Thank you Dani. As a western state resident, its been terrible with incredible smoke, fire, loss of property and life.
I have hesitated to respond to this thread, but I've held my tongue for a couple of weeks and still feel a need to comment. But I don't want to get into a political debate about this or any other administration.
I'd like to share a broader perspective and think i am qualified to say not so fast. I've lived in Washington State for 29 years and have worked throughout the western states in natural resources management that entire time. I hold a degree in Forestry as well as my wildlife biology degrees. I was a registered professional forester earlier in my career. I live in a county where the 98% of the land is actively managed for timber production and none of the timber land is Federal; its either private industrial forest land, private holdings, school lands or DNR owned and managed land. My son is the regional fire manager for DNR for 6 counties in western Washington and he has spent at least 6 weeks so far this summer and fall on fires including one of the biggest ones in Oregon and is currently is a division commander on a 160,000 acre fire in California.
I'd like to point out that the assertions that the fires in western states this year (and recent years) are the result of the lack of forest management, ineptitude, collapse of timber industries, the Endangered Species Act, lack of forest raking or agency paralysis is almost entirely simplifications spewed by people with a political agenda or a lack of familiarity with western ecosystems/forestry just as the positions that it is all because of climate change or some other calamity. The causes of the fires are as varied as the fires. Drought, arson, fire suppression policy, increasing development, sloppy logging, very unusual weather conditions, fire management policy in wilderness areas, and maybe even ESA have all played a role but the biggest factor this year was the prolonged dry spell followed by really unusual low relative humidity/ high wind wind event over a busy weekend across much of western Washington, Oregon and California. Numerous fires in California burned or are burning in developed areas where forest management, endangered species, logging are non-issues.
Many of the fires started after almost 2 months of widespread drought, followed by dry lightening, record low relative humidity and strong gusty winds. Here is a quote from the USDA and NOAA as of today--
"As the water year (October 1, 2019 ? September 30, 2020) came to an end, extreme drought (D3) was expanded in northern California and portions of neighboring states. California?s two most dangerous new wildfires were the Glass and Zogg Fires, both of which started on September 27. The Glass Fire, in Napa and Sonoma Counties, and the Zogg Fire, in Shasta County, both scorched about 50,000 acres of vegetation a couple of days, with little containment. Meanwhile, very poor to poor ratings were indicated by USDA on September 27 on at least 50% of rangeland and pastures in all Western States except Idaho, Nevada, and Utah, led by Oregon (82% very poor to poor). On the same date, topsoil moisture was at least 60% very short to short in every Western State except Arizona, led by New Mexico (86% very short to short)".
We can debate the factors but need to discuss the totality of the issues, not cherry pick them with broad statements of dubious veracity.
Hunting season is upon us, so back to our regularly scheduled hunting banter.