24 Replies to “Paradise Lost”

  1. The US National Forest consists of a land base roughly equivalent in size to the gross area of BC and yet it harvests less timber than Vancouver Island, an area 1/32 the size of the USNF. Since the Endangered Species Act, and the targeted use of litigation using the Northern Spotted Owl as a pretext to halt timber sales in the North West, their harvest rates plummeted in the late nineties, essentially sterilizing the economic viability of the US public forests making them a net loss to the US treasury. The bureaucracy is still employed though, practicing what can best be described as “stand and stare” forest management. Forest practices that attempt to minimize fire hazards and assisting in suppression activities are not popular with the public, the politicians nor the greens and their lawyer whores who have done much to make things worse. The same is true in BC where the use of slash fires has virtually disappeared over the last 30 years. When I started as a young forest engineer, harvesting patterns were dictated by progressive clear cutting temporally limited by hazard abatement (including slash fires) and limited spatially by a continuous grid of Coastal old growth “fire breaks” which, unlike interior forests, stopped all but the most severe wildfire conflagrations. By the time BC experienced their second NDP government, that had all changed and along with it, forest practices emphasizing concerns for fires, and also insect and disease prevention. Whether aggressive practices well beyond regulatory mandate could have prevented or halted the Mountain Pine beetle outbreak which eventually decimated 20% of BC’s interior forests (now working on Alberta’s) is unknown but it is a certainty that today’s practices would not have done so. The only remotely aggressive fire prevention activities occurring now are limited to immediately adjacent to communities. Tragedy of the Commons!

    1. John, paragraphs are your friends.

      As are carriage returns.

      That said, the pine beetle must love current management practices, because they’ve spread a lot!

      1. Well the original piece in the Federalist was a tough read……..like a 4th grade assignment written on the bus. That said, the premise of climate change being the problem is bogus. Whether managing the underbrush or not would have made a difference its hard to tell. But like those that live on the coast in Florida, hurricanes happen and its up to you to be prepared. Depending on the government will always disappoint you. Same with blizzards in the north.

    2. Blame the left’s enviromental worship of nature, which they know nothing about living in cities.

  2. Governor Brown will spend 1.5 billion dollars to truck in dead undergrowth from out of state to restore the California Inferno Moles habitat.

  3. I have a problem with this (and other) article(s) on the California wild fires. My biggest problem is that without human intervention, the forests cannot survive. The second is the mistaken belief that if something is done to the massive amount of federally owned forests that wild fires will disappear (or at least no longer harm humans). The third is the mistaken belief that something could be done to prevent forest fires. The fourth is that people rarely pay attention to the real problem – that humans are invading the wild forest like never before and then complain when the forest does something natural like letting a bear out to kill someone’s dog or worse, burning and taking people and their homes with it.

    1. We don’t need human intervention to let natural forests survive. Otherwise we would have no natural forests prior to the invention of the helicopter.

    2. Many of the towns that burned to the ground were not on federal land. In the Paradise fire the possible cause is a sparking power line. How would federal forest management have prevented Paradise (or other small towns) from burning to the ground?

    3. I don’t think people realize how large the problem is. Could you imagine tending to 193 million acres of forest?

    4. By way of example, the forests of B.C. have been invaded like never before – by humans. There are roads everywhere and down every road there is either a group of homes, a mega mansion or at least a couple of camp sites. Where thousands used to live in the forest, today hundreds of thousands of people live in the forest.

    Given that much of California is near desert and subject to drought conditions and high winds, the natural state of many California forests will be to dry and burn up quickly when the winds come. This is the natural state. Building homes inside a natural tinder box is the big issue. But no one seems to be questioning the rights of people to make their homes in dangerous places. We look to blame those around us after the damage is done.

    The forests have burned, the people have died, the clean up has begun. The trees will grow back, the drought will come, the forest will dry out, the sparks will fly and the winds will bring the forests ripping through the communities once again. But next time there will be even many more people and the damage will be that much greater. Because humans never learn, we just blame that which is around us.

    I don’t know about California but in B.C. they spray the forest to prevent broad leaf trees from competing with more valuable timber like pine. This gives the pine trees (and the pine beetle) a great edge in the “natural” forest. Imagine turning over the California federal forests to the logging companies.

    1. Natural fires are natural. Human caused fires – including PG&E sparked fires are NOT natural … and are entirely preventable. In my 63 years living in the State of CA man has built homes in the forest. Until now, I have NEVER witnessed a Fire this devastating. Is it because the forest was unusually dry? Or that the “fire season” is longer than in the past? Nonsense. CA’s climate is naturally dry. If you are trying to convince me that two more days (statistically) added to the “fire season” is causing more fires … I will say you’re full of shit.

      Man isn’t going away. Look at our footprint on the planet. Mankind MANAGES nature wherever he lives. Consider flood control. Man has not simply shrugged and said “don’t live anywhere in the San Joaquin Delta, because you will be flooded out every several years”. Nope. We built levees, we built dams. We built overflow drainage tracts. We CONTROLLED the floods. We controlled nature.The same needs to be done with the forests where man inhabits them. The forests need to be managed and controlled. Returning the planet to some idealized primordial state is as ignorant as ceasing all use of fossil fuels. It’s not gonna happen.

      The problem is eco-lawfare waged in a WAR between man and nature. On the extreme eco-zealot side you have people and .org’s that insist nature (in this case the forests) be left “natural”. That every species of bug and bird be protected to the detriment of man. I suspect people who hold this belief are actually CHEERING the huge loss of human life … as the deserved punishment for “encroaching on the natural forest”. These are the same people who have been TORCHING half-built multifamily buildings in the San Francisco … in order to prevent the “gentrification” of substandard neighborhoods. These are the mentally-ill self-hating humans who believe “animals are better than humans”.

      Do we need to wisely preserve and conserve nature? Of course we do. But banning people from the forests in the most populous State in the nation is just ignorant. And, no … we aren’t going to all be packed like lemmings into shiny metal metropolises. Man isn’t a hive-dwelling creature, and forcing so many humans into such a small space is … well … inhuman.

      1. Human caused fires are NATURAL – they are called accidents. 63 years is not a long time to witness fire devastation. A few years ago we had a bad spring frost that wiped out 40% of the local apple crop. The local grower said “In my 35 years as an apple grower I have never seen such devastation”. His much older partner then added “this reminds me of the frost of 1955”.

        The problem with man and the forest is very simple. We want to live in the forest but we do not accept the danger. This makes us foolish. Even worse we are taught that we can control the forest. You cannot control 193 million acres of forest. Or, more accurately, you would run out of money trying to. For small communities like Paradise, a simple fire break around the town with basic evacuation procedures to help give people time to get out before the fire again burns down their town is the only real meaningful way to live in a dangerous place.

        Kenji, I would bet you a steak dinner (cooked on an open fire) that any extra FEDERAL money given to the State of California will be used to top up salaries, pad pensions, and grow bureaucracy and unneeded infrastructure. And the next time there is a massive fire the State will simply say (again) that there hasn’t been enough Federal money to solve the problem.

        1. There are millions of acres in the flood prone Central Valley … yet we manage to manage the hazard. We can do the same with the forests we inhabit. No, not all forests. Forests where man has not encroached (in any significant numbers) can be left in their “natural” state. But inhabited forests MUST BE MANAGED. My bias is for selective logging and reforestation (no Canadian clear-cutting, please). Why not harvest resources while simultaneously managing the forests? Why? Why not? Because the eco-Marxists HATE the idea that a Timber Company would “profit” from destroying the forest. These eco-extremist zealots are radical leftists who detest capitalism. The eco-extremists have “shut it all down maaaaaan”. And we are reaping the consequence of their actions.

          And where I live here in the SF Bay Area … EVERY … city and county have “Tree Ordinances” which prevent the cutting of any (native) tree with a caliper size greater than 6”. The punishment for violating these ordinances include massive $cash$ fines, and replanting of trees at the ratio of 4 new trees for each 6” of caliper size removed (the Ord. in my local city). “Illegally” removing a 24” oak will cost you a shitload of $$$ … and … you will be mandated to replant 16 oaks for the one you removed. These well-intentioned tree preservation ordinances are in direct conflict with the myriad of “Fire Ordinances” at the State and local levels. How can a homeowner create the required “defensible space” around their home, when they are prevented from cutting trees?

          Yes, 63 years is the blink if an eye. Yet in those years I have witnessed the playing out of CA’s natural drought and monsoon cycles (as we now know are caused by the ocean currents called El Niño) ,.. multiple times … which are same as it ever was, same as it EVER was. The reliable climate and temperature data extend far past my minimal time in the State. At least back to the 1850’s with reliable measurement. And this data bears out my own brief experience.

          These fires are MANmade and can be MANprevented.

        2. Oh … and I will gladly share a juicy steak with you … because you Area 100% correct. The vast majority of any additional government (taxpayer) funding will go to ever-inflating public pensions for more and more State employees. I suspect most new hires will “environmental science” graduates … not for firefighters or loggers. More eco-nannies to scold us for … living in nature. Sort of like you.

          1. Kenji, kalifornikate has the 6th largest economy in the world (if my memory serves me correctly), so why would they need federal $$$$, ‘cept they piss their own $$$$ down the drain:-))

            Yup, they miss manage every thing they manage.

          2. Our prison guards have the most lucrative public pensions ever on the face of the planet. And our “guest” workers … and “guest” homeless from South of the border have better benefits than native born Californians. Just a couple examples of where CA taxpayers funds go …

    2. You obviously have opinions on this issue but your statements of fact are wrong. By number:

      1 Natural forests replenish themselves from major events like fire, windfall, disease or insect infestations. Eliminating humans from forests ensures theses events and precludes economic activity just as would eliminating humanity from the rest of the planet and its various ecosystems.

      2 The towns affected were near enough to national forests and or other forest ownership to be affected by them so what’s your point?

      3 The 27000 bureaucrats tending to the USNF could do as much as any other forest managers given a desire and legal / political framework to do so although government enterprise (socialism) is not the preferred system. Twice as much forest land as this is owned privately by 16,000,000 Americans and they aren’t experiencing the same kind of disaster.

      4 “…..Where thousands used to live in the forest, today hundreds of thousands of people live in the forest.” BC’s forests are 95% Crown owned and there are no residential developments on Crown land nor on privately owned commercial forests. Agricultural land, some forested, recreational private land and some woodlots have homes on them.

      As for the use of herbicide to target Aspen and Birch in the central interior, that is a regulatory issue on Crown land aimed at replication of the natural forest after harvesting. The fire prevention aspect is legitimate but on Crown owned land, regulation wise, regionally one size fits all. Aspen is a commercial species further North and across the Boreal forest (think OSB).

      1. John:

        1. I am not suggesting eliminating humans from forests. I am suggesting that humans wise up to the fact that we can’t just move into the forest and control it to our demands. Mother nature does not suffer fools lightly.

        2. You cannot just blame the Federal government for the devastation in California. You cannot make the claim that a lack of Federal forest management was the main cause of the devastation. The main cause of the devastation was the fact that so many people have moved into the forest. People are not living on Crown Land. They are living on private tinder boxes surrounded by a public tinder box forest. Read about the Fort McMurray fire in Alberta. People were more concerned about living next to green space than being safe from forest fires. Read about the town two years later. People complain about the controlled burn to remove the trees away from their back doors and lament the fact that they can’t just walk into the forest anymore. There seems to be no follow-up on what should be done to keep people safe in the future. The same will happen in Paradise.

        3. There are forest fires all over North America. In California they are made worse by the winds and drought conditions. You seem to suggest that forest fires don’t occur on private owned forest land. That seems unlikely. Of course forest that is unharvested is more likely to burn, but is that what we want, all our forests to be harvested. Are there large unharvested forests that are privately owned, where the forests are simply being protected?

        4. Look at Google Maps across southern B.C. in areas near Hope or Princeton, for example. There are roads everywhere and where there are roads there are people. While most of the land is owned by the Crown there are many small towns that have expanded rapidly since the 1950s as people escape the big cities and seek the natural forest. Many of these people live in homes that are nestled right up against Crown Land forest. Many of these forests were logged in the 1950s and 1960s and were replanted with a single species of tree – usually pine. Sixty years later these forests are dying and are susceptible to disease and insect evasion. The natural forest used to be a mix of at least 5-6 species of trees. A natural forest is not planted all at once.

        In northern Ontario (near Parry Sound) people have been building cottages (and permanent homes) for over 50 years. This summer the forest burned to the ground and destroyed many homes. What had these people done collectively over the past 50 years to prevent this outcome? Why were people so surprised when their homes burned to the ground? The experts always emerge after the fact talking about proper forest planning etc. But why the 50 years of silence followed by a sudden burst of expertise and knowledge of forest management AFTER the forest has burnt to the ground.

        Similar patterns emerge in other natural disasters. In Calgary there was a major flood a few years back. The experts emerged to let us all know you shouldn’t build condos and expensive houses on a flood plain. The government warned that this is the last time it will compensate for such disasters. Then everything settles down until a new disaster emerges somewhere else. The experts rise again…

  4. In B.C. they spray the forest with a herbicide. They also spray in Ontario (probably other provinces). They spray because they want a more valuable forest, not a natural forest. This is where the problem starts, with humans trying to control a natural (and dangerous) environment. We can’t tame the forests any more than we can prevent the temperature of the earth from rising.

  5. The problem is this in a nut shell as the saying goes.

    “The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of land, has 28,000 employees, and has an annual outlay of $7 billion a year, according to a 2017 Analytical Perspective from the budget of the U.S. government.”

    “For example, most fire ecologists say that the surest way of preventing massive forest fires is to use prescribed burns.”

    “Yet for decades the Forest Service has suppressed most fires.”

    What would the paper pushers do otherwise? Count their fingers all day?

    Yeah, no doubt there is a wise guy here that went to school for a long time and will tell that that is the way it should be.
    If one knows nothing, it seems as though there are forces in the government that supply work to each other, destroying the landscape one fire at a time, thinking otherwise.

  7. I’ve been in the forests of the SW and CA. They evolved with fire. The trees can stand fire much like the Cottonwood in the east can take flood.

    If you want to manage the forest with naturally occurring fire you have quit fighting fire when it happens and accept the consequence. That is antithetical to our nature and also there are too many competing interests in the forest like timber companies ranchers etc.

    This fire will concentrate the minds of the public and the government. If ever there was a time to do something to make it right this is it. I’m not hopeful.

  8. Environmentalism – for the masses is simply the Disease thats “sparking” these massive fires.
    AKA: STUPIDITY. Have a look a what happened in Ft Mac. (I as there then), A neighbourhood bordering intimately with dry brush forest…as in RIGHT acorss the street. Now, was it environmentalism that prevented the City to clear a 200m fire break or just plain idiocy, I dont know. But it would not surprise me that some ordinance prevented said Clear cutting … due to environmental concern.

    However over all, the use of scheduled burns throughout BC and elsewhere would IMO, help reduce the amount of massive Widfires… Trying to protect some species that would be in harms way regardless of the reason for wildfires is also beyond stupid. Natural fires have happened for millenia and the forest stood – and the species survived….No.??

    Funny how the ECo-Nazis were all over the Lumber industry over certain Tracts….yet seem to have no problem with Wildfires mainly caused by their own BS Concerns.

    Pah…the world is full of good intentiions gone stupid….Rabid Environmentalism being one.

  9. These fires highlight the amazing hubris of urban man.
    We can control the weather.
    We can fight and beat forest fires.
    We can control floods.
    Rural residents know the difference we can mitigate the likely damage and not repeat the things that failed.
    Makes a huge difference when it is your own money and future invested, rather than guaranteed backstop from government.

  10. regarding the Q of the absent prescribed burns, a tertiary glance tells me muddha nature kinda took care of THAT oversight herself.

    do NOT fcuk with muddha Nature or her sister Ms Karma.

  11. I think Krystina Skurk’s article is right, as was Trump’s point, and covers well the problem and the cure for much of the fire problem. She appears to have a lot of great common sense knowledge about forest management. Although, without reading her article again, I do not recall her mentioning adequate fire breaks as buffers between urban areas and the forest. Isolated homesteads in the forest should be on their own and except the risk.

    We have misguided environmentalism with no common sense and only radical insanity in many areas of human endeavor and it is time to stop them. We cannot go back to a primordial age without the massive killing of billions of humans.

  12. when it comes to natural fires two things happen, spontaneous combustion from too much debris built up on the forest floor and lightning. you will not see a managed forest burning very often.

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