California on Fire, Again
How horrible are these fires? The deaths and so many homes gone, it is nothing short of heartbreaking.
The President weighed in early when the first fire in the south raged by blaming California for choosing to place restricting regulations on the treatment of the forests. Governor moonbeam Brown moved more than a billion dollars out of forest management to other pet projects like feeding, housing and educating illegals.
Having said that, is the President right to lay blame on Brown and California leadership in general? Translation, Democrats?
You know I am going to agree with the President right? I am sorry for being so predictable. I promise you, when the President is wrong I’ll be all over him! I promise. He is however, right on this.
No one can stop forest fires. I’ll never forget the time my boys and I were driving down the freeway in southern California on our way to Six Flags. While driving we came upon a fire on the right side of the freeway, it was burning the very dry grass and spreading extremely fast. As it turned out, there was someone a few miles ahead of us, who had been stopping on the side of the freeway lighting the grass on the fire. The fire was put out fairly quickly and thankfully no structures were damaged and no loss of life.
Setting the crazy-ass arsonist aside, Mother Nature will cause fires, accidents will cause fires and stupid people will cause fires. Sadly, Smoky the Bear was wrong when he said “only you can prevent forest fires.” Having lived in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for 30 years and watching Mother Nature throw down lightning bolts cutting trees in half and starting fires, I say it again, there is no way to stop the fires from happening. Some say this is Mothers Nature’s way of ensuring our forest remain healthy. I don’t know about that but I do know that thinning the forest absolutely does create a healthier environment.
Ensuring a safer forest isn’t rocket science. It’s all about the fuel right? The more fuel to burn the more the fire spreads, gets hotter and more dangerous. There honestly isn’t much more to it than that.
California has laws that avoid any resemblance of common sense. Did you know that when an old growth redwood, or any redwood tree falls down due to age or wind or whatever the reason is, California will not allow you to harvest that tree? They would rather the tree lay there and rot than for anyone to remove it and turn it into lumber or firewood or chips or paper. Tell me how that makes any sense at all? This is what the green party people have been able to accomplish in our country. “Save the Forest” right? Wrong.
Forests are just like farms. You plant, harvest and replant just has you do with corn. The harvest turnaround time takes decades not a season but the concept is exactly the same. But, California doesn’t see it this way.
Allowing years upon years of growth creates an overgrown forest that is ripe for major destructive wild land fires. These fires cost the tax payers hundreds of billions of dollars to fight and to rebuild. The loss of life, while not large in terms of numbers is still priceless and if you personally lose a loved one there is no money you wouldn’t pay to have them back. It is tragic.
Instead of running after the fire breaks out we should be spending our tax dollars on reducing the forests ability to become so massive, destructive, dangerous and expensive.
This would be accomplished by removing the stupid restrictions and adding common sense regulations. Open the forests up to logging again with very specific guidelines. The public can no longer stomach clear cutting so simply define what can and cannot be taken from the forest. As an example, the rule could be that no tree that is less than 30 inches in diameter could not be removed. Any down tree can obviously be removed. The rule should be, that the loggers must remove them. Large piles of slash (limbs) becomes illegal. Make the loggers either burn the slash or better yet spread the slash out so that the piles are no higher than one foot. The slash will actually disintegrate back into the soil giving the forest the nutrients it needs and wants. Finally, make a rule that for every tree taken another is planted. This gets back to the farming example. 20 years later those seedlings will become good sized trees. The logger goes back in and cuts the larger trees that were not cut the first time and leaves the new trees to continue to grow. And on it goes from there.
As far as the homes, barns and sheds that are burning down as a result of these fires; we must go back to prevention. Each structure, by law, must have a well-defined defensible space around them. The men and women of the fire departments and forest service can tell you what they need in order to save your structure(s). Typically, they will recommend that your home or structure has at least 100 feet of clear space surrounding it. That doesn’t mean you cannot have any trees, it means you have to allow the fire fighters the space they need to get in and around your property to fight the fire and save your property. A tree here and there is fine and actually encouraged. Today though, through stupid regulation we have homes with trees and bushes right up against the house and if you are a responsible homeowner and want to clear these out you are forced to first go to the county, file for a permit and pay for the privilege of protecting your home and loved ones. Make sense? Of course not.
In these large developments, contractors should be forced, as part of the building permit, to create fire lanes (dirt roads) separating the development from the forest. This also provides the fire fighters pathways to bring in equipment to fight the fires. Make sense? Of course it does.
When I see these grassy hill fires in the Santa Anna’s (I see them every single year), I scratch my head in puzzlement as to why they don’t remove the grass hundreds of yards from all structures. I know, I know, that would cost a lot of money. Again, rebuilding homes costs a lot of money too. Losing a love one, your life long pet is, as I said above, priceless.
I really believe that if we implemented these common sense ideas (they’re not new ideas), we could save a lot of the heartache that we are watching unfold this week in California. These are not money issues, we are already spending money fighting these fires and rebuilding homes. A lot of the prevention can be accomplished at the cost of the loggers and contractors. With “reasonable” regulation these free market businesses will thrive and protect so many in the process.
God Bless all of you involved in these horrible conditions. Millions of us have you in our prayers.
