Build Back Better bill and forest funding

[BillyBobBurro]

This person does some interesting discussion of our recent fires and how management approaches impacted the fires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp2ss13iKNA

[maverick]

Our of curiosity, what is actually meant by "raking the forest"?

Refers to comments made here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwL6GWYg34M

[dave54]

I know Zeke, and he has some good points. What he did not stress enough in his videos is 2020 and 2021 were two of the worst years on record for fire danger. During the Dixie Fire the 1000 hour fuels (>3" in diameter) were at 4-5%. This is dryer than lumber at the local lumberyard. The Dixie and Caldor Fire behavior were mostly due to the record low fuel moisture. We had 99th and 100th percentile fire danger indices this year. As Zeke pointed out, forest treatments are irrelevant under those conditions.
But most years are not like this. 97% of the time fires burn under less severe conditions, and forest treatments work under the majority of the summer fire conditions. Just not all of them. There will always be a few fires that escape our control no matter what forest treatments or strategies employed. We do not claim vaccines are no good because of the rare reaction. This was a rare year.
He also is correct the Forest Service will not be doing any large scale salvage logging. The usual suspects will file legal actions until the dead logs are no longer merchantable, and the mills already have enough logs salvaged from their own lands. There will be hazard tree logging along roads, powerlines, and similar. Of course, there will no salvage logging of any kind in Wilderness Areas. Getting trails cleared of deadfall will be challenge, since chainsaws are not normally allowed in Wilderness for non-fire work. Any volunteers to work a misery whip for 12 hours per day, day after day?

[balzaccom]

There are no simple solutions to complex problems...

[SirBC]

There are no simple solutions to complex problems...

I recently finished Ken Follet's latest novel and a line from the book stuck with me:

"The easy problems get solved right away, so only the hard ones are left. That's why you should never believe a politician with simple answers"

[Gogd]

I know Zeke, and he has some good points...

..He also is correct the Forest Service will not be doing any large scale salvage logging. The usual suspects will file legal actions...

As long as we let folks opine counter-productive solutions without a vigorous rebuttal, public policy will acquiesce to those squeaky wheels. It is obvious elements of our current policies have lead to the fuel loads making wild fires possible. Salvage logging has commercial merits but fails to get at the underlying cause of wild fires. Forestry surveys going back more than a century indicate an ecological change, but has not received much attention: the forest has become more dense, there are manifold the number of trees per acre than were present when the first censuses were conducted. Forest density facilitates fires getting into crowns of the forest, giving wild fires optimal conditions to spread while making them impossible to suppress. Climate change is not going away and will further exasperate the situation. The problem is we are letting doctrinaires control the discussion with talking points that are emotionally appealing, but fall far short if the primary objective is a sustainable ecology.

The debate over forest habitat preservation is similar to the debate over economic policy. Advocates for Keynesian economics - a.k.a. trickle down theory - espouse certain theoretical concepts that these policies benefit society at large. In fact these policies benefited the wealthy, but Keynesian policies have stagnated the lifestyle of the middle class, the income of most households failing to to keep pace with the rising cost of living. The results speak for themselves. Forty years of trickle down policies has been a failed experiment, yet somehow the advocates of this theory continue to successfully pitch their agenda to minions, the very people who it disenfrancises. And so is the case with forestry logging policies that focus entirely on mitigating the negative consequences of logging, while overlooking the potential benefits when used as a means to maintain health forest ecology.

Controlled burns and other various forest management practices have a positive affect, but we need to thin the forest if we are to stand any chance at reducing wild fire events. Clear cut logging practices have made us adverse to any notion that logging in any form can be a component of effective forest ecology management. Traumatized tree huggers go kicking and screaming in desperation over any attempt to log the forests for any reason. This has to stop, it is counterproductive doctrine. If we continue to let stem density go unmanaged, then we are just stoking up the landscape for the next conflagration. A thoughtful, sophisticated harvesting policy, whose prime objective is thinning the canopy can lead to a more healthy forest. Less stems per acre not only reduces crown level fuel loads, it opens up the canopy, permitting the sun to reach the forest floor, facilitating a greener under story and quicker composting of ground level combustibles. Likewise fewer tree stems means the existing trees have less competition for water to sustain them through dry periods.

We need to inform policy makers and get the public receptive to the notion some level of burning and cutting of trees emulates what nature used to do, before we came along and attempted to domesticate the lands. We need management doctrine that relies more on science to sustain the vitality of our forest, than a cute bear and owl, sporting snappy looking campaign hats. As long as we let the "usual suspects" control the minds and hearts of this debate, we will only have ourselves to blame for failed policy.

Ed

[dave54]

The main driver of the Dixie Fire behavior was not excessively high fuel loading. The driver was the extremely low fuel moisture. Post fire analysis has shown little to no correlation between pre-fire fuel loading and burn intensity. The fire burned through areas that were managed well (Collins Pine Lands, FSC certified), and through recent burns. It even partially burned into the 2020 Sheep Fire perimeter. It also was not terrain driven. The Feather River Canyon where it started is a steep V canyon, but the rest of the burn is more gentle terrain. The whole northern half is flat to rolling. There was a few more than normal wind event days but still within a typical summer pattern. The Energy Release Component and Burning Index for the area during the fire were at record highs due to the fuel moisture, not any other weather factor.

Salvage logging raises revenue to finance the forest restoration effort. Otherwise you have to wait out the Congressional budget appropriation process and hope other pressing political priorities do not hinder restoration. It also reduces fuel loading for the next fire. A good example of this is the Gun Fire burn just west of the Dixie (1993?). The private lands were immediately salvaged and replanted. The federal lands were not. The private lands are now a productive multi-aged forest with lots of wildlife and diversity. The federal lands are a snag patch with thick impenetrable brushfields and little wildlife. It also changes fire tactics. Snag patches are a 'do not enter' zone for firefighters. When a fire starts in a snag patch the tactic is to back off and fight the fire indirectly. In spite of this, salvage logging is considered evil and the political whims will prevent the FS from doing much of it. Burned trees lose value quickly. If not salvaged within the first year or so (pines hold their value longer than true firs. You cannot salvage log burned white fir fast enough to get any value) there will be so little value no company will bid on the contract. Unfortunately, science ignoramuses like Chad Hanson have a following and are staunchly opposed to salvage logging and thinning.

I also find it interesting the Nature Conservancy aggressively manages its lands with logging and herbicides and is considered 'good guys' for it. When the Forest Service proposes to do the same on adjacent public lands that same people that praised the Nature Conservancy condemn the FS for the same activities -- even an extension of the same project. State and National Wildlife Refuges are some of the most logged, altered, manipulated, and terraformed lands in the country and do not receive the criticism the FS does.

[balzaccom]

I'd like to add a note here from someone who has seen some of the big fires in the West first hand because I live in Napa County. The fires here have very little to do with harvestable timber. They are primarily in scrub land (AKA "Goat Land") has no timber to speak of. Almost the entire eastern side of the Napa Valley has burned over the past five years, all in fires that took place during extensive droughts and under conditions of very high winds. In those scenarios, neither fire breaks nor logging has an impact. The fires here jumped across the valley, over a mile in width, to light spot fires on the other side of the valley that did considerable damage. If one-mile wide fire breaks are not enough, we are in a new kind of hell...

[dave54]

Most fire planning is based on the 97th percentile level of risk. There is an assumption no matter what actions are taken, how many firefighting resources you have on hand, or how much fuels treatment you do, there will always be some fires that are beyond our ability to control. We have had several of those '3%' fires in the last few years. Armchair activists point to those fires and claim the current system does not work and everyone else is all wrong.

[balzaccom]

We have had several of those '3%' fires in the last few years.

So how many of those fires do you have to have in a few years before you start calling them 4% fires? or 5% fires? We've had three in five years in Napa County alone.