Our Trial By Fire

Comments

• Eric Hagen wrote on January 29, 2008, 11:30PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Excellent & timely treatment on a very controversial topic - well worth reading!

• Bryan Bird wrote on January 31, 2008, 05:06PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Interesting, but the last decade has not seen record fires, at least not acreage burned.

  In fact, from 1500 to 1800, an average of 145 million acres burned every year nationwide - about 18 times the recent annual burn total (USDOI 2001).
  By the 1930s, 50 million acres in the lower 48 were burned annually by wildfire and by the 1970s the number of acres had dropped to 5 million (USDA and USDOI 2000). We're in the 5-10 million acre annual average for the last decade.

• Douglas Fir wrote on February 03, 2008, 01:16PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Very good article indeed, however, I disagree with the premise of "global warming." There is no such thing. We are in a cycle of climate change, just as what has occured on-and-off for thousands of years. There are several other factors involved, and it's not just the massive fuel build-ups we have accumulated. Canadian fire managers base many of their decisions on how long it's been since an area has burned - if it's been 50 years - they let it burn and steer it around communities, similar to what the author suggests. One of the major factors, in my opinion after 30+ years as a wildland fire supervisor in the Forest Service, is the blatant arrogance and incompetence of most - not all - of the Type I Incident Management Teams. Yes, I agree we do need more "managed" fires, so do your jobs IMT's, as your title implies, and stop wasting our tax dollars on the 2% of the wildfires you allegedly "manage" that eat up 85% or more of the annual fire budgets. And Forest Service - stop lying to GAO, Congress, and the American people, about the wildfires and all the money you continue to waste. How about telling the truth for a change.

• Firefed wrote on June 17, 2008, 04:41PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Call it what you will, but the earth was a very different place back when as much carbon was floating around in the atmosphere as there is today. Yes -wildfires were much more prevalent back before there were houses to be protected. Now when I see conflagrations, I see them more as prescribed fires, driven by burn plans authorized by mother nature.