‘Self-serving garbage.’ Wildfire experts escalate fight over saving California forests

For decades, environmentalists fought the agency for allowing timber companies to pillage huge stretches of the national forests for profit. Hanson says thinning projects, performed in the name of fire safety, are simply an excuse for more of the same commercial logging.

But climate change is making the forests hotter and drier — at the same time they’re getting increasingly populated with humans. That has sharpened the debate over how best to manage California’s woods. And with another 2.4 million acres burning in California this year, on top of 4 million in 2020, many other environmental organizations have embraced thinning as a means of saving America’s forests.