...to reduce fuels, both dead and live, to help the forest to survive those fires without losing the entire canopy (and the resident wildlife, as well). All I can do is to offer my observations and you can choose to believe me, or better yet, go look for yourselves!

about logging burned areas--trying to keep the controversy going I am guessing. This time they included pictures. One picture was a  burned area with the snags left in place, the other was a burned area that had been logged. The area that have been logged looked like hell. The other picture looked much better with a lot more green undergrowth regenerating. Makes me wonder who is right here. The photos could have been cherry-picked, but if not, there may be something to this research.

I don't know what the truth is on logging burned areas. It is probably a lot more complicated than we realize. Those burned snags seem unlikley to burn again, considering that they did not burn up the first time round. They will eventually fertilize the forest and provide much habitat. So, I don't know.

I HAVE provided links to picture that show salvage logging that looks very good, aesthetically. No logging slash or erosion, however, how it's going to look is usually is dependent on the intensity of the fire. For decades, an unsalvaged forest will burn several times until it reduces the fuels loading to nothing. Some forests can take up to 500 years to return back to an old growth state. The huge Tillamook Burn in Oregon is a great example of a salvaged forest that has recovered with help from us humans. Many are advoating that parts of the Tillamook Burn be turned into a park.

If anyone wants those picture links again, let me know

"Even in a place like the Southwest, where past management is very important, it is still the case that the area burned in early snowmelt years is more than two and half times as much as the area burned in late snowmelt years."

As we have been trying to get you to aknowledge back, it's the climate.  Not the evil, satan worshipping liberals that oppose timber industry lobbying that are to blame.  

Not the liberals that supported that evil Bill Clinton (he had sex ((gasp!)) with a woman ((gasp!))) when he prohibited new forest road building.

Drug Limbaugh will still tell you it's liberals, but he is no scientist.

Glaciers melting ought to be a wakeup call.  Less snow, hotter weather, melting glaciers, more fires.

But I know you will still try to prove that the forests need to be cut down and sold to save them.  Even though the timber industry will be allowed to leave all the slash that fuels fires where it was cut.  

There it will be, ready to burn, unless taxpayers pony up the loan money from china to hire illegal workers (they sure nuff are better workers than 'mericans, right?)to clean it up.

After all, how could the Joe Loggers keep their jobs if the timber companies had to pay for that?  If the slash were cleaned up it would take all the profit out of the industry, right?

Dang liberals, dang logic.

And it's those dang 'mericans too, what are doin' it!  Bible-carryin' Protestants, most of 'em, I'll bet, so love me God!

And you young-uns leave that hound-dog be!  Took me all afternoon to get the tick out of his ear, so it's no wonder he's feelin' mopey and sorry for himself.  He'll bite, you don't watch out."

Amazing, I was going to say, You do not write enough.  But I correct myself, and say instead, It is our own fault if we do not encourage you enough to write more.

Backcut, I highly value your hands-on testimony.  Appealing to your concerns for wildlife and for aesthetics is powerful, and ought to matter to people who tend to see forestry issues from a different perspective.  Please keep sending what you would like to share.

Whether it's man-enhanced global warming or something else, we do have to manage what is left of our forests or we'll lose em. Yep, just disregard actual pictures and switch the argument. It just won't go away with the preservationism that some folks are still clinging to, similar to what the global warming pundits are doing.

Fires cause 90% of the initial damage and salvage logging may add some short term damage in exchange for some long term benefit. However, good planning and expert implementation can "restore" forests much, much faster than just leaving it alone. For example, one of my pictures shows what has grown back along Highway 120 into Yosemite Valley. After 17 years, what exists is still a jack-strawed pile of large old logs and chapparal brush where majestic pines once ruled. It's ready to burn again at very high intensity near the ground, ready to sterilize those soils and make it tough, even for manzanita and other brush to grow.

This is fine for our National Parks but, is it fine for our National Forests, too??

I'm just too busy to write much these days.  I kind of slap a few paragraphs on the technical stuff at the energy blog and on my blog and rush off.  Which I have to do now!

Got to jump in Lake Superior from the sweat lodge later this evening.  It's the weekly hobo church service. Rejuvenation for the hopeless cause.

Been working on the local congressional race too, calling and anoying my fellow citizens in order to elect a democrat who will keep this simian president and his neoconmen from invading Iran.

A number of fires here in Southern California appear to have been set by people rather than being directly climate related.  Our biggest tool against fire has become monitoring the hillsides for arsons or the initial fires they create.

I suspect that the drier weather makes it easier for an arson to get a good forest fire burning, thus, making it more attractive than it has been in the past.

is carbon friendly when used for lumber and firewood.  Otherwise the bacteria rot the wood and release CO2.

Global warming is killing the trees with beetle blooms.  Replanting with same species saplings is questionable.

Go North young people.  Bring forth your saplings.