Thought for the day - August 13, 2000

Subject: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 12:08 AM

This weekend celebrations are being held to mark the 50th anniversary of Grand Teton National Park. There have been many activities and dignitaries about, as well as media stories about how difficult a struggle it was to achieve its status as a protected piece of heritage.(Even then the ranchers were crying about public lands being kept public.)

This weekend, also, the West has been ablaze, and we lost a firefighter on the Wind River Indian Rservation when the fire engulfed the fire truck he was in. So far, six firefighters have been lost to the fires of the West. Estimates say that we will eventually see almost twice the acreage burned throughout the West this year as was lost in the great Yellowstone fire a few years back, which was around 4 million.

Thursday night, lightening struck the prairie northeast of town and within a few hours 25,000 acres were ashes.

On Saturday, we went for a drive up and around behind Casper Mountain and surveyed the many thousands of acres lost to fire a couple of weeks ago. It was strange with patches of green in stark contrast to the skeletal remains of juniper trees, lodgepole pine, and sagebrush.

Now, there are firefighters from New Zealand and Australia coming up to help as the Canadians have done. I am grateful for them. I would also like to know how it is that this great country is so ill-equipped that there are not enough people and tools to go around to fight all of these fires; some are being let to burn with no firefighting at all due to lack of resources.

Weeks of smoke in the air, terror in hearts when lightening comes near and sirens are heard...

everyone is on edge....please send some thoughts and prayers for all involved...it seems the West is literally going up in smoke...like one of those old Western movies which would show a fast-moving prairie grass fire threatening some poor farmer's shanty...the fire would burn across the entire screen, women and children would scream and run in terror, while men beat at it with their jackets, leading horses and hitching up wagons, and in the end, the hero, Alan Ladd, Jimmie Stewart, whomever, would wipe their brow and gaze out afar across the land and pledge to rebuild a bigger and better life....

here's to all out there beating with their "jackets" and to the poor critters caught up in the rush, as well as the families who've lost their heros.

May the West find relief through the rains of Mother Nature....thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: gillymor
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 08:30 AM

I recently spent a few magical days fishing and hiking under the guise of those glorious mountains and am glad to hear they're making big fuss over the anniversary of the establishment of the park. The preservation of the Tetons is certainly cause for celebration.
Kat, of course all of you out there have my prayers and best wishes and if I knew how to do a raindance I certainly would. For one explanation of the Forest Service' and timber industry's role in these fires you could click here.

Again, my thoughts are with all our western friends,
Frankie

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: Willie-O
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 09:54 AM

Believe me kat we could ship half the rain we've had out there and not miss it a bit...

Second growth forest, especially if it has lots of leftover slash, burns a lot faster and hotter than old growth.

Sharing fire crews between Canada and the U.S. is a time-honoured arrangement that has served us all well. Bringing them in from Down Under is pretty damn unusual.

I hadn't heard about any of the firefighter deaths...very sad.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: tar_heel
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 09:56 AM

oh hum!zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 11:08 AM

I hate to be an ecologist over this, but you are paying the price for many years of fire suppression and fighting fires, not to mention people moving in to wild territory in huge numbers expecting to be protected. The only way to make this work (if at all) is with huge increases in manageable fires, forestry staff, wildlife biologists, etc. which means big government and big spending, and I am told that your part of the world is agin big government. This will all disappear come the wintertime. But then, with global warming, wintertime may not exactly show up on cue in years to come. At some point, Americans (and the rest of us) have to start paying attention to nature's ways: maybe, ironically, it will be the West.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: gillymor
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 11:17 AM

Oh boy, the above link didn't go all the way there but if you click the "yeoldeconsciousnessshoppe" address and then search "The Big Lie" you can get there.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: Naemanson
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 11:54 AM

Kat, and all the other Westerners,

I wish you luck and hope for control of those fires. Peter T is right but that doesn't help the family watching their home burn or the grief of the families of those lost firefighters.

In the 1940's Maine burned. Thousands of acres, hundreds of homes and many lives were lost. People here still remember that year.

A few years ago Maine suffered from the Great Ice Storm. Once again a natural disaster of unparallelled proportions. Hope and love came our way in the support that got us back on track.

Now it's your turn. Those firefighters from away, whether from the next state or down under, represent the best wishes we can send you. Somewhere in that crowd is a team from Maine, just helping out.

Hang in there. Life will get back to normal.

Brett

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: Dave Swan
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 12:54 PM

The West is on fire again and we're seeing the awkward intersection of forestry management (many management decisions are made by the Department of Agriculture as trees are considered a crop)and fire suppression. You can't really debate policy when you're cutting line or dropping water.

We've pushed forest ecology too far out of balance and our attempts to establish equlibrium have been clumsy. With the best of intentions to safely ignite a prescribed burn, fire officials in New Mexico lost thousands of acres early this summer. In many cases we know more about extinguishing fire than we do about setting it.

There are no easy answers here. We need more fire, we need more firefighters. My sympathies are with the folks on the fire line, the folks trying to make good policy, and those seeing their homes endangered.

It's only August. The peak of the fire season won't arrive for another month.

If you're in the urban/wildland interface, maintain a defensable space around your house, and be ready to bug out as soon as you're asked. Thank you for your support.

Dave

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 02:06 PM

kat I do understand your concern, it is a big concern.
Peter, thanks for your posting here.
I am trying to understand this kind of situation better and your thoughts on this matter have really help.
Anymore thoughts Peter?

Bonnie

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 02:28 PM

Thanks to all who found this of interest. Peter, I totaly understand and do know that is the major reason. I really appreciate your posting the information. We had a huge article in today's paper sayign the same thing, plus I heard a good comentary about it on NPR this morning.

Dave, your words always carry great import and I thank you. It is really difficult to manage the balance between what you so aptly call the "urban/wildland interface." Remembering what it was like before that was so prevalent, I am afraid I get pretty radical and would turn all of it back to Nature, but then I recall I have friends and relatives who are part of that, so...back to trying for a balance.

Willie-O, sure wish you could send some of that rain! Frankee, thanks for the links and info. Naemanson, thanks for the history and the notice that there are some *Maniacs* helping out, too.**BG**

Thanks, Bonnie, I agree, Peter any more thoughts??

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - August 13, 2000
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 02:49 PM

Well, it would be presumptuous to say much more when people are out there fighting fires -- one's main thoughts are with the firefighters and people who are stuck. The fact that a lot of thoughtlessness (not primarily their own) got them stuck is pretty obvious. The irony of course is that thanks to environmentalists like me people also now want to live out in the wild, but without paying the "wild price". You can't run the wild like an urban setting with firehouses and firemen protecting your property. The wild price -- as the sod farmers knew -- is living with the risk of losing it all. That is part of the tremulousness of living out in unmanaged space: people want the unmanaged space -- the excitement of the unexpected and the complex -- but they want it not to be too unexpected and too complex. A classic dilemma, solved by Walt Disney and every developer: -- Welcome to Frontierland and Vista Acres. Gary Snyder is the wisest head on this subject: always has been (and he was a fire lookout in his younger days).

yours, Peter T.