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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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Regular gasoline prices are inching downward. Prices vary around $3.59 a gallon. Oil is around $108 a barrel. Oh, happy days......:R

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?

LR, DW and I left home two weeks ago and so I'm watching the news and reading online papers like others. Manitou Springs, which is at the western most end of Colo. Spgs., has really been hit hard by the rains falling on the Waldo Canyon burn scar immediately north and high above it. The town was flooded at least three times before we left, with at least one life lost. Now another this week per the news outlets. Fountain Creek runs right through the business district and I believe both bodies were found in the creek, the first being a teenager who was swept into Colo. Spgs.

Boulder County's flooding seems to be due more to massive rainfall in a brief period of time from what I've heard. Their problems might also be compounded due the to burn scar left after a fire in that area a few years ago.

As for our immediate area, no problems are likely, although not impossible. We are less than two miles from the Hayman fire burn scar of 2002, but it is below us, plus there are no significant creeks nearby so the homes at its foot have not had problems as far as I know.

The shame of this whole mess is that the fires were caused by almost 15 years of drought, causing the mostly Ponderosa pine forests to have extremely low levels of water in the trees. And now instead of getting relief from the summer's rains, more damage is being caused as a result of the previous fires.

I would not want to fail to mention to folks that our fire, the Hayman, was at the time Colorado's worst forest fire on record in terms of area and 2nd most costly to insurance companies. That fire was set by a USDA Forest Service employee, Terry Barton and, in my opinion, exacerbated when the Service kicked the local fire companies off the fire because they lacked certain "required" qualifications. Never mind the Service had nothing with which to attack the fire nearby. Plus, they refused to allow the Cripple Creek gold mining company to take its huge bulldozers into the area to create a fire break. Seems it would have ruined some trees!

Air tankers volunteered but were also refused due to regulations requiring contract planes, inadequate in numbers, be exhausted first.

As a result, we residents had to watch a manageable fire blossom into 137,000 acres that burned for six weeks and consumed 600 structures. We were evacuated from our home for over two weeks.

Barton took the blame and did five years in prison, but the FS skated. Disgusting. We lost all of our local reservoirs, our fishing areas, for years and the forest is gone for the rest of my life and the lives of our three daughters. Our federal government at its insane worst.

cekkk, any of the flooding in your area of CO?

Paid 4.13 for regular in Crescent City on the Oregon/CA border. Highest of the trip. Been averaging around 3.80 or less. Tucson was 3.34 when we left 17 days ago.

Regular down here in Mesa area is in the around 3.20 with diesel around 3.70.

$3.29 today

I hope all know my comment about great UK healthcare was written tongue in cheek! It has a couple flaws. Like you're given six months to live, and you're life saving surgery is scheduled 15 months out!

Back on subject, I found this interesting. If I was still working and commuting around DC, I just might have bought a Tesla.
Assembly

izzyinn wrote:
hi here in the uk the diesel is £8 per gallon. and getting higher. lol.

Ahhh, but you have that great health care! ;)