A letter to the western part of the country

Dani

Well-known member
Gold Sponsor
Dear WA, OR and CA,

I know where your rain went. Please come get it.

Love,

FL

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Isn't that the truth? I have a sister in eastern Washington, she told me last weekend that the smoke was so bad nobody was going outside, and she's not even near any fires
 
Thanks, we could use it! For the last two weeks the sun has been invisible or just a dim red ball. I feel sorry for the people losing their home and especially for those who have perished or lost loved ones. Other than that let the whole damn place burn down. Between the Libtards and the dumbacrats and whacko enviros we have out here they've all created a forest just waiting to burn. I think this year will finally start to make a change in the way we manage our forests. Or maybe they will burn all the forest this year and there won't be anything left to burn for a while?

4 of the largest 5 fires in Ca history are still burning!
August Complex
839,175 August 2020 This one will probably go to 1,000,000 acresMendocino Complex
459,123 July 2018SCU Lightning Complex
396,624 August 2020Almost outLNU Lightning Complex
363,220 August 2020
Almost out
North Complex
284,437 August 2020
 
My dad is in Gig Harbor, WA....the smoke is killing him and I'm not sure that he is anywhere close a big fire.

My aunt in Medford, OR had to evacuate and I'm not sure on the status of her house today. Two days ago it was "still standing" so that's a good thing.

My grandfather in Rogue River, OR said he has never seen it so dry. Even in dry years 3 or 4 times a summer he has to go down to the creek and weed eat?.this year there is NO water in the creek (partly due to people up stream irrigating their properties with water from the creek) and he hasn't had to weed eat once this summer.

I hope there is a change in the way forests are managed....pretty sad the way the country is just burning up.
 
ESA, NEPA, and USFS will need major changes before forest management can think about improvement.

Without markets... aka sawmills, paper mills, and board plants, who will consume the forest products from our reinvented management goals? Decades of shrinking supply (lack of forest management) have caused the mills to close.

Or will we just dump more taxpayer dollars into federal ?land management? without generating forest products?

I got into forestry because it is the only Field of natural resource Management with the potential for economic sustainability and ecological/habitat/water conservation. However, the feds, the laws, and the litigants don?t seem to worry much about the ecology or the economy.
 
Too many political interests and bad policies made by people who know very little about the things outside their bubble of interest.

It would be awesome if we could remedy this for a lot of various issues.
 
Second What Nick said. Forestry and logging are suffering further because we receive next to nothing in govt subsidies when compared to farming. I wish I could recall the figure. 1/100th maybe. When I log into my work computer it will be staring at my face.

If they put a quarter as much into forestry as they do into corn every city would have their mid level buildings replaced with CLT instead of concrete.

Working on a grant in the NE-MW region titled ?no markets no management.? Hit the nail on the head with the title of that one.
 
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.
 
Thanks, Brad, for your cogent comments.

Nick, I took a Forestry Economics course, 400 level, while in graduate school. It was quite illuminating...largely because so much of the mechanics of biome ecosystem function and preservation were excluded from the models, deemed externalities in the economic feasibility and viability calculations; you know, ancillary stuff like water quality of streams within the cut and sport fishery viability and preservation. Likewise, reductions in carrying capacity for game populations that utilized the timber stand for habitat were also often excluded.
 
RLLigman said:
It was quite illuminating...largely because so much of the mechanics of biome ecosystem function and preservation were excluded from the models, deemed externalities in the economic feasibility and viability calculations; you know, ancillary stuff like water quality of streams within the cut and sport fishery viability and preservation. Likewise, reductions in carrying capacity for game populations that utilized the timber stand for habitat were also often excluded.


When I was in Wildlife Sciences at Auburn from 1988-1992, we had to take a couple of forestry & forest management classes.
I experienced the same thing: complete focus on timber/pulp production and the bottom-line, anything else was considered a negative in the accounting ledger.
I understand things have changed now, but it was an eye-opener for me back then.

Brad, I completely agree with your comments, its not a single factor or another, its a combination of many factors. Too many folks on both sides of the issue get tied up in one thing or another, don't see the big picture.
 
Well said Brad, appreciate the insight. We have also been in drought conditions here. Were it not for covid both Andrea and I would have been sent out with our red cards. Sadly they were withheld from us as trainings were cancelled. Not sure if the drought here also has some play from the fires out west and that nice dry smoky air blowing East towards us. Andrea and I moved into a new house this year, started a new lawn, planted landscaping, orchard, blueberries, etc. terrible year for it. The lawn is perpetually in a state of almost dead brown, whole the garden and orchard only survive because I almost run the well dry irrigating them to kept them barely alive.

Hurray 2020. Hopefully the fall is better.
 
Carl, when you consider that the Hubbard Brook Study had run over a decade prior my experience and several decades prior yours, our "convergence" speaks volumes regarding the how and whys of forest management criticisms and progression to include an overall ecosystem approach.
 
Back then, the Forestry and Wildlife Sciences departments barely spoke to each other. There was true animosity.
One Forestry professor in particular who's course we had to take made it very clear that our opinions on timber harvest and pine monoculture's impacts to water quality, ecology & wildlife were not welcome in his classroom.

But as I noted, things have changed in the last 30 years. Now, Forestry & Wildlife Sciences are combined into one department. Lots of joint research and cross-discipline interaction.
 
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