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LindsayRichards wrote:
WOW that is amazing. No permits, so let it burn. Sounds par for the course. I remember learning in Yellowstone that the Pondersoa pine cones actually needed fire to open up and reseed. We saw areas that had about 10,000 seedlings per acre. It will come back stronger than before. Unfortunately it will be after your time. Do you have the pine bark beetle in that area?

I know lodgepole pine need to have a wax melted to release seeds, but the Ponderosa doesn't. Wouldn't swear to it.

But they are designed by nature to grow tall and shed lower branches as the mature. While not fire resistant, the normal mild fire does not reach the top and they are not damaged. But overcrowding leads to heavy dead ground cover, weak trees that succumb to disease and infestation. (the beetle is not a significant problem in our part of the state) So finally a fire rages, the large trees burn to the top, a "crown fire," and there is devastation.

BUT, thanks to years of expensive forest mismanagement of stopping all fires, our government has created forests that are very unhealthy. Many, many trees per acre were seen as a good thing. After all, what did nature know? So healthy forests managed by nature and our Indians had maybe 50 trees per acre. Then the government(s) fixed them, stopped fires, listened to the environmental loons, many who infest the EPA, and some of whom to this day continue to believe more trees is better trees, and Voila! Forest densities increased to 100 - 200 trees per acre.

The result means we have years of terrible fires ahead of us if we are to return to a healthy state.

Look at old drawings of a team of horses pulling a wagon through a forest. Try doing that today!

But somebody in California gets it: "Today's forests stand in sharp contrast to historic forests that were more open because of lightning strikes and native American-ignited fires," says Thomas M. Bonnicksen, Ph.D., author of "Protecting Communities and Saving Forests" (The Forest Foundation, 2007).

"A similar situation occurred in the San Bernardino Mountains, resulting in an overstocked forest that became unable to sustain itself when it was hit with repeated years of drought and the subsequent bark beetle infestation. An overstocked forest is also more susceptible to catastrophic wildfire.

"Because the moisture content of the trees and brush is so low, it makes them more vulnerable to fire and parasites, such as the bark beetle. Thinning green vegetation not only reduces the fire danger, it helps restore the vigor of the drought-afflicted forest by freeing up more resources — water, minerals and sunlight — for the remaining trees and vegetation. That's why a thinner forest is a healthy forest."



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