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Agent BB2 sez the forest up there is looking sick and miserable, so maybe that's a good reason to try to stop it from such distances. Is it even cheaper this way? How much would it have been to send in foresters and mark what was worth keeping? Maybe none of it. Maybe vast swaths of sick trees burning can help stop the spread of the sickness, help what still has a chance make it. I do not know.
I do know that even as the term "forest management" is an oxymoron, we do have people who can identify good mitigations and get people in to execute them. If we're putting prisoners and kids out there to fight fires, we can put them out there to implement mitigations, clearing and chipping fuels, putting in erosion diversions, and insofar as it would be wise to log or to drop sick trees, we've got plenty of people to do that too.
Would that really be more expensive than these wildfires? I mean, forget how much dirtier fires are, the rotting of the trees and brush is way better soil enhancement than ash, and helps the microbes that contribute to forest health thrive.
This really shouldn't fall under the category of Acts of God. Inaction of Humans, or plain Anthropogenic, might be better ways to look at it... if there's a future for the awesome forests of the PNW.
pipe up any time....
