06/30/2023
It's time to re-share this post due to the disinformation and psychological misdirection which our political and media "leaders" are already pursuing relevant to the 20 million acres of wildfires in Canada which have led to smoggy skies over the eastern US.
Please share this to limit the misinformation conducted by the untrustworthy media complex.
Thank you.
... It's a current trending topic of late. I have discussed this with several people recently and am confident that there is a very large amount of disinformation being distributed by the media. I've actually witnessed this personally.
The first thing all of you should understand is that fires are NOT caused by "climate change". Although there maybe peer reviewed papers with supporting evidence suggesting "climate change" is exacerbating fire occurence intervals, the link is incredibly weak and the only reason I focus on this is because the media is once again implementing 'public relations' by marketing "climate change" instead of reporting on the actual issues at hand.
In my opinion, this is irresponsible and morally reprehensible journalism. My advice for you all is to ignore all mentions of "climate change", which is clearly a constraint and not a problem anyway.
There is no climate crisis, so there is nothing to be concerned about. We have a slowly changing climate. Only the media can dramatize this and its entirely inappropriate.
What IS causing wildfires is best summarized in two words: FUEL LOAD.
The triangle below is familiar to anyone who has been formally trained in fire management. I'll get to that in a moment.
I should first mention my own experience with fire suppression and mop up as a 'key man' for 3 years with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources early in my forest management career. I was trained by both the U.S. Forest service and the DNR in fire suppression and mop up and drove a humvee for the DNR that was equipped with several hundred gallons of water and fire retardant foam. I was present on a number of forest fires on the ground with personnel from both agencies. We rolled on and attended to several fires. This was in Lake County, Michigan and those of you familiar with this region may recognize the association with the Mack Lake fire, one of the most intense fires ever recorded in the history of the U.S. This occurred in Jack pine forests of Oscoda County. Lake County has very similar Jack pine forests and certainly these are fire prone areas, especially in the spring before greenup.
The fire triangle is a figure that represents the 3 'legs' of what is necessary in order for a fire to occur. If one of these elements is missing, no fire will exist. It should be intuitive to most that between oxygen, heat (temperature, wind speed and relative humidity) and fuel, the only thing we can control as a prevenative measure is the fuel. The fuel basically consists of any flammable material. The most common fuel would of course be vegetation. Especially dead vegetation or vegetation in a dormant (not leafed out) state. The primary reason we have wildfires is due to poor prevenative measures toward reducing the fuel load.
In summary, when President Trump stated poor forest managent as the culprit, he's absolutely correct. Forest management includes fire management in the public sector, but poor policy associated with public land management, especially with regards to the U.S forest service, has significantly negatively impacted the agency's ability to treat forests properly and if you scroll down this page for more posts, I have highlighted this previously several times.
The solution to this problem is to limit legal action by non-profits who continue to delay timber sales through lawsuits. Timber sales are an important tool of fire mitigation and also could contribute significantly to the economy.
With additional revenue from timber receipts, the agency could self-fund other necessary treatments (like trimming back brush in mountain draws) that are solely non-commercial fire prevention actions.
The USFS holds over $2 trillion in standing timber that is vastly under harvested, resulting in higher mortality rates and increased fuel load. Essentially, our forests are a ticking time bomb, especially out West.
This issue is far more complex than I have time to write about on this platform, but I think I've covered the basics.
To conclude, serious policy adjustments are necessary, improved fire management plans and treatments are necessary, and thinning forests to proper densities and removing excess fuel loads are necessary.
Policy adjustments can be made quickly, but it will take several years to implement because the markets need enough time to absorb the additional wood.
I am confident that our current administration will improve the situation. Meanwhile, we will undoubtedly experience more fires as currently the area of at risk forests is vast.
I hope you all have a great day.
Finest regards, America. 🇺🇸
Geoff Kegerreis, Registered Forester
