[straydog]

Protected Forests on Public Land Burn Less Severely Than Logged Areas Abstract (Excerpt) There is a widespread view among land managers and others that the protected status of many forestlands in the western United States corresponds with higher fire severity levels due to historical restrictions on logging that contribute to greater amounts of biomass and fuel loading in less intensively managed areas, particularly after decades of fire suppression. This view has led to recent proposals—both administrative and legislative—to reduce or eliminate forest protections and increase some forms of logging based on the belief that restrictions on active management have increased fire severity. Conclusion (Excerpt) In general, our findings—that forests with the highest levels of protection from logging tend to burn least severely—suggest a need for managers and policymakers to rethink current forest and fire management direction, particularly proposals that seek to weaken forest protections or suspend environmental laws ostensibly to facilitate a more extensive and industrial forest–fire management regime. Such approaches would likely achieve the opposite of their intended consequences and would degrade complex early seral forests (DellaSala et al. 2015).

[JVesquire]

Ye know not what kind of flame war ye have started...

[Pyrites]

What a large project the authors undertook. I'm curious to see how this is recieved over time.

[WANative]

I'll take the bait. The authors are both highly educated and very stupid at the same time and clearly, also have an agenda. They think "decision makers" as they call them don't have two eyes with which they can see things. Notice how the authors don't provide any "on the ground" photos and information showing specific examples to support their case. In their world of stupid correlation=causation. Here is why the authors and this study are stupid: 1) Protected forests are generally old-growth forests. Old growth forests are fire tolerant. Selective thinning helps newer forests develop old-growth forest characteristics. Selective thinning is management. 2) We need logs. Harvesting of trees for commercial use is a necessary part of life. I can't imagine the authors are sitting in mud huts using shaman powers to float above the earth to do this study. They used computers while they sat inside wooden or concrete structures with the heat on full blast. If they had gotten up and gone outside and looked at some forests they wouldn't even have bothered to author such an ignorant, stupid study. 3) Selective logging and clearcutting perform the same function as fire only the air doesn't get polluted and we get some wood out of the deal. Idiots. Perhaps they are just young? Yellowstone was a protected old-growth forest in a park and burned all to hell in 90's. An intelligent person would recognize that because of Yellowstone's high elevation, it's trees are stunted and their size density tends to mimic middle-aged forests cut at the turn of the century and in the 50's and 60's which are causing problems now at the lower elevations. And of course the parks long time record of fire suppression which kept fire from doing the same thing clearcutting and selective cutting does.

[CC]

[straydog]

[Kim Brown]

WANative, this is a scientific study, not a diatribe for or against logging. It is researched and written as other scientific studies are researched and written. These people are not stupid. For anyone interested in more of a layperson's publication, check out the USFS Pacific NW Research station's Science Findings. I don't know that this particular subject has been written in that publication, but it's a good base for learning about a variety of science subjects.

[Kim Brown]

[straydog]

[straydog]

[Kim Brown]

[Jake Neiffer]

Ski's correct, I believe. It's difficult to draw much of any conclusion from this study given the short time period. What we have seen is that when a fire passes through both treated and untreated stands the thinned areas fare better.

[WANative]

[WANative]

100 acres thinned=$268,000.00 gross. After the logger and clean-up crews share it's a net zero sum. Loggers thin it out. The clean up "landscapes" the area by limbing the trees as high as their pruners can reach and then stacking it up the pruned limbs and whatever didn't make it to landing in piles. When it dries out they'll come through and drop a lit piece of tar paper into each stack and burn it all up. This study says I shouldn't do any of that. If fire comes through my property it will burn worse after having it thinned and cleaned up VS just having left it alone.

[treeswarper]