Old-growth snag forests at the headwaters of Buckhorn Creek on the Siskiyou Crest are proposed for clearcut logging. Small snag patches like this one would be accessed with “temporary roads,” tractor or skyline yarded, clearcut and replanted with plantations stands. Both snags and live trees would be cut. Photo courtesy of Luke Ruediger.
With recent snow on the ground, wildfire remains to be a hot topic. Headlines hype fire hysteria during summer months but no attention is paid to the extreme consequences of fire fighting. The necessary and beneficial effects to our forest ecosystems go unnoticed while a million dollars a day is being spent on putting them out. The monetary costs are easy to equate but the ecological costs are rarely publicized. To shed light on what takes place during and after a fire event, Luke Ruediger has put together a report of the Gap Fire that burned this summer on the Klamath National Forest.
The Gap Fire Report details day to day happenings of the military style of the fire industrial complex and highlights; significant weather events, fire severity and mosaic, impacts from past forest management on fire behavior, suppression impacts, fireline construction and rehabilitation, back-burning, retardant use, botanical impacts and the spread of noxious weeds, costs of fire suppression, the post-fire logging proposal and the importance of restorative fire management.
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