- Apr 17, 2005
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Many on the far left believe cutting down trees is always wrong but this controversial policy's fruit is coming to light in California:
That is quite something -- literally a policy of cutting down trees having been strategically employed to save lives. I wonder how environmentalists feel about that one?
Sometimes cutting trees is a good thing.
LAKE ARROWHEAD -- As flames ravage surrounding communities, this resort town high in the San Bernardino Mountains emerged largely unscathed, an island in a sea of destruction.
The credit for that isolated victory, federal officials say, should go to firefighting tactics, shifting winds and favorable terrain -- and a sometimes controversial U.S. Forest Service effort to eliminate the tinder that fuels forest fires.
Since 2002, the Forest Service has removed millions of trees, thinned brush and cut low-hanging branches, creating fuel breaks around almost 80% of the community. Fires don't spread quickly or easily through such areas, instead burning lower to the ground and with less intensity.
"The fuel breaks saved Lake Arrowhead," said Randall Clauson, the Forest Service's division chief for the San Bernardino National Forest and incident commander earlier this week on the two biggest wildfires still burning in the mountains.
He said he believes that, without the breaks, "the fire would have run right through Lake Arrowhead and gone to Highway 18, cutting off the evacuation route and probably resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives."
LA TimesThe credit for that isolated victory, federal officials say, should go to firefighting tactics, shifting winds and favorable terrain -- and a sometimes controversial U.S. Forest Service effort to eliminate the tinder that fuels forest fires.
Since 2002, the Forest Service has removed millions of trees, thinned brush and cut low-hanging branches, creating fuel breaks around almost 80% of the community. Fires don't spread quickly or easily through such areas, instead burning lower to the ground and with less intensity.
"The fuel breaks saved Lake Arrowhead," said Randall Clauson, the Forest Service's division chief for the San Bernardino National Forest and incident commander earlier this week on the two biggest wildfires still burning in the mountains.
He said he believes that, without the breaks, "the fire would have run right through Lake Arrowhead and gone to Highway 18, cutting off the evacuation route and probably resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives."
That is quite something -- literally a policy of cutting down trees having been strategically employed to save lives. I wonder how environmentalists feel about that one?
Sometimes cutting trees is a good thing.
