FEDS, FIRES AND NATURE

The fires ravishing California have been among the fiercest and deadliest in recent memory. California governor Jerry Brown is one of the many voices  blaming these ferocious fires on climate change. Are they correct? Is global warming the culprit? Climate change is the easy whipping boy, but could there be another culprit?

For thousands of years periodic fires have attacked our forests. Rather than being a purely destructive force, these fires replenished nutrients in the soil, established seeding for new trees and encouraged the growth of more fire resistant older trees.

The Forest Service,  organized in  1905 by the Federal Government, began a policy of fire suppression. The Forest Service mission is to suppress  all fires in order to save vegetation and nearby communities. By completely stamping out the light burning of forests, the Feds have created unnaturally dense forests. Most of these forests had light fires every 10 to 30 years, but since these fires have been curtailed by the Feds, these forests have become choked with vegetation. To worsen the situation, since the 1980's the Feds have reduced the number of timber harvests. Reduced harvests mean that more trees are densely packed, which ultimately results in more frequent and more intense fires.

Has with so many other areas of human endeavor, government encroachment inevitably leads to waste, destruction, and in the case of forest fires, the loss of human life. And we must ask ourselves one pertinent question: How many protected species of animals and plants have perished because of over reaching government policies?