Quote:
Originally Posted by DoubleK
You realize that the highlighted section is absolute fake news right?
The pine forests in BC have been decimated by Mountain Pine Beetle. It's those standing, dead trees that are leading to the extreme fire behavior.
Prescribed burns in mountainous areas near population centres is insanity.
Young, actively growing forests generally don't burn especially after June when the trees are at the highest rate of growth. The density of these types of forests help retain moisture as it prevents solar energy from drying out the soil. The exception to this is very dry years. |
Wow, just wow. My gradation thesis at University was the effects of forest fire suppression within the montane forest / grassland ecosystems (with focus on the Ponderosa Pine / Douglas Fir Sub biogeoclimatic zones) using countless sources, data, GIS analysts, and ground truthing, and yes forest fire suppression has severely damaged these ecosystems.
You do know that it has been documented that we have already lost about 30% of our natural grasslands due to forest creep since forest fire suppression began right?
You do know that one of the major factors that led to the Pine Beetle epidemic was because of forest fire suppression. Naturally any given location in a Ponderosa Pine forest would experience a naturally occurring low intensity surface fire every 10 to 15 years. These fires would largely only kill sick trees and saplings, removing those most susceptible to pine beetles and prevent the saplings from overcrowding. After 100 years of no burns, the sick trees lingered and some areas had (have) over 100 fold the density of pines pre forest fire suppression. This over crowding leads to many many nutrient poor trees. This made the perfect buffet for the beetles. Combined with warmer winters and we had a powder keg on our hands.
And seriously the fact that you used the term “fake news” made me laugh.
Your last paragraph is also somewhat nonsensical. The fact that the summer is the highest growth season (and actually May to July is the highest growth season, growth slows down dramatically by the time August starts) is irrelevant to the fact that summer is also forest fire season.
How long have you studied this issue personally analyzing decades of satellite data, weather data, manually counting tree densities, tracking post fire growth, etc...?
PS, just to be clear, healthy interior pine forest (and Douglas Fir) are not supposed to have canopies so dense that the forest floor retains moisture as you described. Healthy (natural) parkland forests have widely spaced trees with sparse shrub densities (the forest floor should primarily be grasses). The current densities that have become the norm due to fire suppression has been disastrous for grazing wildlife and other large fauna.
You can also note that the pine beetle epidemic started in the north. This is because due to the shorter less intense summer seasons there relative to the southern interior forest fire suppression has been even more successful there, leading to even more densely packed Lodgepole Pine forests. In fact in the fact sheet you linked to it even says that the pine beetle was especially prolific in the Lodgepole Pine regions due to the lack of tree diversity. This is another side effect of fire suppression. Lodgepole Pine is extremely fast at procreating and without ground fires to kill the excess saplings will choke out other species such as Douglas Firs and Engleman Spruce.