Leverett’s Joshua Hill fire, and the Tully Mountain fire in Orange, both reported in this paper, prompted me to reflect on the fire research done by ecologists such as Chad Hanson and George Wuerthner. By Studying Forest Fires for decades, they concluded that both the U.S. Forest Service, and most state agencies charged with managing forests, are operating mostly based on disputed misconceptions within the logging industry about conditions that produce wild fires, over 84% of which are started by humans.
This problematic approach is in large part a result of government agencies working hand in glove with the commercial logging and wood products industries. Consequently, the state agencies that “manage” our state forests here in Massachusetts prescribe commercial logging as the predetermined universal solution to forest issues, many of which do not exist and others that are actually caused or exacerbated by logging.
For example, if you are concerned about:
Carbon capture and storage? Commercial logging is the answer.
Biodiversity protection? Commercial logging is the answer.
Abundant safe water supply? Commercial logging is the answer.
Forest diseases and pests? Commercial logging is the answer.
Climate change resilience? Commercial logging is the answer.
Renewable energy? Commercial logging is the answer.
Forest wildfires? Commercial logging is the answer.
Ecological damage from a fire? As usual, commercial logging is the answer.
Rather than asking scientists who are not connected to the industry to research and recommend true solutions to these challenges, we ask foresters, most of whom are trained, and paid, to prepare logging plans, to recommend solutions. In most cases we get the answers one would expect. It is analogous to the “Law of the Instrument” notion that, if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
In response to the Trump administration’s plans to increase logging on federal lands in 2018, 217 Scientists studying wildfires signed a letter to decision makers asking them to avoid using logging as a fire prevention tool. This letter, also published at the Geos Institute website, states that “Thinning large trees, including overstory trees in a stand, can increase the rate of fire spread by opening up the forest to increased wind velocity, damage soils, introduce invasive species that increase flammable understory vegetation, and impact wildlife habitat….” It also notes that fires tend to burn “more severely in previously logged areas”.
As in logged areas, fires on ridge tops are also more prone to drying and wind. The Joshua Hill and Tully Mountain fires were both on ridge tops.
What these non-industry scientists say is just common sense. Logging generally opens up the forest to drying by allowing more sun and wind into the forest environment. Logging also leaves behind many small twigs, slash and brush which become fuel for fire. On the other hand, an older forest with a large shade producing canopy is more humid and less susceptible to catching fire, and should fire develop there, it is less likely to spread due to wind.
For this and many other reasons, rather than cutting them down, we should consider protecting our State-owned public forests from logging, especially as more people are now depending on them for physical and spiritual renewal.
Please sign on to the referendum on logging in state owned lands at: https://bit.ly/314HVrp
For more information, see: www.maforests.org/DFW.pdf
Morgan Mead is a resident of Wendell.