Jump This said:
If we need to point fingers...maybe someone could have found a way to deal with the beetle......
maybe faster availablity of air tankers could have helped....
maybe those of us who live near open space could have....
Lets face it people...
This probably could not have been prevented....
Rick
Dealing with the beetle problem has been a priority, as has dealing with the factors that allow the beetle to infest vast areas of the forests. Treating the cause of the beetles is a good place to change policy (what has been in planning for years).
The beetle is a nationwide problem, partially due to litigation efforts, and directly due to density problems and the competition this density places on scarce water resources. The bark beetle problem is primarly due to density problems, and how this high density impacts the forests ability to use the available watershed.
The density results in more trees competiting for the same water supply, and weakened trees are attacked by beetles, and diseased trees die.
Historically, fire thinned the dead and diseased trees, limiting the density every 30 years. The fire events were not passive burns, the burns were a combination of catastrophic events and mild wildfires. These fires displaced people, but the indigineous populations did not have semi-permanent structures like we do today, and the use of fire is no longer considered a valid tool in urban forests and grasslands (unless you believe technology can contain fire, at will, or you believe the radical agenda leaders who don't use logic).
How do you safely reduce the tree density in and around an urban forest?
The post-European settlement modern method is mechanical thinning (selective logging). Permits have been applied for, for selective logging, in the SBNF burn areas for over ten years. The efforts were modeled after successful pilot projects executed in USFS Experimental Forests. These 1980's pilot projects recorded documented success in fires as far back as 1994. The thinned areas acted as firebreaks, slowing the advance of wildfire, with less intense heat (allowing more of the standing trees to survive).
The success of these pilot thinning projects is the justification for Gov. Davis to declare the SBNF a State Disaster Area in May (six months after the first request). The first two requests to the State were turned down due to State Administrative leadership claiming that there was no proof that spending resources on thinning is a proven method of treatment. Proof was given, and the political challenges were battled. The voices of groups urging the leadership to turn down the SDA request, for their selfish agenda reasoning, were drowned out by residents who were organizing the first disaster evacuation plan in the history of the area.
The State must declare a disaster area before the federal government can act. Even now some aspects of the Federal action is stuck in Congress, as even CA's two Senators have opposing views on the use of Federal funds to thin tree stands on private land. Boxer opposes all thinning with adament opposition to funds cutting trees on private lands, the agenda of her supporters, and Feinstein changed her position and now supports funding thinning on public and private lands with federal forest oversight (she listened to her citizens, with a requirement the USFS and State Agencies select the trees to be cut). None of the effort advocates clear cutting of forests in the fashion advertised by the Heritage Forest Network, the Sierra Club, and their allies.
The density problems have been masked in debates shaped to falsely refocus the problem on beetles, and on opposition to mankind living in the forest, and on habitat protection as competition to fire protection and logging, and it's time for the public to be told the truth about successful cooperative forest management (including thinning as a prescribed fire prevention tool). Cooperation should work both ways, and not always solely to gain more ground for Wildlands.
For those who care:
"OHV Trail Check:
The Northern section of 3W12 and 3W13 burned over.
Most of 2W01 and Devil's Hole burned to Carbine Flats.
Dishpan (3N34) partially burned over.
Eastern Cleghorn burned over.
2N27Y, 2N28Y, 2N29Y and 2W11 all just east of Arrowhead was burned over.
T-6 crossing was burned over partially.
1N34 Cucamonga Trail from Lytle Creek to Upland was burned over in it's
entirely.
Most of the forest roads in the Arrowhead area are completely blocked by fallen trees.
Many trees are still on fire and falling.
Very dangerous situation.
There will be more chainsaw work this winter then ever before cleaning off OHV routes.
Also, there are a lot of new dozer lines and old roads that are exposed off of designated the forest road system.
When these designated roads are reopened to the public, OHV traffic might try to use these unauthorized routes as off road opportunities. Keeping the public on only the legal routes is expected to become a serious problem.
End"
Keep an open mind
on solutions.
