Category Archives: Fire Ecology

Causes and concerns for increasing wildfire.

Hundreds Flee California Wildfires as Governor Declares State of Emergency

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(LOWER LAKE, Calif.)—Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as an army of firefighters continue to battle them from the air and the ground.

Twenty-three large fires, many sparked by lightning strikes, were burning across Northern California on Saturday, said state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant. Some 8,000 firefighters were attempting to subdue them, something made incredibly difficult by several years of drought that have dried out California.

“The conditions and fire behavior we’re seeing at 10 in the morning is typically what we’d see in late afternoon in late August and September,” said Nick Schuler, . . . ”  Sourced through Scoop.it from: spiritandanimal.wordpress.com

Misconceptions about disruption of fire cycles

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“I would like to point out a typical bias that I see and hear all the time. The Forest Service often promotes the idea that lodgepole pine stands are “overstocked”. Actually lodgepole and many other species always grow that way after a disturbance. There is frequently a significant amount of natural regeneration that is gradually whittled down by natural thinning agents like beetles or fire.

“It baffles me that the FS tries to prevent beetles from “thinning” the forest when indeed, they believe they are “overstocked”. Beetles, disease and fire will thin them naturally, and these agents are much better at selecting which trees should live and die than any forester.” —George Wuerthner  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR:  Many excuses for logging are offered as scientific justifications just as hunting is said to be good wildlife management. This article offers several solid counterpoints to the Forest Service’s effort to justify logging as forest management.  Recommended.

Extinction Resources: Information, Opinion, Ideas, & Questions

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Extinction Information Resources

PassengerPigeon

Passenger Pigeon

Stopping human-caused extinction of Earth’s plant and animal species is the greatest challenge of our time. This post provides access to the latest articles on extinction. The first item (Ceballos et al. 2015) is the latest detailed report on what we know and how we acquired the information.

 Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle, and Todd M. Palmer. 19 June 2015. Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances Vol. 1, no. 5 (e1400253, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253). Corresponding author. E-mail: gceballo@ecologia.unam.mx.

More than a thousand recent articles are linked to my blog (http://garryrogers.com/blog):

Causes of Extinction

My blog covers the things that people do to cause extinctions and reduce biodiversity. These deeds of ours are woven into individual and our collective habits and beliefs. Stopping them will alter our society and our culture. It will be difficult. Our population must be reduced, our food choices must change, and our resource harvest must decline. Nothing less will succeed. Search the blog using the following terms for recent reports:  Burning, Coal, Construction, Deforestation, Desertification, Energy, Farming, Fishing, Fracking, Grazing, Hunting, Invasive Species, Logging, Mining, Oil, Pesticides, Pet Trade, Pollution, Population, Roads, and Soil.

Climate change will become the major cause of extinction.  Here’s its search link on my blog:  Climate Change.

For more reading, my Internet newsletters include a wider variety of articles than my blog.

Unprecedented Fire Season Has Burned 11 Million Acres In Alaska and Canada

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When fire frequency increases, habitats change and biodiversity usually tumbles.

Unprecedented Early Start to ‘Perma-Burn’ Fire Season — Deadly Wildfires Rage Through Siberia on April 12

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The ecological consequence of frequent fires is permanent vegetation change to reduced diversity and productivity.

Pejorative journalism spreads wildfire myths

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This article is full of misinformation, untested assumptions, and pejorative language–it is so typical of the way the timber industry and FS have “framed” the issue of fire to justify more logging…

Source: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR:  The U. S. Forest Service manages forests to benefit corporations not the land.  They use misdirection to justify their unhealthy practices.  Some of their BS is made clear in this article by George Wuerthner.

Critical fire weather forecast across big swath of Southwest

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All of Arizona, New Mexico encompassed in weekend warning from National Weather Service Staff Report FRISCO — In what may signify an early start to the western wildfire season, the National Weather…  Source: summitcountyvoice.com

Very early.

Wildfire critical in calculating carbon-payback time for biomass energy projects

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Accounting for wildfire is essential in achieving an accurate and realistic calculation of the carbon payback period associated with converting forest biomass into energy, according to a new study.

Source: phys.org

GR:  It seems to me that there are some hidden assumptions that make the results questionable.  Perhaps the biggest IF is whether or not thinning to reduce fire danger is occurring.  Thinning is often a prelude to tree harvest.  IF it is, then the payback period would be increased by thinning.

Chilean Wildfires Ravage Rare Species

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Chilean Wildfires Ravage Rare Species
Huge firestorms raging across parts of drought-stricken southern Chile have “wiped out” hundreds of rare plant species and threatened wildlife as well, according to environmental advocates.

Source: elispiritweaver.wordpress.com

The article points out that much more is spent on fighter jets than on protecting the country’s natural heritage.  In almost every country, our intraspecific wars and fears of war get much more attention and resources than do our wild plants and animals.  We have such small brains.