Opinion
4A
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Other View
Preventing
wildfires starts
at home
A
recent study concluded that much of the West
is experiencing the second-most severe drought
recorded in the past 1,200 years. Currently, 80%
of Oregon is experiencing drought. Severe fire weather,
of which drought is a significant factor, explains the
spate of large blazes that have charred much of the
West.
What drives
all large blazes
is extreme fire
GEORGE
weather, which
WUERTHNER
consists of
ECOLOGIST
drought, com-
bined with high
temperatures, low humidity and, most important, wind.
All these conditions are exacerbated by climate change.
One hears continuously that “fire suppression” and
“fuel buildup” are the prime factors in the rising acreage
burned annually, but fuels do not drive large fires. If
that were the case, we would expect the largest and most
frequent fires on the coasts of Oregon and Washington
where there is more “fuel” (biomass) than anyplace else
in the West.
Despite the assertions from the timber industry and
its supporters that thinning and other forest manage-
ment will reduce fire spread, most “active forest man-
agement” enhances fire spread.
Almost all of the largest blazes in the West occurred
under extreme fire weather conditions. They burned
aggressively on lands that were logged, thinned, or
otherwise managed, whether it is the recent fires that
charred the western slope of the Oregon Cascades, or
the Camp Fire that destroyed 19,000 homes and killed
87 people in Paradise, California.
All significant blazes occurred during episodes of
high temperatures, low humidity, drought and high
winds. Logging does nothing to change the climate/
weather.
This is one reason why more than 200 scientists
(whose jobs do not depend on logging) signed a letter
to Congress a few years ago that said: “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 inva-
sive species that increase flammable understory vegeta-
tion and impact wildlife habitat.”
The Congressional Research Service reached a sim-
ilar conclusion: “From a quantitative perspective, the
CRS study indicates a very weak relationship between
acres logged and the extent and severity of forest fires.
… The data indicate that fewer acres burned in areas
where logging activity was limited.”
I could provide many more such quotes and
conclusions.
What this suggests is the need to focus attention
on fire-safe procedures for communities, not trying to
modify the forest.
If the home cannot ignite, it won’t burn. Typically,
any fuel reduction that is more than 100 feet from a
home provides no benefit.
Reducing ignitions is relatively simple. Remove fine
fuels like pine needles from roof and gutters. Keep
flammable grass, pine needles and dead shrubs away
from the home. Get rid of combustible lawn furniture.
Put screens on attic vents. These and other measures
will significantly reduce the chance of home loss or fire
spread through the community.
Chain saws don’t change the climate/weather. Given
the current mega-drought, we need to rethink how we
adapt to the inevitable wildfires. We must start at the
home and work outward.
———
George Wuerthner is an ecologist who specializes in
fire ecology and livestock issues.
Other Views
Abnormality definitely has its virtues
PETER FUNT
HUMOR COLUMNIST
t’s normal these days to applaud
the return to normality. But
I’m going to miss some of the
abnormal stuff we’ve been doing
during the pandemic. The Top 10
things I hate to lose:
10 — Home haircuts. For a year
my wife, Amy, has been cutting my
hair, but now that we’re both vacci-
nated she’s making unsubtle sugges-
tions that it’s time for me to go back
to Al, whose shop is a 30 minute
round trip from our house. Al is a nice
guy who keeps me waiting, talks too
much, and often nicks my ear. For this
I pay $25 plus a $10 tip.
9 — Quiet ball games. I loved
last year’s fan-free games on televi-
sion. I could have done without the
cardboard cutouts but nothing beats
watching a TV game without inces-
sant cutaways to rowdy fans.
8 — No-contact takeout. Isn’t it
I
amazing how quickly restaurateurs
arranged hassle-free takeout when
they had to? You order online, pay
in advance, and pop your trunk for
the food without saying a word. Why
would we ever want to give that up?
7 — Zooming. Sure, some busi-
ness meetings work better when par-
ticipants are all in the same room.
But with Zoom, no commuting, no
waiting, no schmoozing. No shoes?
No problem.
6 — Excuses. There will never be
a better excuse than the pandemic.
“Sorry, I can’t come over to see how
well your herb garden is doing.” “No,
I can’t go shopping for patio furni-
ture.” “Alas, I can’t schedule that colo-
noscopy right now.”
5 — Sweatpants. The last time
I bothered with zippered pants was
March 6, 2020.
4 — No traffic. If by chance you
had to drive somewhere during shel-
tering, what a breeze it was! To my
utter astonishment, a two-hour drive
to San Francisco during the pandemic
took ... two hours.
3 — Grazing. When you’re clois-
Election Letters Deadline
Letter to the Editor
Firearms play a role in our culture,
but death accompanies them
There are a lot of traditions and
good times and honest enjoyment
of this beautiful land based around
owning and shooting firearms. We
need to accept as a country, though,
that there is also a lot of death that
accompanies our firearms.
Coming out of nationwide restric-
tions for a pandemic that has killed
over half a million of our fellow
countrymen, we’ve just been pre-
sented with two of America’s most
unique events, mass shootings.
Being in Oregon, I don’t think we
can ignore the anti-Asian and race-
laden elements of the shooting in
Georgia. And then in Boulder there
is just that great randomness that ter-
rorizes schoolchildren and communi-
ties across the country. It isn’t likely
to happen anywhere, but it happens
somewhere all too often. As schools
open up, we are lying to ourselves if
we don’t know that somewhere, in
some community, that is going to be
accompanied by terrible news and
tragedy.
Firearms play a role in hunting,
bonding, providing and enjoying the
tered at home, three meals a day can
easily become five or six. Nothing
takes your mind off not having any-
thing to do like a second lunch, and a
third Bloody Mary.
2 — Amazon. The Bezos behe-
moth isn’t going away, but during the
pandemic it was a lifeline to every-
thing from electronics to groceries to
overpriced toilet paper.
1 — Masks. OK, masks are a nui-
sance and, for some, a political dis-
traction. But many of us enjoyed
hiding some emotion behind a mask.
No smiles. No frowns. And, when my
dentist told me I needed a new tooth
I worried about having a gaping hole
for a few weeks. “No one will ever
know,” he said. “Just wear a mask.”
I hope whatever the next normal is
like, it retains some of what we came
to enjoy during the recent normal.
———
After 15 years hosting the TV series
“Candid Camera,” Peter Funt writes
frequent op-eds for The Boston Globe
and The Wall Street Journal. His new
book, “Self Amused,” will be
published this summer.
abundance of our open lands. They
are one of man’s most impactful and
terrible inventions, and we wouldn’t
be here without them. But there are
also so many people who aren’t here
because of them — I think we need
to address that in a real way, and
people in a community like this can
help with that.
Ask your representatives to sup-
port gun control that doesn’t enable
these continued tragedies. Create a
culture that doesn’t support all this
death.
Ben Crawford
La Grande
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