RAGING TAHOE FIRE'S ROOTS: 150 YEARS OF FOREST ABUSE

[ORDagnabbit]

Great story here...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/26/MNGMDQLP6E1.DTL

RAGING TAHOE FIRE'S ROOTS: 150 YEARS OF FOREST ABUSE
HISTORY OF MISMANAGEMENT: From Gold Rush logging to modern development


People have interjected their homes into a system that has a natural tendency to burn very frequently, and where we have suppressed the frequency of those fires for so long, there's an ungodly amount of fuel there," Forest Service regional ecologist Hugh Safford said.

Mixed-growth forests of fire-tolerant species like the self-pruning Jeffrey pine were replaced by uniform stands of dense white fir and undergrowth, which grew rapidly in the unusually wet years of the early 20th century.

Then came the vacation homes and ski areas. As development spread, land managers focused on fire suppression, allowing the fuel load to build every year

[Ron Green]

1. This is the important story around this fire.

I saw you caught quite a bit of grief in another post over your "callousness" about people's losses (it did seem a bit harsh in the middle of an outpouring of empathy), but it's true that the upper-middle-class real estate market is so focused on a Disney-like interface with nature, especially in second and third "homes," that science, history and best practices have been all but ignored.

I'll just take a small popcorn, salt no butter, and good luck to you in this thread.

[cspanlovr]

2. So sad. I was there 20 yrs ago. One of the most beautiful places I had ever seen.

[Warpy]

3. That's what had happened in the big Yellowstone fire

and the Los Alamos fire later.

Forests out west NEED to burn over every few years to clear undergrowth and dead vegetation and allow desert plants to germinate. It takes fire to burst cones open to free seed.

Big crown fires happen when dead wood and vegetation is allowed to build up too long, fueling massive fires that spread upward as well as outward.

People who build vacation homes out in the woods need to know this and plan accordingly, sticking to cheap cabin structures that don't represent the capital loss that a pleasure palace does. People who retire to these cabins need to keep important papers and valuables quickly portable in case they need to evacuate.

Western forests will all burn, they need to. The only question is when.

[sandnsea]

5. crown fires

The problem now is that people advocate these fires as "natural", when these hot crown fires are as far from natural as they can be. They should have made a real thinning effort in populated areas as well, instead of using it as an excuse to log old growth.

[Kagemusha]

6. For whatever reasons, Republicans just can't grasp basic facts like this.

Back in the day when I gave Rush Limbaugh a fair hearing - in other words, when I was young - I read one of his books, and while I couldn't say for sure he was full of crap with a lot of stuff targeted at the less defensible parts of the Bill Clinton presidency, he brought up the Yellowstone fire and with horror, wrote that there was a conscious decision to let it burn, and said that a few people died as a result, and this demonstrates the lunacy of the left.

Forests will all burn, they need to. Just as you said just now. I did not have difficulty realizing that; for whatever reason, some people, a lot of people in fact, have difficulty grasping the concept.

[phantom power]

4. I was interested in how much flak you took for pointing this out earlier.

[EFerrari]

8. The OP caught flak, not for pointing out a fact, but for the

context of the remark.

[TX-RAT]

7. I some what agree with you.

In a thread yesterday a member of this board posted a picture of their house in Tahoe. I truly hope their house survives and they sustain no loses, but, in that picture there was an all wood house, with a shake roof completely surrounded by large tree's some as close as 10 ft. Should a fire come into that neighbor hood, I'm afraid their going to lose that house. People who move into wooded area's have to clear fire breaks, keep all tree's away from the house and if possible, try not to use such fire prone building materials. I don't live in a wooded area, but i do live in a fire prone area. Last year i lost 180 acres to a fire and my neighbor lost close to 10,000. The fire went completely around my house without damage. I had cleared a fire break thats about 75 yards wide and goes completely around the house, plus the house is made out of brick and cut stone with a metal roof. As you said in another thread, these are things a person must realize and deal with before moving into a fire prone area.


After posting this i was informed that there is an ordinance or law that only allows tree's to be cut down if their within 15 ft of your home. I would hold those who created this ordinance liable for some of the damages. They have created a dangerous situation.