3 ms·

Ahhh, I didn't think about the Lumber Industry pushing for less prescribed fires. Makes sense.

• redis_mlc 6y ago
  Some things to research: 1) the lumber industry obviously prefers clearcutting in the short-term, but generally follows selection laws if they get access to more forests and the logging equipment fits, but that means logging roads. 2) It's needed to harvest fallen trees within about a year of a fall for lumber. By 6 years they're rotten and not economically viable, but still contribute to fires - this was a problem in 2020. 3) Generally scheduled, controlled burns only quickly burn the forest floor (detritis like branches, deadfalls, etc.) and some outside bark, which trees evolved to tolerate, and not the inner core of trees, so doesn't affect logging. When you wait too long, trees actually heat and explode, setting the canopy on fire far and wide. If you make charcoal, that's a more persistent fire. Source: very lucky to have grown up outside a national park, which makes one a hard-core ecologist.
  • pvaldes 6y ago
    A rotten trunk is spongy and soaked in water, because is rotten, so is less burnable than an alive tree. Could act in part as fire retardants If we manage the forest as a company and monoculture of trees, then fallen trees are money and must be harvested for profit. If we manage the forest as an ecosystem, fallen trees create entire sub-ecosystems and provide necessary refuges for amphibians, mammals, birds and invertebrates. They belong to the forest, boost biodiversity, and shouldn't removed necessarily. Not unless they block a road or lie in a problematic area. Not by default.
    • dredmorbius 6y ago
      Fallen timber in much of California dessicates rather than rots.