News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
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The U.S. Forest Service plans to ramp up prescribed burns across the West on the presumption this will contribute to forest health as well as reduce landscape scale wildfires. However, the Forest Service exaggerates the presumed benefits of prescribed burning and ignores the problems. One of the most critical issues is that most wildfires never encounter a fuel reduction, whether from thinning or prescribed burns. So, even if prescribed burns were effective, fires seldom occur in treated areas. Second, the burn must be... Full story
The Deschutes National Forest is currently engaged in prescribed burning and thinning the forest. They assert that our forests are unhealthy and too dense, thus requiring human ignition and logging to keep the forests healthy. At the same time it promotes chainsaw medicine and human manipulation, it conveniently asserts that natural evolutionary sources of mortality like disease, wildfire, drought, and insects are “signs” that the forests are unhealthy. There are a couple of observations that one should consider. 1.... Full story
