Nothing seems to interrupt the Covid news in the UK (although BLM and Honk Kong get a bit of a look-in now and then) so where last year we heard all about US forest fires there's been nothing this year. JBee, are these the "usual", every year-type fires or more of the unusual and "getting worse" type?
Peter S.: I’m quite not sure what you mean about usual fires, or every year, but here’s the scoop on my southwest. I hope that this covers it.
We didn't have forest fires with fire suppression. Then the forest service saw "unnatural excessive fuel for fire from suppression. So, they have been letting natural fires ie. lightning strikes in season just go, until they get near human structures, like telescopes and peoples cabins in the mountains and collections of these, so called towns. The budget isn't there that was in place with fire prevention.
This highly over simplified principle is being used as an excuse to cut money for the forests to save money, what the "free market economists" call big government spending. So, trails are not kept up, and the forests around them go up with all of the fuel. Then, an unnatural scrub grows in the sunshine, (bears like the berries), which is an even better fuel, which spreads to the remaining forests. The result is less shade and beauty for years and less and less forests.
I have to go to greater and greater lengths to find an intact trail, when half of the forests are gone in the White Mountains, and the sky islands. Everywhere, I see ancient trees burnt down, evidence of forests that were there way before fire suppression. So, it certainly isn't a natural process, or situation. It is a tragedy, and now perpetrated by the a rich man's business philosophy/untruth that has been poisoning the country and its governments.
The effect is great loss to nature and recreation and natural treasures, my value of the forests. With a ramrod in the White House that grew up on NYC asphalt, a real-estate developer who only understands and values beauty as a place for condos and exploitation for a buck, and nature as a walk around a golf course, the damage will last for over one hundred years.
The press doesn't tell us about fires, which are frequent, until they threaten people and towns.
This is local news today. Twenty years ago, it was national news when the same area burnt up the first time. At that time, Bush came to Tucson. He couldn't get there because the protesters had the streets literally lined for miles. Instead, he was secretly heliocoptered over them and up to the top of the mountain in a surprise move. A small group of supporters were there. He gave a nationally televised speech saying that the logging companies need to be contracted to "thin the forests" which doesn't mean that altruistic sense at all. It means rip and log. The logging industry is ruthless and owns the government generally. They also fund many forest studies that would benefit their craving to “manage” the forests.
Here we have five seasons. The usual four and monsoon, a second spring starting about now, early July, (which has changed the last thirty years, climate change). In June, the norm is very hot, totally dry and windy. Things dry up from the winter rains, then comes the relief from the monsoons. Every so often, a threatening storm will give us lightning, but no rain, hitting dry fuel. It is dangerous and a big fire will come here and there. Mostly, there are human caused fires. There are fire restrictions all over the state, until monsoon.
This one was lightning caused. The usual winds of June haven't been happening, so slowly over 3 or 4 weeks, the whole mountain has been burning. It is a towering inferno when watched from down here in the valley at night. The smoke has kept people indoors often. It also started unusually early.
They put several million dollars into it and up to 1000 workers, but the terrain is rugged and the focus has been only to save the bordering homes. Heaven help the banker/insurance interests. It was a very small fire at first, but mobilization was too slow (funding).
The upside is the tendency that fires like this will burn and leave erratic patches untouched. Upwind hillsides, bare rock face, canyons, winds on a given day, the wind patterns that the heat of those fires, like tornadoes, all protect spots. The consequence is patches of intact forest and lots of scrub. We never know what will be left. Most of the forests that I have hiked on Mt. Lemmon are leftovers. Next month, I’ll publish a story of the area that burned this time, that we had backpacked the week before. I won’t be able to get up there for years to see if my favorite friends and spots are alive. It takes a while. It hurts deeply, to some innate core, to experience the aftermath of that kind of destruction.
Now, with the following monsoon, we have to be concerned with soil erosion when the monsoons come and there is little to hold the soil. A thousand years of topsoil goes in an hour, leaving bedrock…not so natural, but evidence that fires like that are not a regular part of all forests ecology. Riparian area’s ecology take forever to build and support most of the life around them. Without soil, the water runs off quickly down the mountain…and that floods the valley.
Friend of ours had a bear and cub drinking out of her swimming pool. Loss of my habitat, too, but I'm a summer visitor. I only feel like I live there.
Jbee
