By George Wuerthner

Wildfires are an awe-inspiring traditional phenomenon that

have formed North America’s landscapes because the dawn

of time. they seem to be a strength that we won't relatively control,

and hence figuring out, appreciating, and studying to

live with wildfire is finally our wisest public policy.

With greater than one hundred fifty dramatic photos, Wildfire: A

Century of Failed wooded area coverage covers the subject of wildfire

from ecological, financial, and social/political perspectives

while additionally documenting how prior woodland policies

have hindered ordinary methods, making a tinderbox of

problems that we're confronted with today.

More than 25 best thinkers within the box of fireside ecology

provide in-depth analyses, evaluations, and compelling

solutions for the way we are living with hearth in our society. Using

examples similar to the epic Yellowstone fires of 1988, the

ever-present southern California fires, and the

Northwest’s Biscuit hearth of 2002, the publication examines the

ecology of those landscapes and the regulations and practices

that affected them and proceed to impact them, such

as hearth suppression, prescribed burns, salvage logging,

and land-use making plans. total, the ebook goals to promote

the recovery of fireplace to the panorama and to

encourage its common habit so it will probably resume its position as

a significant ecological technique.

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Extra resources for The Wildfire Reader: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

Example text

Fire cannot. Its power resides in its power to propagate, and the power to propagate requires transmission through a biotic medium. No life, no fire. While we speak loosely of solar, nuclear, or volcanic “fires,” these expressions are metaphors for things that appear bright and hot. They are not founded on a chemistry of combustion. Real fire—the oxidation of hydrocarbons—is a creation of life. Real combustion takes apart what photosynthesis puts together. It is among the most elemental of biochemical reactions; when it occurs in cells, we call it respiration, and when it occurs on landscapes, we call it fire.

The contemporary visitors to Yosemite, for example, include those for whom the wild landscape, through all the senses, is intimately known and emotively valued. Examples from written sources, even in just the last few years, abound. Ranger-naturalist Will Neeley reflects that “the mountains have become familiar and have revealed pattern and form . . never before have I felt so at ease with them. . ”35 Yosemite artist Steven Lyman “knew the value of time in a place . . ”36 Concessionaire worker Howard Weamer “wondered last night, watching the ridge go black and white in the dusk, whether I had seen it too often .

Moreover, the environmental alteration of most of these camping locations was modest: Two-thirds of these sites necessitated a “lengthy search . . to obtain any sizeable sample of obsidian flakes,” indicating to Bennyhoff a “small camp” used infrequently. In sum, humanized settlements, whether villages or camp sites—however important from an archaeological perspective, however effective in evoking a sense of the Miwok past—were obviously extremely localized. In total, the map of Yosemite National Park reflects a mixed picture of “pristine” and “humanized” landscapes.

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The Wildfire Reader: A Century of Failed Forest Policy by George Wuerthner
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