Historic Fires out West

[charles mann]

Mr. Mann - How does the burn severity look out of Garberville? The Mendocino National  Forest is a mosaic of grass, shrubs and hardwood/ conifer trees. Some of the burning probably did a lot of good in places if it did not get too hot.  Its been awhile since I drove across it.  Its kind of the national forest no one visits.  No spectacular geology like the Sierra's, not much timber production, lots of inaccessible areas.  A favorite place for dopers though with the recent changes to laws everybody grows in their backyards now.  Plenty of 40' greenhouses out of Garberville.

I havent went up since we got to garberville, so i cant say as to a birds eye view, but the pilots said it just a bunch of burned land. I guess after many yrs of doing this, 1 burned section looks like most of the others. It does seem though, that even with our limited access dip site areas, compared to bucket ships, usfs and cal-fire prefer heli-tankers over heli-buckets. 2600 gal of retardant/water does put a walloping on the fire lines.