The Flawed Assumptions of the Farm Bill: The Myth of “Forest Health” Logging
May 22, 2014
The Flawed Assumptions of the Farm Bill
The Myth of “Forest Health” Logging
by GEORGE WUERTHNER
There are widely held assumptions that logging will reduce or preclude large wildfires and beetle outbreaks. The recent Farm Bill provision that would allow categorical exclusion to log up to 3000 acres without environmental reviews (as required by NEPA) is based on flawed assumptions about forest health and wildfire.
LARGE WILDFIRE CLIMATE DRIVEN
1. Large fires are driven by climatic/weather conditions that completely overwhelm fuels. Changing fuels does not prevent large fires and seldom significantly reduces the outcome of these large fires. The climatic/weather factors driving large blazes are drought, low humidity, high temperatures and most importantly high winds. High wind is the critical factor because winds will blow burning embers over, through or around any fuel reductions including clearcuts. When these conditions line up in the same place as an ignition, it is virtually impossible to stop such fires–until the weather changes.
BEETLE KILL REDUCES FIRE HAZARD
2. Beetle kill actually reduces fire hazard once the needles fall off, so all this panic about dead beetle killed trees will lead to massive fires is myth. We may have large fires, (but it is due to climate) but the presence of beetle kill has little do with the fire spread.
FUEL REDUCTIONS FAIL UNDER SEVERE FIRE CONDITIONS
3. Fuel reductions effectiveness is inconsistent. There are places where it appears to reduce fire spread under MODERATE fire weather conditions but it tends to fail under SEVERE fire weather which is when you have the big fires. Many of the larger fires in Oregon in recent years have burned through “managed” forests. The Biscuit Fire in SW Oregon burned through substantial sections of previously logged lands or the Barry Point Fire by Klamath Falls burned up about a third of Collins Pine managed private lands. Similar large fires in Montana burned through “managed” forests including the Jocko Lake Fire near Seeley Lake, Lolo Creek Fire outside of Missoula, and Derby Fire near Big Timber, Montana.
FUEL REDUCTIONS CAN SOMETIMES INCREASE FIRE SPREAD
4. According to one meta-analysis of fuel reduction effectiveness, in about a third of cases reviewed, fuel reductions INCREASED fire spread. This is typically due to the movement of fuel from trees to the ground during logging operations as well as to the fact that logging opens up the forest to greater drying and wind penetration–both factors that favor fire spread. Other studies also question the ability of fuel reductions to influence LARGE fires under severe fire weather. And that is the key phase–severe fire weather. Even if fuel reductions appear to work under moderate conditions, they generally fail completely under severe fire conditions.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/22/the-myth-of-forest-health-logging/
