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Having been a wild land firefighter. I can attest that the public perception also plays a factor into this. I live in a city that is close to many large nationa
by Trisell 11y ago
Having been a wild land firefighter. I can attest that the public perception also plays a factor into this. I live in a city that is close to many large national forests. We yearly get large amount of smoke were I live. Every time this happens there is a large public outcry about the quality of the air. The forest service is extremely sensitive to public discontent. So they attempt to put the fires out as quickly as possible.
This year we had a slow burning fire that was the perfect type of fire that you would let burn till the first rains come. It eats up the undergrowth but stays out of the canopy. But the amount of smoke in our valley caused such an uproar, that the forest service brought in massive amounts of resources to put the fire out quickly instead of letting in burn itself out.
As long as the public doesn't want to be bothered by the side effects of fire, then the forest service will continue to be forced to put fire out in ways that may not be the most beneficial for the forests.
- imglorp 11y agoI'd just like to add that meddling humans putting out fires makes things worse. If we kept our fingers out of her machine, nature would do a fine job managing the forests herself using periodic smaller fires to clear out underbrush. When that happens, the big ones are fewer and less severe. Maybe we should just protect towns and leave the rest to the expert.
- rasz_pl 11y agono one is forced, its all political by 'look at me im doing something' types
- EvanPlaice 11y agoI used to attend a private school bordering RMNP where we did a lot of outreach work with the park and surrounding community. Including, a significant amount of wildfire mitigation work. I couldn't agree more with your statements. Wildfire mitigation is extremely labor-intensive and -- in the bigger picture -- not very useful. Controlled burning in a 'healthy' ecosystem can have a much greater positive impact. I get really upset by the persistent culture of 'environmental do-gooders' that have no clue how biological ecosystems work. Such people put way too much value on (animal and plant) life and conveniently ignore the limitations of sustainability in natural ecosystems. I don't really have an answer to fix it. The problem isn't that we don't have the ability to mitigate massive natural disasters. It's that people can't see beyond their vanity enough to realize that natural environments don't exist to perpetuate life. 'Healthy' ecosystems have constant cycles of destruction and renewal. Our influence has been the greatest negative influence on that process.