The Bighorn Fire is being called a fire management success due to minimal community impact
Timothy Ingalsbee is the executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) who put together the report said, “Despite its great size, not a single home or business burned and that was a stark contrast to the 2003 Aspen Fire. The change in tactics is about size not severity. It’s going to grow large, (but) it’s not the size that matters, but more the severity. Is it unnaturally severe?”
50+ Groups across US northwest unveil Green New Deal vision for region's vital forests
Michael Beasley, a fire behavior analyst and retired fire chief in California's Inyo National Forest, said the plan would allow "disadvantaged workers to be true heroes in the eyes of rural communities as they conduct fuel reduction close to homes and infrastructure where it matters most, in the home ignition zone.
In turn forests can be allowed to fulfill the full range of ecosystem services, sequestration of carbon and clean water most importantly, all the while allowing for rewilding of the most remote areas, complete with intact ecosystem processes like naturally-occurring fires."
Crews use minimum impact suppression techniques to allow Johnson Fire to play its natural role in the Gila Wilderness Area
The Johnson Fire is approximately 38,225 acres and is burning in the Gila Wilderness on the Gila National Forest. The suppression strategy for this fire is confine and contain. Firefighters completed fireline preparation on Trails #151, #163 and #162 in anticipation of burn-out operations to occur later this week. The structure protection group completed protection of archeological sites up Cliff Dweller Canyon. Today firefighters will monitor fire activity along the western edge of the fire.
Regular people learn to do prescribed burns
“Most private land needs to be underburned, but you usually can’t do it unless you can apply a lot of manpower,” he said. “My great hope is that there could be a labor exchange. With the prescribed burn association, we can do that. I could give time to my neighbor, and he could help me.” The dozens of people who visited Fairbanks’ land this spring got plenty of before-and-after views of prescribed burns. They could see the forest floor sporting a new carpet of greenery and wildflowers that sprouted after small burns he carried out in February and March. The prescribed burn they helped tend left behind a blackened surface, but not for long.
Oregon Department of Transportation is a hazard to Oregon’s wildfire recovery
The forests of our region have co-evolved with fire for millennia, and as the climate crisis progresses, we will see longer fire seasons and more extreme weather events. Even now, we are facing what is shaping up to be another historic wildfire season with Oregon already experiencing the second driest spring since 1895. If we continue to respond to these wildfires by bowing to the demands of disaster capitalists and allowing for the indiscriminate removal of large trees, alive and dead, we are creating a precedent for unending ecological destruction and setting ourselves up for worse disasters in the future.
Experts scrutinize Oregon’s troubled hazard tree removal project
ODOT’s goal in the state’s ongoing hazard tree removal operation is to protect people from burned trees that could fall onto roads or buildings. But deciding which trees actually pose that risk is complicated, and a growing number of people say ODOT’s contractors are hastily marking too many trees for removal — including trees that aren’t actually hazardous.
‘It’s absolutely insane’: Swaths of trees cut after Oregon fires amid allegations of mismanagement
As the hazardous tree-removal program overseen by the Oregon Department of Transportation goes into high gear after last fall’s devastating wildfires, many of Oregon’s most scenic and beloved areas are being transformed into post-apocalyptic stretches of roadside clearcuts, gargantuan log piles and slash.
Groups Seek Liability Reforms to Fight Wildfire
According to Karuk Natural Resources Director and traditional fire practitioner Bill Tripp, "My ancestors practiced cultural burning for millennia along the Klamath and Salmon Rivers. Low intensity burns at the right time of year reduce wildfire risks in our communities and promote forest health. We must enact policies to enable and encourage rural communities to do this important work."
Arborists say ODOT post-fires tree cutting is excessive, rushed
And a growing number of people are sounding alarms over excessive tree-cutting along scenic highways and protected rivers as the Oregon Department of Transportation and its contractors proceed with plans to cut nearly 300,000 trees deemed as hazardous. The critics include arborists who have worked on the project and say the reckless tree-cutting operations across the state are being mismanaged and need to be stopped.