Underlying the Fires (was: Sierra Club, ELF ...)

On 08 Nov 2003 , pamsux (bud hufstetler) posted
these thoughts in :

Jym Dyer wrote:


=v= For an intelligent look at what's fueling these
fires (as opposed to the lunatic Usenet rant posted
here earlier), I recommend Mike Davis:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17066


excerpt from article referenced above
quote
Meanwhile in the local mountains, an epic drought, which may be an
expression of global warming, opened the way to a bark beetle
infestation which has already killed or is killing 90 percent of
Southern California's pine forests. Last month, scientists grimly told
members of Congress at a special hearing at Lake Arrowhead that "it is
too late to save the San Bernardino National Forest." Arrowhead and
other famous mountain resorts, they predicted, would soon "look like
any treeless suburb of Los Angeles." /quote
I suggest *you* read the full report the above quotes were taken out
of context from. It paints an entirely different pictu

WRITTEN STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD



OF



DR. THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN

PROFESSOR

DEPARTMENT OF FOREST SCIENCE

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

and

visiting scholar and board member

The forest foundation

auburn, california









HEARING ON

FOREST HEALTH CRISIS IN THE SAN BERNARDINO NATIONAL FOREST





BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES





UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES



















LAKE ARROWHEAD RESORT

27984 hIGHWAY 189

LAKE ARROWHEAD, CALIFORNIA





Monday

SEPTEMBER 22, 2003

1:00 PM








INTRODUCTION





My name is Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen. I am a forest ecologist and
professor in the Department of Forest Science at Texas A&M University.
I am also a visiting scholar and board member of The Forest
Foundation in Auburn, California. I have conducted research on the
history and restoration of America’s native forests for more than 30
years. I have written over 100 scientific and technical papers and I
recently published a book titled I style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"America’s Ancient Forests: from the Ice Age to the Age of
Discovery (Copyright January 2000, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 594
pages). The book documents the 18,000-year history of North
America’s native forests.



Contact information is located at the end of this written statement.









FOREST DEVASTATION AND RESTORATION





With millions of dead trees covering approximately 350,000 acres of
the San Bernardino Mountains, this forest is lost. Bark beetles
feasting on over-crowded, moisture-stressed trees will have killed
about 90 percent of the pine trees when they end their rampage. Then,
Lake Arrowhead and other communities here will look like any treeless
suburb of Los Angeles.



Among the saddest aspects of this forest being wiped out is that the
devastation was predictable and preventable. In fact, specialists
representing many interests and agencies came together in a 1994
workshop to do something about the unnaturally thick forests in the
San Bernardino Mountains. They knew that communities like Idyllwild,
Big Bear, and Lake Arrowhead were in imminent danger from wildfire.
The workshop produced a report charting a course to improve the safety
and health of the forest and surrounding communities. The
recommendations were never acted on. Now, an entire forest is lost.



Instead of acting to restore the forest and protect human lives before
the crisis reached critical mass, politicized debates and overbearing
regulations created inertia – a complete standstill during which the
forest grew so dense, devastation became inevitable.



Throughout the 1990s, extremists here advocated ‘no cut’ policies,
wanting no active management for the forest. Their battle cry was
“leave it to nature� despite indisputable evidence that the
forest’s imperiled health was entirely unnatural, brought about by a
century of absolute fire suppression and completely stifled
harvesting. Now we are stuck with a dangerous, unsustainable forest.



Unfortunately, it is too late to save the San Bernardino National
Forest. It is not, however, too late to learn from this disaster, to
restore the forest to its original grandeur, or to save the forests of
the Sierra Nevada that will undoubtedly face a similar fate if we
continue down our current path. Indeed, we can anticipate similar
catastrophes throughout our Western forests if we do not change our
ways. We have already seen the beginnings of forest devastation in
Arizona and Colorado.



In the San Bernardino Mountains, there are simply too many trees.
Drought has contributed to the crisis, but it is not the underlying
cause. Forest density is ten times what is natural – 300 or more
trees stand on an acre where 30 would be natural and sustainable.
Over-crowded trees must fight for limited nutrients and water, and in
doing so, become too weak to fight off insect attacks that healthy
trees effectively repel.



Our national forests, growing older and thicker, look nothing like
their historical predecessors, with some having reached astronomical
densities of 2,000 trees per acre where 40-50 trees per acre would be
natural. Consequently, plant and animal species that require open
conditions are disappearing, streams are drying as thickets of trees
use up water, insects and disease are reaching epidemic proportions,
and unnaturally hot wildfires have destroyed vast areas of forest.



Since 1990, we have lost 50 million acres of forest to wildfire and
suffered the destruction of over 4,800 homes. The fires of 2000 burned
8.4 million acres and destroyed 861 structures. The 2002 fire season
resulted in a loss of 6.9 million acres and 2,381 structures,
including 835 homes. These staggering losses from wildfire also
resulted in taxpayers paying $2.9 billion in firefighting costs. This
does not include vast sums spent to rehabilitate damaged forests and
replace homes.



The monster fires that have been ravaging our Western forests are of a
different breed from the fires that helped maintain forest health over
the past several hundred years. Forests that just 150 years ago were
described as being open enough to gallop a horse through without
hitting a tree are now crowded with logs and trees of all size – you
can barely walk through them, let alone ride a horse. The excessive
fuel build-up means that today, every fire has the potential to wreak
catastrophic damage.



Historically, our forests were more open because Native American and
lightning fires burned regularly. These were mostly gentle fires that
stayed on the ground as they wandered around and under trees. You
could walk over the flames without burning your legs even though they
occasionally flared up and killed small groups of trees. Such hot
spots kept forests diverse by creating openings where young trees and
shrubs could grow.



We need to return our forests to their natural state. We need to
alleviate the threat to thousands who live in danger throughout
Southern California, and ensure that residents of Northern California
and throughout the West are spared the trauma and fear that people
here live with daily.



Fortunately, we as modern foresters have the knowledge to restore our
forests. We can minimize the fire threat, accelerate forest
restoration, and protect human lives.









THE ROAD TO RECOVERY



The natural pine forest will soon be gone from these mountains. The
most important question now is, what will replace it?



There are two choices for the future of this forest, and no middle
ground for debate. First, leave the forest alone. This would placate
those who advocate ‘letting nature take its course’, though it
would not result in the historically natural mixed-conifer forest that
millions have enjoyed for centuries. Leave this forest alone, and we
will perpetuate the unnatural thick forests of oak, fir, cedar, and
brush – we will pass to future generations an unending cycle of
destruction from fire and insects.



Our second option is to restore the natural fire- and insect-resistant
forest through active management. And we must consider the entire
forest, not just small strips of land around homes or near
communities. Removing fuels around homes makes sense, but to think
that a 100-foot wall of flames ravaging a forest will lie down at a
small fuel break, or that swarms of chewing insects cannot penetrate
these flimsy barriers, is to live with a false sense of security.



The recipe for restoring San Bernardino forests is simple. Cut the
dead trees, remove or chip the slash to reduce fuels, and leave enough
snags and logs for wildlife. Then thin what’s left to ensure that
surviving trees grow quickly and to protect them from fire because
they will become old growth in the future forest.



Next, begin rebuilding the forest by planting native trees in gaps
left by beetle-killed trees. Additional gaps will have to be opened
and planted at different times and places to ensure that the restored
forest has groups of tres of different ages. This will take five or
more decades. By then seed from adjacent trees will fill new gaps and
the forest will look relatively natural since some sites will grow
trees 120 feet tall in 50 years. It will take centuries to replace the
largest trees.



This would be natural forestry not plantation forestry. That means
using nature as a guide for creating a healthy, diverse forest that is
fire, insect, disease, and drought resistant.



Restoring the forest is easy. Paying for it is not. Reducing the fire
hazard and restoring the forest could cost as much as $1,000 to $4,000
per acre. Prescribed burning can help, but it is too dangerous and
expensive to rely on, and brings with it air quality and health risks
that will prevent its widespread use.



Practical solutions for forest restoration must therefore include the
private sector. Redirecting tax money to forest restoration would
help, but there just isn’t enough to do the job. Success requires
government and the private sector to work together. That means private
companies harvest the trees needed for restoration and in exchange
they get to sell wood products. This is just common sense – why
allow insects or fire to wipe out our forests when we can use them in
a way that also restores them? Wood is a renewable resource we
desperately need.











COMPLETE RESTORATION



To fully restore our forests to health, we must fully understand the
key issues in the forest health and management debate. Perpetuating
myths in the name of advancing a particular cause does not serve the
public interest. Our national forests belong to all people, and should
serve all our needs. We need to dispel the popular misconceptions that
mislead the public and hinder the implementation of sound forest
policies. Only by understanding the facts can we make informed
decisions about our forest heritage.



Myth 1: All fires are good and forest management is bad.



This argument confuses small, naturally occurring fires with large
conflagrations, calls all of them good, and blames forest managers for
wanting to thin our incredibly thick forests and remove the fuel for
monster wildfires.




Today’s catastrophic wildfires are bad for forests. When a
devastating fire finally stops, it leaves a desolate moonscape
appearance. The habitat for forest dwelling wildlife is destroyed,
small streams are boiled dry, fish die and their habitat is smothered
by silt and debris. The fire also bakes the soil so hard water cannot
get through, so it washes away by the ton. All that is left are the
blackened corpses of animals and fallen or standing dead trees. Often
there are too few live trees left to even reseed the burn and the area
soon becomes covered with a thick layer of brush that prevents a new
forest from becoming established for many years.



Historically, natural fires burned a far different kind of forest than
the uniformly thick, overpopulated forests we have today. Forests of
the past were resistant to monster fires, with clearings and patches
of open forest that acted as mini-fuelbreaks for fires that were far
smaller and far less hot. These light fires naturally cleared away
debris, dead trees and other potentially dangerous fuels.



Fires can’t burn that way in the forest of today. They bite into a
superabundance of fuel, burn super-hot, destroy wildlife and
watersheds, and leave a desolate landscape scarred by erosion and
pitted with craters. This is why forest management, which involves
thinning in order to make our forests more like they used be —
naturally resistant to fire — is so desperately needed.





Myth 2: Wildfires and massive insect infestations are a natural way
for forests to thin and rejuvenate themselves.



On the contrary, "no-cut" policies and total fire suppression have
created the overcrowded forest conditions that enable fires to spread
over vast areas that never burned that way in their known history.
The resulting devastation is not natural. It is human-caused. We
must accept responsibility for the crisis we created and correct the
problem.





Myth 3: If management is unavoidable, then deliberately set fires, or
prescribed fires, are the best way to solve today's wildfire crisis.



It is naive to believe we can have gentle fires in today’s thick
forests. Prescribed fire is ineffective and unsafe in the forests of
today.I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal" It is ineffective
because any fire that is hot enough to kill trees over three inches in
diameter, which is too small to eliminate most fire hazards, has a
high probability of becoming uncontrollable. Even carefully planned
fires are unsafe, as the 2000 Los Alamos fire amply demonstrated.



Not only that, there are very limited opportunities to burn. All the
factors, such as fuel moisture, temperature, wind, existence of
defensible perimeters, and available personnel, must be at levels that
make it relatively safe to conduct a prescribed burn. This happens so
rarely that it would be impossible to burn enough acreage each year to
significantly reduce the fire hazard. Plus, prescribed burns
inherently introduce air quality and health risk concerns.





Myth 4: Thinning narrow strips of forest around communities, or
fuelbreaks, is more than adequate as a defense against wildfire.



Anyone who thinks roaring wildfires can’t penetrate these flimsy
barriers could not be more mistaken. Fires often jump over railroad
tracks and even divided highways.



Fuelbreaks are impractical because forest communities are spread out,
with homes and businesses scattered over huge areas. It would be
virtually impossible to create an effective thinned ‘zone’ to
encompass an area so large.



In addition, fuelbreaks only work if firefighters are on the scene to
attack the fire when it enters the area. Otherwise, it drops to the
ground, and moves along the forest floor even faster than in a thick
forest. Furthermore, there is always the danger of firefighters being
trapped in a fuelbreak during a monster fire.



Catastrophic fires roaring through hundreds of square miles of
unthinned, overgrown forest simply do not respect a narrow fuelbreak.
Frequently, firebrands – burning debris – are launched up to a
mile in advance of the edge of a wildfire, and can destroy homes and
communities no matter how much cleared space surrounds them. When
catapulted embers land on roofs, destruction is usually unavoidable.



Fuelbreaks are a necessary part of a comprehensive community
protection program, not a cure-all solution in and of themselves.






Myth 5: Removing dead trees killed by wind, insects, or fire will not
reduce the fire hazard.



Experience and logic say this is false. Do logs burn in a fireplace?
If dead trees are not removed, they fall into jackstraw piles
intermingled with heavy brush and small trees. These fuels become
bone dry by late summer, earlier during a drought. Any fire that
reaches these mammoth piles of dry fuel can unleash the full fury of
nature’s violence.



Acting quickly to rehabilitate a wind or insect-ravaged forest, or a
burned forest, is one of the surest ways to prevent wildfires or
dampen their tendency to spread.





Myth 6: We should use taxpayer money to solve the wildfire crisis
rather than involve private enterprise.



The private sector must be involved.



A minimum of 73 million acres of forest needs immediate thinning and
restoration. Another 120 million also need treatment. Subsequent
maintenance treatments must be done on a 15-year cycle. The total cost
for initial treatment would be $60 billion, or about $4 billion per
year for 15 years. Then it would cost about $31 billion for each of
the following 15-year maintenance cycles.



This is far more money than the taxpayers will bear. But if private
companies could harvest and thin only the trees required to restore
and sustain a healthy, fire-resistant forest, it could be done. In
exchange, companies sell the wood, and public expenditures are
minimized.



Unfortunately, there aren’t any shortcuts. Human intervention has
created forests that are dense, overgrown tinderboxes where unnatural
monster fires are inevitable. This means we must manage the forest to
prevent fires in the first place. We have to restore our forests to
their natural, historical fire resistance. Thinning and restoring the
entire forest is the only way to safeguard our natural heritage, make
our communities safe, and protect our critical water sources.







CONTACT



Thomas M. Bonnicksen, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Forest Science,
Texas A&M University, and Visiting Scholar and Board Member, The
Forest Foundation, 853 Lincoln Way, Suite 208, Auburn, California,
95603. Telephone (530) 823-2363, cell phone (713) 854-2631, E-mail:
.

--

Shocked, I am shocked, I tell you. Who would have thought an
environmentalist would be unscrupulous enough to take quotes out of context
in an effort to make a point? Who would have thought a USENET
environmentalist would further spread that dishonest propaganda before
researching its sources. That must be embarrassing.

BWAAHAHAHAHAHA

On 11 Nov 2003 20:59:17 -0800, Jym Dyer wrote:

=v= Looks like something from the grepping loon contingent,
stalking me by Googling for my top newsgroups in an attempt
to repost a rebuttal (or rather, a would-be rebuttal -- but
he sure seems taken with it) where I might see it? I dunno.
_Jym_

Huh?

Cordially,
Ken (NY)
Chairman,
Department Of Redundancy Department
___________________________________
email:
http://www.geocities.com/bluesguy68/email.htm

"I regret to say that we of the FBI are
powerless to act in cases of oral-genital
intimacy, unless it has in some way
obstructed interstate commerce."
-- J. Edgar Hoover

Q: What the hardest thing about rollerblading?
A: Telling your parents you’re gay.

On 12 Nov 2003 18:55:56 -0800, Jym Dyer wrote:

Huh?

=v= Okay, I'll slow down. :^)

=1= I post to ca.environment, with a link to an article by
Mike Davis.

=2= Someone going by the name of Bud posts to ca.environemnt
with what he thinks is a devastating rebuttal.

=3= I don't get around to responding. Somebody knows I hang out
in rec.arts.comics.strips and rec.bicycles.soc, perhaps because
of a Google Groups search on my email address, I dunno. (Hence
the Grepping Loon Contingent remark.) He or she figures they'd
really zing me by crossposting the "devastating rebuttal" to
these newsgroups.

=v= Whatever. If anyone cares, ca.environment is where the
actual discussion continues. This is just silly Usenet jetsam.
_Jym_

Thanks.
He is probably being ignored anyway, so don't worry. Trollls
are easy to spot.

Cheers,
Ken (NY)
Chairman,
Department Of Redundancy Department
___________________________________
email:
http://www.geocities.com/bluesguy68/email.htm

"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are
too high today and tax revenues are too low
and the soundest way to raise revenues in
the long run is to cut rates now. "
--President John F. Kennedy, speech to NY Economic Club, 1962

Q: What the hardest thing about rollerblading?
A: Telling your parents you’re gay.

On 12 Nov 2003 18:55:56 -0800, Jym Dyer wrote:

Huh?

=v= Okay, I'll slow down. :^)

=1= I post to ca.environment, with a link to an article by
Mike Davis.

=2= Someone going by the name of Bud posts to ca.environemnt
with what he thinks is a devastating rebuttal.

=3= I don't get around to responding. Somebody knows I hang out
in rec.arts.comics.strips and rec.bicycles.soc, perhaps because
of a Google Groups search on my email address, I dunno. (Hence
the Grepping Loon Contingent remark.) He or she figures they'd
really zing me by crossposting the "devastating rebuttal" to
these newsgroups.

=v= Whatever. If anyone cares, ca.environment is where the
actual discussion continues. This is just silly Usenet jetsam.
_Jym_

I have a question: just how much time a day do you spend
policing usenet? Do you have a job other than that?


Ken (NY)
Chairman,
Department Of Redundancy Department
___________________________________
email:
http://www.geocities.com/bluesguy68/email.htm

"How can anyone take this country seriously
when we take the time to celebrate the birthday
of an imaginary rodent?
- George Carlin, on Mickey Mouse's birthday

Q: What the hardest thing about rollerblading?
A: Telling your parents you’re gay.

Ex-Know-Archive: yes, I mean no, I yes

I have a question: just how much time a day do you spend
policing usenet? Do you have a job other than that?

=v= An interesting question to pose as a followup to a
dredged-up message from six weeks ago.

=v= I do have a job, spamming Usenet. I do "policing"
because it's the perfect cover story. Nobody will ever
catch on because I used Ex-Know-Archive up there.
Insert Evil Laughter Here
_Jym_