Washington Feels the Heat From California (fires to push logging bill)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

WASHINGTON — With wildfires burning across Southern California, pressure is growing for lawmakers to act on President Bush's stalled plan to limit environmental and judicial reviews of tree-thinning projects in national forests.

Supporters of the legislation, which the administration says would help reduce fire risks, said Monday that images of burning homes and smoke-filled skies should compel Congress to pass a wildfire prevention bill this year. But deep divisions remain over the legislation, which opponents say would do little to stop the type of chaparral fires that have leapt across more than 500,000 acres the last several days.

The legislation is designed to speed up forest thinning on as much as 20 million acres of federal wild lands at high risk of fire. Both the House bill and the compromise proposal crafted by the bipartisan group of senators would let the Agriculture and Interior secretaries decide which forests would be targeted for thinning projects. A large part of the effort is expected to take place in California.

snip
"Arguably it would do little, if anything, for the situation in Southern California," said Jay Watson, director of the Wilderness Society's fire program.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-dcfire28oct28,1,3765447.story

[pmbryant]

1. Predictable, but maddening nonetheless

Arggh!!!!!!

Can we abolish the entire government and start from scratch?

:puke:

--Peter

[Clete]

19. I wish. They sure are making a mess of things.

The sad part is the very loggers who do the job know how destructive present day logging practices are, but they need the jobs so they go ahead and do the work.

[slackmaster]

2. Logging would have done ZERO good here in SoCal

There aren't any trees to be logged in most places that are anywhere near peoples' homes. The fuel for our fires is mostly brush and grass.

OTOH there is some thinning and culling in progress on Mount Palomar. That is probably worthwhile to the extent that dead and dying trees are being removed.

[sandlapper]

13. As I understand it --

Several of these fires began in timbered National Forest land that due to road building restrictions were inaccessible to anything but aerial tankers which the State and local governments couldn't afford. The permissive road building provisions of the legislation would have affected fire fighting ability. There is also a much greater history of more acreage lost in forested areas of CA in any typical fire season, such as the last two years.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

15. Then you understand it wrong..the majority of the fires started in brush

[Bandit]

16. Just because something is called a National Forest doesn't mean there

are trees there. Especially the case in California. Do you know anything of the geography you speak? Maybe you could clue us in on the last logging venture in those particular National Forests.

[Clete]

20. Well the San Bernardino mountain are timbered with big

trees. The problem is that much of it is second and third growth so that the genetic diversity wasn't there that curtails the heavy infestation of bark beetles. This is why combined with drought and overdevelopment the fires were so huge this time.

[revree]

18. YOU ARE WRONG

Fires started in dry brush areas - part of Ramona, Otay Lakes area - not forested at all.

[screembloodymurder]

30. Cut down everything that grows!

Sell the debrushing rights.

[damnraddem]

22. Were those national forests timbered?

I recall many So Cal 'national forests' that had no trees. These are brush fires.

[Speck Tater]

3. This is absurd...

Anyone who's ever lived in that area knows there are no trees there!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. Well there are the fast growing trees that developers add to close

the deal...and the shrub THEY plant around properties.

[damnraddem]

23. We know the true culprit, and it is ...

Bush!

[tom_paine]

7. But Bushevik lies don't have to make sense, do they?

Nope, the Imperial Subjects of Amerika are not known to have very good bullshit detectors lately.

[0007]

4. This will give junior a woody, 'eh?

Poor Spot!

[salin]

6. and now that they bought themselves arnie

the ability to try to locally stave off such attempts - decreased greatly. Davis demonstrated a willingness to stand down Bush and DC. Do we expect Arnie to be able to understand when he needs to - or care - or be willing to do so?

[tom_paine]

8. Arnie will do what he's told when he's told

H owes Uncle Karl and the Busheviks too much.

He knows too little to oppose them even if he wanted to.

And he doesn't want to.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. Actually this is a federal bill but I suspect Arnie will push some similar

state program.

[pmbryant]

10. Why is Feinstein so hard behind this?

:shrug:

--Peter

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

11. I would suspect pragmatism more than anything

Unless her husband also owns stock in a related company. She KNOWS they will push something through, they control everything...so she is pushing for the bill that actually logs closer to where it might make a difference and protects old growth rather than deep in the forest.

[pmbryant]

12. This kind of pragmatism is not going to work

Pass a bill in the Senate, and the "conferees" just come back with the original House bill, which then gets rammed through on a partisan vote.

This certainly is the GOP's strategy here, as on many earlier bills. Why play along?

:shrug:

--Peter

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

14. Anymore, I really have no clue

:shrug: right back at you :D

[revree]

17. I LIVE HERE AND THERE AIN'T NO FORESTS BURNING

These fucking idiots are such uneducated assholes. I am sorry for swearing but the entire Republican county of San Diego is blaming Gray Davis for not allowing forest thinning so loggers can make more money, BUT THESE ARE NOT FOREST FIRES.

THIS IS DRY CHAPPARAL, DRY BRUSH, BUSHES AT MOST, AND A FEW EUCALYPTIS TREES.

I hate Republicans more than ever, why? BECAUSE THEY ARE STUPID BEYOND BELIEF, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS ARE EVEN MORESO.

[Sequoia]

26. I COULDN'T AGREE MORE!!!

I try to tell people back east about this and they think I'm losing it...like I see Bush thugs behind all our troubles. And yes, they aim to take our state down and kick us.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jeffreyi]

35. No Trees!

Except for higher elevations, which are forested, the southern Cal National Forests consist of large acreages of oak woodland and Chapparal. There has been a four-year drought...check out http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html for the Drought Monitor. In addition, the chapparal shrub vegetation is adapted to stand-replacing fires, which come with regularity because of the Southern Cal climate (Mediterranean...wet winters, dry summers) and the offshore Santa Ana winds which usually occur for a time every fall when the vegetation is dryest. When conditions are severe, i.e., high fuel loads, high velocity winds, high temperatures, low humidity (and fire)...area ignition (a few to many acres at at time exploding in flames) and spot fires occur and little fire breaks and garden hoses ain't going to do it. Unfortunately because of the continuing drought, there has been a lot of drought-induced tree mortality at the upper elevations of the various mountain ranges. This mortality has really shown up in the last year, and the fuel loading is catastrophically high in those stands right now. In addition, there are literally millions of people who have built houses in fire-prone areas (in chaparral on steep ground). It's hard to believe that the planners etc. allow that down there given that it burns up at least once every twenty or thirty years, but...Southern Cal has never exactly been noted for its long term ecologically sensitive planning.
A lot of the area is really steep and rugged, too; surprising given the high human population density.
Anyway, if you live in Southern California and you build on remote, steep ground in the chapparal or in the woodlands then you're really asking for it.
To summarize: Using these fires as an excuse for the "healthy forests" proposed legislation is really playing on people's ignorance of the situation. There's already lots of thinning going on in the bug-killed forest stands; most administrative barriers to this have already been removed because of the extreme danger. And, most of the areas burned are shrub dominated, not forested. And, given the current conditions, it's questionable at least to me that management practices would have been effective anyway.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

37. Do Republicans play on anything other than ignorance?

oops I forgot, they do, greed.

[damnraddem]

21. Let me get this straight: brush fires in So Cal mean that ...

forests need to be clear cut? Guess what, once the forests are clear cut, the first thing that will replace the trees will be brush. I used to laugh about 'national forests' in So Cal that seemed to lack only one thing: trees. This is desert that's burning -- there are not too many trees in a desert (and, no, Joshua trees are not actual trees).

[mike_c]

24. this is the legacy of 100 years of fire suppression....

Damn, I've got to run to a seminar, but I wanted to insert a quick remark before I go. Using wild fires in California to justify increased logging in western forests is ludicrous. Californian forests are fire adapted. California's ecology is fire dominated. Nothing short of a return to regular fire will solve this problem, and people who insist on living out in the chapperal in SoCal and the interior pine forests elsewhere have to face the reality of this. Healthy habitats in California burn with some regularity.

Ok-- got to run, but one last comment-- the current situation is so dangerous and so out of balance that catastophic management is likely to be necessary to return it to equilibrium. Big fires, and widespread stand replacement.

[Sequoia]

25. A lot of it is bush, I mean brush

like chaparal and the trees were dead from the beetles. These fires were set on purpose.

[Blue Gardener]

28. Urban Sprawl

I am not familiar with this part of the country, but how much does uncontrolled urban sprawl have to do with the situation? Shouldn't the the greedy developers maybe stop building so many homes in fire prone areas?:hi:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

29. BINGO!!!!

That was just one more reason for the recall...Davis actually WAS stalling developers and had passed legislation requiring adequate water, infrastructure etc.

[Clete]

31. Well, I have always thought that tract housing doesn't

belong in the canyons. When I lived in the south, you couldn't even get fire insurance if you lived in a canyon. I don't know what has changed but the canyons always are going to burn during the right conditions and it's part of a natural cycle of fire, rain and growth.

[Bandit]

32. EARTH FIRST ~~ We'll log the other planets later

:puke:

[dusty64]

33. They will continue to

push their evil and extremist agenda as long as the "opposition" is willing to sit there and do and say nothing. If they would only realize this has been a war for almost three years now. Scream the truth if you have to, fight back. It wouldn't be hard to expose their bullshit since its ALL based on lies.

[brook]

34. Google" Los Padres National Forest Pictures".

It will show that this *forest* is not what you envision when you hear that word "forest". It's scrub, chapparall,mesquite - homes that don't belong there, joshua trees(which are not trees at all) though there are some things that are correctly identified as trees. This is NOT a forest fire. Just like * is NOT an elected official of the USA.Just like *Misson is not Accomplished*. Just like things are NOT going so well in Iraq. This reportage, like so much else we are subjected to is the lazy and inaccurate bilgewater of a woefully under-educated and ethically barren media.

Back when the world was a dark, dank place and such as I crept out of the bogs, we had a saying: "Don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see."

[pasadenaboy]

36. You mean the repubs would use a national tragedy

to push their far right agenda? I don't believe it.

[Big_Mike]

38. Sure the Otay Mesa and Ramona...

fires are Chaparral. Also tons of poison oak, and other greasy woods that are very short and stunted.

However, the fires up in San Bernardino, Rim of the World, Lake Arrowhead, etc. are DEFINITELY large trees. From down in the Valley you could look up at the tops of the mountains and see the trees. I live in the High Desert, and there are about 40 miles of east to west fire clouds.

Just like "everything" else in this state, you can't generalize what "everything" is.

Good luck, and Godspeed to all the people, both residents and firefighters alike.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

39. True but the dead trees from the bark beetle infestation are feeding

those fires and that is a by product of logging according to info above.

[Rose Siding]

40. If they could have connected 911 with trees

there would be a lumber glut by now

[DeathvadeR]

41. Thining the Forests? WTF???

How exactly would you thin a forest to the point that fires wouldn't spread? The trees would have to literally be a couple of trees an acre? I mean really come on.. I can barely control the growth in my backyard, let alone tame an entire forest.

I could see maybe dividing areas up with a big ass trail between the sections maybe or taking out the dead wood, but the dead wood is good for the forests.. WTF Thinning is just some bullshit so they can cut and sell more trees to japan.

[aquart]

42. Are ALL our congressmen idiots or merely the majority?

Rhetorical question. Sometimes they just can't be helped.