Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Forest Service was responsible for largest fire in New Mexico history

I absolutely HATE the Forest Circus. They are power-hungry, self-righteous, arrogant pricks everywhere I've dealt with them. They need a thorough purging AND they need to quit studying frogs and bugs, get off their ass and go back to work. They used to clear downed trees from roadways and grade roads every year to mitigate wash-boarded gravel roads. Now, they study schit. Worthless fucques. Hate em.

Makes zero sense

The roots are so dry, they ignited and smolder for a long time, and considerable distance underground.
Firefighters tell me that is not uncommon in Alaska - and is happening here.
We've got fighters from all over, here - who commonly say this is the strangest, and most treacherous fire they've ever seen.

IIRC, that fire was started by the National Park Service. (technicality)
Not the US Fire Starters, nor the Bic Lighter Men.

The government fuqks up anything it touches.

Yes, they ARE from the Government - and are here to "HELP" us!

It seems like it's unavoidable doesn't it? You can hand them a puppy and they lock it up in a cage and let sand fleas eat it's head. WTF is wrong with the people that seek out positions of authority over others that they have to be such [bleep].

Twenty years ago Jackson County, Miss. had a NO BURN NOTHING WHATSOEVER notice out. Driest worse drought ever.

So some govt agency decided to control burn the Blue Heron Sanctuary off, yeah, got out of control and burned down numerous houses, out-buildings, cars/trucks/tractors, +++.
They said 'sorry about that' not one person lost their job nor paid a penny for any of it. Very likely asked for a pay raise plus more benefits and retirement, like they do every year.

Not here they didn't. A permit costs about $6/cord.

Bureaucracy and its by-rote methodology at its finest. I get to drive through the smoke 5 days a week and see all those fire jockeys grab-assing around the Love's in Las Vegas. I have yet to see one that's dirty, tired, or singed.

The logical part of me shakes its head at the never-ending incompetence and wastefulness. The cynical part suspects that all of that federal overtime, hazard pay, and the subsequent budget depletion--leading to requests for a bigger budget next year, of course--isn't accidental.

Color me disgusted.

That’s why I refer to them as the forest circus. In the seventies they got a large infusion of leftover hippies from the sixties that went from selling timber to counting frog and mice. I just spent a week over in 1Minutes stomping grounds and it’s amazing the amount of acreage of prescribed burns to control fuel buildup that left very little cover and browse for the deer and various other animals under the timber canopy.

They have in NM.

Now they’re pausing controlled burns. That’s the opposite of what is needed. It’s the incredible fuel load that has built up that makes these fires huge. Aggressive thinning and controlled burns are need just not done by morons when the wind is up. They do it anyway on an inappropriate day because they’ve scheduled all the crews and equipment.

Dave,

Howdy.
I read several years ago when I still lived in NW FL., that florida had the high level of combustible over/under growth of any state. Just saying.

That’s certainly possible in the National Forests but certainly not on private property. Florida is also lush and green. The buildup doesn’t take long here. You need to burn every three years to keep things safe. The Okeefenokee/Pinhook/Oceola fire was incredible ! It was in an extreme drought and it burned peet 12’ down in the Okeefenokee ! It was that dry ! It burned up to just a few miles from my house ! That fire burned from the outskirts of Waycross Ga down the outskirts of Lake City Fl. A hurricane finally came through and dumped enough rain to put out the last smoldering bits. There’s a lot of new open water in the Okeefenokee now that it’s full.

Over/under growth isn't what causes fires to burn hot.

It's the dead downfall on the Forest floor that's the problem.
It raises the intensity and probability of fire.

They go through a forest and count the numbers and diameter of blow down to calculate the likelihood of having a forest fire and the intensity of which it will burn.

Initially, the insurance companies. Eventually, we will.

The fabulous Ms. Luhan-Grisham-Clinton is no doubt licking her lips at the prospect of all those potential federal State of Emergency dollars. Ben Ray is surely proud, even though the two aren't actually related, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. I also wonder how many NM contractors with brothers-in-law, cousins, and/or uncles in the local Forest Circus bureaucracy are making bank right now.

Incompetence and stupidity are a wonderful facade for corruption.

The finest of new homes they can build can never replace what's lost when the home you had and everything in it is reduced to ashes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best remediation after a large fire is to get in there and get the dead wood out. We've had a number of large fires in our area over the 4 or 5 years - some lighting caused, some human caused (power lines). 100,000s of acres of prime douglas fir land burned, some private, a lot of federal (FS and BLM). Less is burned on the private grounds due to the more aggressive attack on those lands - they are owned by someone. On private industrial land, the land owners are in immediately, even before the smoldering fires are out. We've seen lots of log trucks with blackened logs going to the mills. The private guys get the logs off the property and try to get the land ready to replant during the next winter.

The FS and BLM are different. Very little aggressive attack. When fall rains finally put the fire out, the federal agencies begin their process. They are slow movers as they go through the environmental and contracting process to get timber up for sale. For much of the timber, it takes too long and loses too much value and is not sold and therefore is not cleared off the land. Over the next years these trees fall and become snag patches with very high fuel loads. These patches can be huge is size and when the next lightning fire is started, they burn incredibly hot and are very difficult to fight. It is very frustrating dealing with these agencies.