Politicians back Forest Bill.

[Tillaway]

Found this, it's a few days old.  I wonder if it will change anything?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021002/ap_on_go_co/wildfire_politics_2

[DanG]

A few weeks ago, President Bush visited the command center of a major firefighting operation, and made a speech that seemed to espouse views that were consistent with the concensus of this board. I remained silent, hoping to read the responses of our own panel of experts, but that response never came.  Do you guys think it possible, that we now have a leader that will start a reversal of the current trend of environmental zealotry, or is it just so much political hooey?

[Ron Scott]

He needs to get strong Congressional support or things will get worse. The Forest Service is not getting its fuels management done other than what's burning by wild fire.

[Tillaway]

Maybe I posted this before but the Herger-Fienstien QLG bill was passed with only one dissenting vote by congress.  This is the forbearer of the National Fire Plan.  I was working on a QLG funded project all this summer.

The last status I have heard is that the QLG is halfway through the initial 5 year funding treating only 17% of the acreage and producing only 7% of the timber volume mandated.  All fuels management funds were spent as of August on wilfire suppression costs.  Next year there will be a large reduction of fuels management money.  The money earmarked for fuels management will be largely spent on an administrative study to determine why they are not reaching the goals of the H-F QLG legislation.  The FS is going to try to figure out why they are not cutting the volume anticipated.  :

[Tom]

That is the bureaucratic way.  Perform slowly and eat up the funds in administrative costs.  Then study the failure and blame it on lack of funds. The new apprpriations can be used to make up the red ink from the first effort. :D

[Ron Wenrich]

DanG

The reason you don't hear too much about firefighting by many on this board is that forest fires are pretty rare in the hardwood forests.

That doesn't mean we don't get them, it just means they don't cover thousands of acres and never top out.

Another thing is that there isn't much Fed lands up this way.  What Bush or Clinton wanted to do on Fed land didn't really effect us too much.

I have some thoughts on the issue, but it comes more from a common sense view.   It seems to me that controled burns would probably get rid of more fuels than logging.  You just can't have knuckleheads doing control burns and then set New Mexico on fire.

What I got from the article is that most of the cultural work to reduce fuels will be done near the populated areas.  That's politically expedient, but it doesn't do much for the vast areas that aren't near houses.  It also encourages more building in forested areas.  Not necessarily a good thing.

[Frank_Pender]

You have that correct, Tom. :'(  

[ADfields]

Ron your hardwood forests in the east are mostley on privet land that can and do get well managed.   Now in the summer of 01 we had a controled burn of 3000 acres on the Kenai Peninsula hear in Alaska and it got away, toped out and took 200,000+ acres of USFS's Chugach National Forest.   This is a 60% Birch (hardwood) forest in a very very wet part of the world.   Thay lost it becous the controled burn did not hapen for lots of years after it was planed by the foresters in charge of it due to the tree hugers.   So from what I see it's not that hardwood forests are less likely to burn it's that thay are a lot beter managed than the USFS's pondarosa, fir and spruce out west!   We have right now neer the town of Holmer Alaska over 1,000,000 acres of beatle killed spruce thats dry as a tender box and should have been loged 20 years back that is still tyed up in court.   If thay try to bern that off or a camp fire gets out of hand ther will be a lot of homless people in Homer as it will take the town with it.
Andy

[swampwhiteoak]

Ron,
Since you worked in the federal system for so long I wonder what your opinion is of the whole NEPA process.  Is there any way it can be amended to keep with the spirit of the law, and reduce the years of analysis and appeals?  Or should it just be scraped?

_______

As I understand it the logic behind thinning only in the urban interface is to cut down of fire-fighting costs.  Anytime a fire gets near some secluded subdivision you can count on hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on air tankers, engines, hand crews, choppers, dozers, and so on, to protect the houses that probably haven't done any mitigation to protect themselves.

Also, I would suppose it is pretty difficult to Rx burn an area that hasn't seen fire in a long time (without fuels reduction first).  Too much brush and too likely to get away from you.

[Tillaway]

SWO is right on the money.  Rx burning is nearly impossible without reducing or changing the fuel profile.  The pictures I posted were Don was lost is one of the units (225 acres) of unbelievable fuel loading.  The Tanoak brush is twenty feet tall and one of the guys guessed nearly 50 tons per acre.  The problem is that a RX burn should be cool and if a cool burn goes through there it won't burn up the Tanoak but it will kill it and create a bigger problem with the fuel loading.  If you burn it hot enough to burn it up and actually reduce the loading you will either not be able to control the fire and or kill your residual intermediate, codominant, and dominant trees.

On that unit the FS is planning on removing as many suppressed and intermediates it legally can (Spotted Owl Habitat, can't cut anything over 12" DBH), they are not planning on treating the Tanoak prior to burning.  I think that is a huge mistake.

[Ron Scott]

I've written, reviewed and participated in hundreds of NEPA documents. NEPA is a good process for intigration of all resources so that "no one resource violates the minimum standard of any other resource".

It needs to be done with the science currrently available and management by adaptation as new information becomes available. Common sense needs to prevail with the social and economic factors for human need considered.

The problem is the Appeal process where every NEPA decision made by a professional decision maker can be appealed by anyone for only use of a postage stamp. Many such appellants know nothing of land and resource management and would rather do nothing so nothing gets done. It's gotten so complicated that its easier for the USFS to do nothing. Thus, this attitude is  being inbred in new employees.

Many good projects that the USFS use to do that maximized public benefits, can't get off the "drawing board" today because of the volatile Appeal process to every decision.  

[swampwhiteoak]

Democrats back away from wildfire bill deal
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134551306_wildfire09m.html

Surprise Surprise.  Not really, seems to be pretty typical  >:(

Unfortunately it seems to me that both parties want to turn this into more of a political issue than it should be.  

[Tillaway]

Defazio backed out... hmmm he comes from a timber town and still lives there.  Unfortunately it happens to be right across the freeway from the Peoples Republic of Eugene.

He said it did not go far enough to protect Old Growth, funny I doubt he could identify one let alone the ecotype.   :