Recently a bunch of older foresters wrote a letter that has been published in a number of Montana papers advocating more logging and other fuel treatments of our forests to reduce wildfires. These foresters all seem to be influenced by the Southwest ponderosa pine model which has infiltrated so much of the thinking of foresters about wildfire.
The basic idea is that in the past, frequent low severity fires that mostly burned up grassy understory and did not kill mature trees were the dominant fire regime in forests. However, this idea doesn’t apply to the majority of all forest types in the Northern Rockies where ponderosa pine has a very limited distribution, not to mention, that even ponderosa pine occasionally burns at mixed
The basic idea is that in the past, frequent low severity fires that mostly burned up grassy understory and did not kill mature trees were the dominant fire regime in forests. However, this idea doesn’t apply to the majority of all forest types in the Northern Rockies where ponderosa pine has a very limited distribution, not to mention, that even ponderosa pine occasionally burns at mixed to high severity.
If you start with this assumption, then you believe the large fires burning across the West are due to “fire suppression” not a natural outcome of the normal fire regimes of forest types, and/or changing climate. Below is my response to these foresters.
The August 27th editorial in the Missoulian supporting more “fuel…