Yosemite is burning....

Alot of the reason for the catastofic fires is because of fire suppression that was started years and years ago not climate change. Whenever it was that they first ran to put out a fire it just added to the fuel load instaed of letting them burn, but in the interim we had logging and grazing that kept the fuel loads down but since so called enviroventalists stopped the the logging and grazing the fuel loads have gotten to where they cant even begin to stop a fire. I feel bad for anyone in its path.

Dan this is Harden Flat/ Berkeley Camp going up in smoke just south (to the right) of Sawmill Mtn. Further right is Pilot Ridge, which has burned unabated all week, burning towards the Merced River headwaters. sad.

Our whole extended family is in mourning -- this lovely area will never look the same in our lifetimes. I wonder if the intensity of this fire will encourage the Forest Service to allow more selective logging -- not clear-cutting, but thinning. The California Department of Fire manages a couple of demonstration forests -- Jackson and Mountain Home -- that have been carefully thinned. The forests look great -- green and healthy. And the thinning costs nothing -- the loggers pay for the right to harvest the trees.

This may be the best solution to drought and climate change. But I am no expert on forest management, so I really don't know.

Really puzzling why they didn't do more. They recently lifted the 39" rule and we did see larger trees on logging trucks. If money from resource harvesting went back into the forest perhaps closures wouldn't be necessary.

To their credit when selective harvesting is done the area responds quickly. Near us they harvested and the crews even trucked out the slash. It was then used to generate electricity to run their plants. My only complaint is they don't masticate fine enough and walking through the forest afterwards is rather hazardous.

profdant139 wrote:
Our whole extended family is in mourning -- this lovely area will never look the same in our lifetimes.

I wouldn't say that. I visited Yellowstone in my 20s, four years before the massive fire of 1988. I've been back 4 times in the last 10 years, the burn areas look great, most of the new trees are 6' plus now, and were easily 4+ back in 2004.

To see a forest reseed itself and sprout forth from the ashes is a wonder to behold.

I drive HWY 120 at least once a year, looking forward to the next few years to see it as it returns.

I also was in Yellowstone before and after the big one, while I do agree some fire is good, to my liking it ruined the landscape in Yellowstone for the next 50 years, I am optimistic that in my later years I will see the majestic trees reaching 70+feet again, and while it is amazing at the regeneration of the forest after a fire, the little 6 to 10 foot trees just don't move me like a big forest, I am sad for the Hetch Hetchy and surrounding forest, and for you folks in its path.

I don't know about others, but seeing endless forests of brown trees didn't make me feel all that good in Yellowstone. I went there back in 1988 during the fire and returned in 1995 and 2006, and to me it hasn't changed that much yet. I'm just hoping that Yosemite doesn't have that happen to it.

Bob in Calif.

Bob, the area that I am concerned about is the west side of the 120 corridor and the Hetch Hetchy area. Yosemite Valley and Glacier Point are untouched, and I am pretty sure that the high country of Tenaya and Tioga are safe, too. But the destruction of the Berkeley Tuolumne Family Camp is an unmitigated loss to our family -- my wife's side has been going there at least once a year for more than fifty years.

There is nothing natural about a man caused fire. While we do not know the cause of this fire its clear that the vast majority of fires in the USA are man caused. In 2012 alone there were 9400 lightening caused fires and 58,000 fires attributed to man.