should be considered when dealing with the NW, including elk impact.

 

Back to the fires. The history of the NW includes massive fires that wipe out species of forest allowing new growths to take over. Historic climate changes have increased the potential of severe fires and changed whole forest structures regardless of Native American burns/lack of burning. There are also historic climate changes that virutally wiped out the impact of fire in these same regions for hundreds of years at a time. That is the natural cycle of things in the big picture. Possibly, what we are seeing now is another normal course of events for this region, that will be followed by the opposing climatic condition. Fire management needs to concentrate on (when these severe occurances happen) on offering the greatest protection for the most people, rather than trying to micro manage 1,000s of hectacres, as I suggested in an earlier post, by holding developments and city structure more responsible for the management of fires when they occur in the various areas.

 

One of the links above shows this pattern (I believe it was the 1st or 2nd link:

 

Oak savanah/low elevation forests and fire

10-18 year pattern

 

800 - 1100 meter altitude forests

14-45 year cycle

 

1300 - 2300 meter

45-60 year cycle

 

Now this is a pattern and not absolute regime. There are variables intermixed within, including drought years and lengthy wet periods where the 'norm' is altered. Such is the variable in nature.

 

Logging over the millions of hectacres that have occured in the NW have replaced the natural forest areas with new and altered growths, shown some areas highly suseptable to clear cutting, broken up expanses of forest and created areas equivalant to burn areas formerly applied by natives, and I think the forest management persons should concentrate on managing these altered areas to promote forest health before cutting new roads/introducing other extreme methods into the fragment of old growth that remains.

 

I also know that some conifers use fire to seed out. Some of those grow in MN and WI. I also know prairie plant roots go deep into the soil and will regenerate prairies when the competing cover is removed.

 

Example: Wild River state park in MN *. Forested for many years, the DNR (dept Nat. Resources) decided to use control burns to re-establish the mix of open/forest. They had planned on reintroducting native plants and found after the burns, most natives regrew on their own. 75 years these prairie/oak savanah plants had laid under the canopy. What this tells me is forest overgrowth on prairie is a normal part of the eco-system and plants have developed a resistance/longevity to survive long term, under the long term conditions that the forests can have. That evolutionary advantage would not have been utilized if native burning truely altered the landscape and ecosystem of the prairies with as much impact as is sometimes suggested.

 

*these same regrowths have been observed in s. MN prairie restoration where soils have not eroded away prior to re-establishment attempts.

 

While the treeline is getting higher, over taking the alpine meadows, I have no reason to believe that this isnt a natural occurance and as climate shifts re-occur, these alpine meadows will return when the conditions appear again that promote their existance.

 

Information on total acreage held as public domain by state:

 

http://www.blm.gov/natacq/pls98/98PL1-3.PDF

 

A bunch of links on various Public Land Statistics 1998

BLM Public Land Statistics 1998

[Turtle]

Great discussion folks! I have been reading it with great interest and regret that I have little to contribute. I spend a lot of time in the Gifford Pinchot National forest & at least part of it as I understand has never really recovered from the Yacolt burn nearly a century ago.

 

That's not the reason I'm posting however, rather that I ran across an article I though might interest you all.

 

As wildfires put more and more human lives and property at risk, people are looking to fire managers for protection. Typically, fuel is the sole consideration used to decide the location of site treatments - where trees and shrubs are cleared away or burned in order to minimize the risk of a future fire. However, people also strongly affect wildfires. This influence is not well understood, and is often overlooked when making management decisions.

Maps Emphasize The Human Factor In Wildfire Manage

[Taildragerdriver]

Intersting replies by all. I can see we are moving the discussion in a direction I'm interested in following further.

 

Today I want to spend some time answering Cedars earlier question.

 

What has change in the Public Land Managment Agencies

 

As we discussed earlier in the 1960's and 70's if you worked for a federal agency at least, your accomplishment was measured by outputs we called targets. In most cases these targets were the things you could sell. Timber and grazing fees were the most obvious and we were asked to support a specific number at the first of the year. We were rewarded if we produced that number or even more if we produced in excess of that target. We were graded poorly if we didn't meet our output target.

 

Then as we began to look at the new demands on our agencies we asked ourselves if we should maybe think of what we do in a different way.

 

A real leader from just up the road from me was the head of the La Grande Oregon Forestry Research Lab. A fellow named Jack Ward Thomas, he started talking about the idea that our real job was land management and that our targets should change to measure how much good we did the land.

 

Many of us though it was a good idea but it was not that simple. If for example you got credit for acres treated with no balace for what kind of treatment, it would not be a very good measure.

 

For example: Lets say I treated 100 acres of removing underbrush, piled the slash and burned the piles. It might take me all summer to do that work.

 

And lets say the Wildlife biologist in the next office went out and nailed up a nest box in a tree on each acre. This might take him 2 days.

 

We would both get credit for 100 acres and both jobs were valuable but my work would take a lot more effort and cost.

 

The next thing that happend is the Clinton administration appointed Jack chief of the Forest Service. Since all the agencies work closely together Jack was able to spread his idea around and we all started to move in that direction.

 

It has taken time to create ways for us to judge the comparitive value of different kinds of work and to create logical targets so we kind of get similar credit for what we do.

 

So how the heck do you do this with fuels reduction and what is the correct answer? A very difficult question.

 

Well a Fire Ecologist named Wendal Hann came up with the idea of Fire Regime Condition Class. What we all call FRCC. It is based on creating a wildland dinamic that is similar to what the Europians found when they came to North America. The following website is the place we all go to get the latest information on FRCC

 

Fire Regime Condition Class

 

On that website I'm going to select the pull down menu under "Documents>FRCC Documents>PNVG(BpS) Descriptions>BpS Description Documents" and when that page comes up I select and example from far down the list under the title "Western United States" the pdf file "PPIN1 081403"

 

This is the descrition of one Fire Regime and the distribution of seral stages or age classes that all the current research thinks might have been here when the Europians arrived.

 

So in the middle of that document we find the following chart:

 

===========================

PPIN1 Vegetation Type and Structure Class Percent of Landscape Description

 

A: post replacement 10%

 

Bunchgrass and forb dominated community following lethal fire. Frequent sprouting shrubs and scattered conifer seedlings.

 

B: mid-development closed 5%

 

Dense mid-development forest; pole to large pole size trees susceptible to stagnation. Marginal understory associated with limited site resources.

 

C: mid- open 20%

 

Open mid-development forest with diverse herbaceous understory and scattered woody shrubs. Maintained by frequent burning.

 

D: late- open 55%

 

Open late-development forest; widely spaced trees, diverse understory, and limited surface fuels due to frequent burning.

 

E: late- closed 10%

 

Dense late-development forest with significant within-stand mortality. Poorly developed understory and substantial surface fuel accumulation.

========================

 

So what is all this stuff? To put it simply this is a description of the distribution of vegetative conditions on the lanscape that we think were created by the Native American and nature when the Europeans arrived. One of the interesting things you will note is that there is 55% late open. That is what most of us consider Old Growth in this Fire Regime. Most Fire Regimes has a large componant of Old Growth so we are trying to move a lot of land to Old Growth cover that is sustainable.

 

So for federal land managment agencies and most state agencies as well we are now working on finding a way to create these distribution of acres on the landscape. This is how we are now graded on how sucessful we are. It is kind of complicated to figure out the answers, the model I work with has a calculation tool that shows how close you are to this goal so we can figure out if we are making progress.

 

So as I described in an earlier post. As I travel around the country I find most places are severly out of balance with these distributions. There is far to much early seral crated by harvest and forest fires. If there is late seral there is also far too much of it in the dense class. If there is a fire the closed late seral is lost to crown fire because it is too dense. Often these closed late seral stands are killed by insects because the trees are stressed and easy for the bugs to kill. That also creates more fire susceptable stands.

 

To kind of bring this post to a close I want to also talk about how the money used to just go to the US treasurey. Now in many cases but not all. If we make money with our work now we get it back to reinvest in the land that produced the products that made the money. That is a great change it can give us more support to do our work.

 

We have millions if not billions of acres that are out of wack in terms of the distribution of acres in their FRCC. This hurts wildlife, reduces or elimnates endangered species habitat, and creates many other problems along with creating increased fire intensitiy and danger.

 

One of the problems is how do we describe the good a specific treatment may do on the landscape? How do we help the public understand this landscape dinamic? They look at a specific stand we are removing some big trees in. They are being removed because the stand is to thick and will crown, if a fire burns into it.

 

To them it looks like we are cutting old growth when in reality we are trying to preserve it.

 

Enough for now.

 

I will continue this discussion with further topics soon.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[Cedars]

Excellent post TailDrager!

 

I will wait for you to post the further info concerning this topic before jumping in with the "wait a minute" and "yeah buts"...

 

:D

[Taildragerdriver]

"Ecosystems are not only More complex than we think, they are More complex than we Can Think"

 

This a quote from an ecologist Frank E Egler.

 

Chrono-Biographical Sketch: Frank Egler

 

Jack Ward Thomas used to use this quote a lot although I'm not sure I heard it from him first.

 

This concept is one that we in wildland management live with everyday. As the current Chief of the Forest Service told the Ecological Society of America in 2004.

 

USDA Forest Service - Caring for the land and serving people.

 

We deal with the problem that there is not just one best sience we can use to try to predict what will happen if we attempt to do anything on the landscape. In fact we will never be able to say exactly what will happen.

 

Another intesting website that relates to this same concept is a Boniville Power Administration wesite that helps kids understand human impact on the Columbia River System

 

Kids in the Creek

 

My point I want to talk about today is we as a nation have our wildlands under managment even if we do nothing directly we the human beings have the greatest impact on these lands.

 

This is a concept that is not well understood by most of the public. We have more impact on our wildlands than any other element even if we never go on those lands. Many in the enviromental community characterize preventing wildland managers from doing anything on the landscape as leaving the land in a natural state.

 

The concept for most people of a natural state is a landscape unaffected by man. In fact even the most remote places on the earth are not unaffected by man as most of you would know.

 

We produce all kinds of modifications to the natural systems. It may be in the form of polution that can travel great distances in water and air. It can be in the form of non native plants and animals that can have great impacts on ecosystems that are not adapted to them, even if we think of them as desirable not weeds. We by building our human habitats wether they be a single home or a city affect the wildlands by eliminating space for non human species to live and increasing the impacts of even native species on these wildlands in many cases.

 

This is especially true in the case of fire. We may be willing to let fires burn in areas we percieve to be wildlands but we are not willing to let them burn into the human habitats. Therfore the natural impact of almost every fire is modified and the fuel conditions are different than they would be if a completely natural fire were to burn. Also as Turtle noted in many cases man is the soruce of the fire. These man caused fires often occure when a natural fire would not, having very different effects.

 

To me the great delema we as a nation face as to what we do with our wildlands is as follows:

 

Do we in the US choose active or passive managment of our wildlands?

 

As I say we are manging our wildlands by default if we choose to do nothing. We are letting our impacts occure but we are not choosing to actively guide these impacts until they infring on the human habitat. Then we minimize or eliminate them if we can. That is not just fire, if dangerous animals enter our habitat we kill or move them, if smoke is produced we try to make sure it dosen't blow into our habitats as much as possible. And of course if fire starts we set up guards to make sure it doesn't make it into our habitats.

 

The current laws nationally mostly prevent land mangers of almost all public land managment agencies from doing much. The process is just too expensive and time consuming. It was not always that way, for at least half of my life as a federal employee in land managment agencies we were directed by congress to manage lands and produce outputs with little or no input from the public. This changed in the last 20 years.

 

I'm not saying that this is all bad but I do feel there are real problems. For example the first statement of this post identifies one of my major issue. I am a third generation forester. I have been trained by my grandfather and father to read and understand what has happened on the landscape. I have two professional degrees in Forest Managment and Range Land Mangement. Yet even though I am considered a national expert in vegetation managment I never feel qualified to tell the local silviculturist, range manger, or fire manager what they should do. I'm not qualified because I don't have the understanding of the local ecosystems they do. I may talk to them about ideas I have used myself or seen others use for them to include in there thinking as they try to make decisions on what to do on a specific piece of land. They are the qualified local authority on the land they are entrusted to manage and even they can only know so much, the outcomes are still only the best they can predict with their localized skills.

 

By its very nature dealing with ecosystems will always be an inexact science. If as Cedars mentions in one of his posts we burn we may get problems with wildlife eating seedlings. If we want those seedling to survive we may have to take another action to protect a required number of them. This will always be the case one action produces a large number of responses buy the natural system some desireable some not. We can not change that and never will be able to. The only difference is if we choose to actively manage we have a chance of getting results that are much better for all.

 

Today our lands have many unplanned results that I find few people who really know about the land feel are desireable. Most any proposed actions is allowed to be constantly questioned and postponed by people who don't have the intimate knowlage of the land. The effect is that we are prevented from doing what is needed in time. So in fact we the public land managment agences have little funding or power to get anything done. That is as I say is the current choice we choose to let human effects go on the wildlands in a totally unplanned and undirected manor. That is the current choice what I call passive managment.

 

I for one feel this is not desireable and am advocating we need to change. I am but one voice in a wilderness of politics not science. I feel we need to move to a state where the land can be actively managed. This is not my choice the polotics in Washington will continue to support passive managment or change to support active management.

 

I only hope eventually people will see the results of what we have today as undesireable. Unfortuantely most of our people are so far removed from our wildlands and have no understanding of the complexities of these decisions that we now practice sound bite management.

 

Soundbite 1. Clearcuts are bad.

 

Often they are but in some cases they are good.

 

Soundbite 2. Past Fire supression causes todays fire condtions

 

Past fire supression was geared to active managment. Then it works well. But with forests with long lives we can't just stop managing and figure the will be no consiqueses. Fire in young stands that are unthinned will be difficult to control. So less active managment could be said to be the reason not fires supression but you can't explain all that, it takes to long.

 

I could go on. I think I have explored this concept enough for today. If we want to we can change but if we don't we get more of the same. As for me I love the land I do what I do because of that not the polictical part and hate to see the consquence as I travel across the country. I can list them for ever but to no end.

 

Thanks for listening

 

Taildragerdriver

[Cedars]

Taildragerdriver,

 

Again another good post, and I can tell you work with/for government ALOT! :singer: The post has alot of generalizations, and for such a complicated endeavor such as large scale eco-management is, how else could it be discussed in the medium of a forum.

 

"Ecosystems are not only More complex than we think, they are More complex than we Can Think"

 

We deal with the problem that there is not just one best sience we can use to try to predict what will happen if we attempt to do anything on the landscape. In fact we will never be able to say exactly what will happen.

True

My point I want to talk about today is we as a nation have our wildlands under managment even if we do nothing directly we the human beings have the greatest impact on these lands.

 

We produce all kinds of modifications to the natural systems... truencated

 

This is especially true in the case of fire. We may be willing to let fires burn in areas we percieve to be wildlands but we are not willing to let them burn into the human habitats. Therfore the natural impact of almost every fire is modified and the fuel conditions are different than they would be if a completely natural fire were to burn. Also as Turtle noted in many cases man is the soruce of the fire. These man caused fires often occure when a natural fire would not, having very different effects.

 

This confuses me. You promote the idea (via native culture) that fire is an important (and should be created more frequently) and end with man caused fires occur when a natural fire would not and imply this is not a good thing. How do you reconcile these two positions? I would also point out that during Native American burns, they didnt burn down their own lodgings to achive the effects you seem to be wanting to promote, so how can this be a contrary position in current thinking if it wasnt a bad thing during native use of fire?

The current laws nationally mostly prevent land mangers of almost all public land managment agencies from doing much. The process is just too expensive and time consuming. It was not always that way, for at least half of my life as a federal employee in land managment agencies we were directed by congress to manage lands and produce outputs with little or no input from the public. This changed in the last 20 years.

 

But the laws HAD to be changed. What was occuring was not protecting the environment held in public trust to benefit the most people. Whole mountain sides were being deforested and the recovery anticipated by the forestry management did not occur, leaving many other people without their former hunting grounds, fishing streams, duck ponds, nesting grounds, camping areas, (and the domino effect to the recreation economy). Then more laws/rules/statutes had to be changed/implimented as processes that were implemented did not anticipate the outcome of further land degration, errosion, the rapid recovery of less desireable species of trees (for example) in formerly fir dominated tracts of land. While your correct when you say "In fact we will never be able to say exactly what will happen", when predictions made by the most expert opinions does not produce the results anticipated, or did not measure/anticipate additional negative impacts, is it not prudent that we halt further implementation of such methods and try something else, and repeat this experiment with adjustments until we do figure out what will work?

I only hope eventually people will see the results of what we have today as undesireable.

How is it undesirable? Especially when compared to what was occuring before the environmental protection aspects of the general public stepped in and said "Stop!" (you may be able to answer some of this via copy/paste from the earlier fire thread we branched off from).

Soundbite 1. Clearcuts are bad.

 

Often they are but in some cases they are good.

How are they good?

 

Soundbite 2. Past Fire supression causes todays fire condtions

 

Past fire supression was geared to active managment. Then it works well. But with forests with long lives we can't just stop managing and figure the will be no consiqueses. Fire in young stands that are unthinned will be difficult to control.

I am really confused about exactly what you are trying to promote as the answer for the problems you claim exist. As I have indicated, I think I understand the thought process behind using fire to promote a healthy forest/grassland/savanah etc.. but after watching this implemented in one particular WMA for 40 years, now approx 20 years later, I am wondering if they have made some calculation errors and implemented this method a little to statically. My hesitation to support such an idea being implemented on a much grander scale than the 30-40K acre area I am familiar with comes from this, along with some other previously mentioned cause/effect issues that were not anticipated, in other areas of public lands.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that you value the forests/wildlands and your goal is not further degrading of this resource. Do you have an example for what you propose, even if only an imagined/for example source such as Mt Rainer, or some other spot where there are maps, and flora/fauna checklists, stream/watershed informations available to allow a visual and textual ability to apply inputs (positive or negative) into such an idea to ensure as many resources are protected/enhanced while potentially meeting your primary objective?

[Cedars]

Heres some documents that give a good grasp of what is involved on the government level when discussing where/when/whether to use control burning as a part of public land management. I have read a couple of the chapters in the 300 page doc and think it gives good general info that allows the average reader to get a good handle on the complex nature of this aspect of land management.

 

300 page document covering large aspects of what the impact/potential impact is via controlled burnings across the broad range of ecologies in the USA:

 

http://www.nwcg.gov/pms/RxFire/FEG.pdf

 

Prescribed Burning Handbook for MN DNR initiated control burning (94 pages)

 

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/forestry/wildfire/rxfire/handbook.pdf

[Taildragerdriver]

I hope to be able to work on a reply soon. Your not understanding my points is due to my not being clear. I need to define my fire terms better. I have been on work travel for the last 2 and 1/2 weeks so have not had time to reply.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[Cedars]

I hope to be able to work on a reply soon. Your not understanding my points is due to my not being clear. I need to define my fire terms better. I have been on work travel for the last 2 and 1/2 weeks so have not had time to reply.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

 

I knew you hadnt lost interest in this topic ;)

 

I figured it was work getting in the way, and you did say you wouldnt be able to respond as quickly. I hadnt given up on you.