Cafeoutdoors.com: Hellbender

and from another source, Hellbender, you really should read this, being that you are an idiot and all...

from the Protecting Communities and Saving Our Forests: Solving the Wildfire Crisis Through Restoration Forestry
by Thomas M. Bonnicksen Ph.D. (by the way you can download the book for free)

"How Did It Get So Bad?

It has taken a combination of several factors to create the
dangerous, unnatural conditions that now dominate California?s forests. Misinformation and widely held misconceptions about forests have played a role, as have well-intended policies that had unintended consequences.

The myth of the pristine forest

The vision of pristine, untouched presettlement forests may be alluring, but in reality, forests have been managed
for at least 12,000 years. The California forests European explorers discovered in the 1800s were neither pristine nor untouched.

They were, however, beautiful and far more open and diverse than today?s forests.
The vision of pristine forests many people hold ? babbling brooks flowing through majestic tall trees and grassy
meadows with deer and other wildlife in abundance ? are typically images of carefully managed forests. Natural
forests to be sure, but forests nonetheless shaped by native people and other influences.

Other mythical pristine forests ? dark, mysterious places with huge trees, mosscovered logs under foot and chattering wildlife in tree canopies high overhead ? are fleeting
glimpses of reality at best. Some such patches historically
dotted the land much like today?s old-growth forests do, but they were relatively few and far from permanent. Fires may have passed by them for a while, but eventually they burned. Forests are dynamic ? once they reach maturity, their next step is to become young again, usually at the hand of a fire.

Fire has played a significant role in developing California?s forests for thousands of years. However, because California?s historic forests were so different from the dense forests we see today, fires burned differently then.

Fire versus FIRE
The fires that were a natural part of California?s historic landscape cleared the forest floor of debris and small
trees. The difference between the fires that historically shaped California?s forests and the blazes that ravage
thousands of acres at a time today is mostly a matter of degrees.
Historically, forest fires were generally low-intensity affairs. Fires might cover large areas, but flames stayed close to the ground with relatively modest temperatures.

PAY PARTICULAR CLOSE ATTENTION HERE HELLBENDER AND OTHER IDIOTS

Today?s infernos sometimes tower above the ground and reach 3,000?F, hot enough to melt metal. They can travel 20 miles in a day and sterilize soils.

In the low to moderate-intensity fires that historically dominated the interior West, animals could generally avoid
the immediate effect of flames.

The high-intensity blazes that have become more common recently have a greater impact on wildlife. It?s harder
to get away. Fish die in boiling streams. While fire is a natural part of most American forests, catastrophic blazes
were rare historically. For centuries, fire shaped California?s forestland in a benign cycle ? frequent low-intensity fires cleared the understory and kept
the forest open, which guarded against mega fires. Today?s high-intensity crown fires, however, often leave in
their wake devastated moonscapes of dead trees and baked, eroding soils."

YOU CAN READ THE REST HERE http://www.calforestfoundation.org/pdf/Saving_Forest_Book.pdf

Post Extras