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Is there any evidence that logging helps prevent or reduce the effects of forest fires? Forests have evolved over thousands of years to tolerate fires without a
by Johnny555 11y ago
Is there any evidence that logging helps prevent or reduce the effects of forest fires? Forests have evolved over thousands of years to tolerate fires without any logging at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/opinion/more-logging-wont-stop-wildfires.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/opinion/more-logging-wont-...
I thought the bigger problem (aside from unusually dry weather in many places) was decades of aggressively fighting fires rather than letting them burn (which is a natural part of forests). The growth of housing into rural forest land exacerbates the problem since fire protection agencies need to make the choice between letting houses burn or letting a forest burn to prevent an even bigger fire the next time.
- Amezarak 11y agoMaybe it is different in the West, but a "good" fire is one that burns through the undergrowth and only scorches healthy trees. I see them regularly here in the southeast. The problem is that if you go without fire for too long, when it does finally burn it will be so hot that it'll burn up even healthy trees. So, I am not an expert, but I can easily imagine that logging (and the side effects of logging) would have a beneficial effect, because there isn't as much fuel to burn, but that wouldn't be necessary if we'd had controlled burns all the time. (NB that the linked opinion article claims that is not the case - but that's the logic.)
- sixothree 11y agoI'm not seeing much discussion either about the massive old-growth deforestation our country underwent the last few hundred years. I can't believe that's not a contributing factor either.