My two bits:
From a 1958 visit to the sequoias and current pictures of the same areas, I can see the need to cut living trees in that environment. The danger to the big trees is not fire in its historical sense of every few years. The bark at 24" thick does a good job of insulating from a small fire. Fire suppression for many years has however, created a thick stand of white fir and other species that did not exist historically in the area. These are now achieving enough height to allow the fire into the crowns of the giants, which prior to this had been safe. The protection afforded by nature in the thick bark has no benefit in a crown fire.
My ex college roommate, a BLM man for the past 30 years, has often written about the number of beetle killed trees in the Blue Mt. of Oregon and suggested after returning from fire duty in Yellowstone in 88 that they had the potential in that area for a much bigger fire sometime in the future. Salvage logging of the dead trees had been prevented by protests until they no longer had economic value and became fuel.
A third point, showing the frustration of timber management is the set of Environmental Impact Statement documents involving Spotted Owl (anyone else remember him???) management on a single BLM district near Roseburg, OR. It impresses my students when I bring out this 10" high stack of plans, revisions, and maps in class. Then when I say that this was just the draft copies, not the final and that draft and final each had a printing in excess of 1000 copies (several trees) the students question the common sense behind the operation.
Our environment is important to me as a forester. But it has been altered too much by man's presence to be left with no intervention. Intervention has been part of its history also. Early americans realized that edges were great wildlife habitat and so used fire to create this in dense areas. Historically huge fires would occasionally occur, but were rare. Upon hitting an area previously cleared by fire, they lost their heat and died back to ground fires. We have too many homes scattered through the woods to let them burn now, so alternatives may be needed to alter what we have altered over the years. Harvests following the patterns of fire spread, which we historically know and can model on computer programs, may be a good choice. New equipment leaves a light footprint on the landscape and the result maybe a more aesthetically pleasing alternative than Letting it Burn.
Sorry for the length, but felt the need to express some of my thoughts.
Bob U.
