Local News Comments

Cut it down, burn it black... "stewardship".... Mother nature doesn't know what the heck she's doing. Four years in college and WE know it all, we'll take it from here Mother Nature, thanks.

in case you didnt understand... fire is good for forest health, but humans dont exaclty agree with "mother nature" having massive chaotic fires so we put them out. no fires = bad health. we actually do know it all since we are mimicing mother nature

The problem is that Mother Nature does know what she’s doing, humans didn’t with their reasoning of if there’s smoke, there must be fire that should be doused immediately. Sequoia’s thick bark are naturally fire-resistant. If the area had been left alone, naturally occurring, low intensity fires would have gone through the area and kept the environment healthy. Now it’s choked with other vegetation and the cutting and burning that will happen is simply to mimic what would have occurred naturally if humans hadn’t meddled with it in the first place.

A really good explanation of why fire is necessary in a sequoia grove can be found below. It’s rather wordy but skimming it will give a general, if not in depth, understanding.

http://www.nps.gov/seki/naturescience/fic_firerole.htm

Ok... I agree, fires are good. So, let's let Mother Nature decide when it should burn. We say fire is natural, then unnaturally set them all over. The forest is screwed up because we've been meddling with it for so long. Let's step back and admit, we don't know what the heck we're doing. So many fires have been set by CAL fire, the NPS or the NFS that have gotten WAY out of control. It's clear, we don't know what the heck we're doing. Patting ourselves on the back and saying, "what a good job we're doing" is absurd. If we were doing it right, we wouldn't need to do a thing! You can tell yourself what ever you want to help you sleep at night. I'm not buying the "steward" angle we're being sold. It's clear, the NF is for profit... period, and WE are not seeing any of it.