‘Healthy’ forests?

As I “enjoy” this “healthy smoke” as the so-called US Forest Service makes “healthy forests,” I reminisce back to a time shortly after the Forest Service, established under the Department of Agriculture, was invented to care for our forests.

 

To contrast that day with this it would be enlightening to remember some Smokey the Bear posters. You might remember that Smokey the Bear was rescued from a forest fire and survived because of some special care. He was then adopted to be the PR Bear and spokesman for the Forest Service.

 

One notable poster featured him with a fire fighting shovel with some birds on his hat and shoulder, rabbits at his feet. A squirrel and chipmunk on his arm and butterflies flitting around along with deer and elk calves standing near. “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires” the poster read.

 

To be accurate today the poster would show a dirty Smokey the Bear holding up burnt carcasses of rabbits and baby deer and elk and other animals. The poster could read: “Together We Can Make Healthy Forests” as he stands there with an evil grin next to the burnt carcass of his dead son all killed in a recent let it burn fire. He could be called Smok’em the Bear!

 

Don’t let anyone fool you. They could put the fires out. The environmentalists had the position that clear-cuts were worse than ground sterilizing fire and it is the environmentalists that are represented by the Forest Service of today.

 

I think it is time to start another agency possibly called Timber Protection Agency that recognizes through policy that timber is a resource and to manage it and use that resource to build homes and to nourish the life of wild things is not evil.

 

Yes, fire is natural even on the Prairie but you don’t see them burning the grain fields before they harvest the grain.

 

I have spent time as a logger, tree thinner and a tree planter and as a firefighter and served on two lookouts in the Southern Bitterroot. That was before they purposely burned some of the lookouts down and decommissioned many others leaving many areas as blind spots. That was during the time that fire crews were dispatched to fires immediately and hiked in to fight them even at night. That was back before helicopters and heavy use of borate planes were involved. Back when the old Ford Tri-Motors were the best way to drop in supplies but most supplies were delivered by pack trains to the fire fighters.

 

Everyone knows that it takes boots on the ground to put out fires and I don’t discount the bravery and hard work of the crews fighting the present fires. Borate and water dropping helicopters, alone, never can. Our dependence on planes and helicopters as well as letting the fires burn has increased the cost of fires tremendously.

 

That time I spent doing those things, again, was back when they put out forest fires immediately, even in the wilderness, because they knew to let them burn would cause the humans downwind to breath air that was deadly. They also knew that fires scorching the earth and destroying vast amount of wildlife was not “healthy” in any respect. Back then trees were a resource and created many jobs and built many family homes and other buildings and that was not evil as perceived by many misguided souls today. They also knew a fire in the wilderness would likely come into the valley given the prevailing winds.

 

I think the earth is going through stages all the time but I do not believe that it has changed so much they can’t put out the fires. They simply do not want to nor do they even try to put out many of the fires. I used to think that the changes in the earth were natural changes that the earth has always gone through. Now I am beginning to wonder if all the smoke caused by these “healthy fires” is not affecting the atmosphere.

 

Going back to good agricultural management of the forests is the answer and those that do the bidding of the US Forest Service today are doing the bidding of Washington DC not the people that live here because of the scenery and the trees and the clean mountain air that used to exist. It is time for a change in a major way. It will only happen when our voices are heard (if you can still talk with all the smoke).

 

Dallas D. Erickson
Stevensville