What kills more trees clear cutting, fire, bark beetles or root rots?

Question

20 years ago the U.S. Forest Service harvested timber and spent $250 million dollars to put the fires out. Now the forest service harvest 80% less timber and spends 3 billion dollars putting fires out. Doesn't this seam neglectful to spend that much money and let so many trees go to waste burning rather than harvesting them in a way to give the fire fighters a tactical advantage?

Answer 1

Fire

Answer 2

I think clear-cutting of trees, in the name of roads and urbanization

Answer 3

I argue clear cutting world wide. The link below is by the Vegan Society bare with it, the facts about agriculture and clearing land are really enlightening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWNLvgU4...

Alongside this there is loss from illegal drug production, rainforest loss, and clearing of old forests/woods for housing development.

http://www.american.edu/ted/MEXDEFOR.HTM

http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/55/PapuaN...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20...

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/1008.htm

http://www.wwf.org.uk/search/index.asp?d...

http://www.wwf.org.uk/search/index.asp?

But I have not seen any comparative figures so this is just my opinion.

Answer 4

clear-cutting and soil degradation mainly due to industrialization and pollution! fire is a second major

Answer 5

let the law of supply and demand work here; if there is less demand for trees, why should the us govt harvest them?  let the law of inflation and today work here; what cost $250 million 20 years ago probably costs $3 billion today

Answer 6

This is a big time hot button topic you have asked, John.  I've been on some of the "front lines" of this also.  Back when my husband and I were dating, he was a helicopter mechanic, Vertals, and Chinooks.  

The helicopters did one of two things.  Helped with the removal of trees that were logged, or helped witht he putting out of fires in forests and range land.

I live in Idaho.  My state has THE most fires this year.  One of them, the Murphy Complex, burned VERY close to where I live.

You can fly in an airplane at 100mph, for over ONE HOUR, and see NOTHING BUT BLACK GROUND.  There is absoltely nothing.  The rangeland was burned COMPLETELY to the ground.

Want to know what kills more trees?  Environmentalist.  Hands down, no questions asked, environmentalists are the cause of more forest devistation than anything.

The forests around Lake Tahoe have major kill, due to beetles.  The Environmentalist will not allow the logging, and REPLANTING THAT WOULD FOLLOW LOGGING to take place.  Instead Lake Tahoe began to burn this year, since it is a forest of beetle killed trees, just waiting for the spark to light them up.  A lot of it burned this year...it has much more to go.

In Arizona they had titanic fires several years ago.  Cause..environmentalist had stopped the logging of those areas, and the forests had filled with tinder.  When the fire finally happened (as they ALWAYS do) it raged through, and killed the trees, instead of blackening and charring the trunks.

The fire raged over part of an Indian Reservation also.  The Reservation immediatly sold the fire killed trees.  The trees were harvested, and the forest replanted.  Flora and fauna once again finds homes on the Reservation, in a thriving healthy ecosystem.  

The majority of the fire did NOT happen on the Reservation however.  The sale of that timber by the Forst Service was tied up in court by Environmentalist.  They only had to tie it up for two years.  After two years, the lumber becomes unusable, and unsalvagable. for lumber sales.  That does NOT mean it has rotted to the ground...no, that will take another 200 years.  (That's right, 200 years).  In the mean time, all that charred timber still stands as a dead forest.  It does not support life.  It does not hold the rainwater...that runs over the ground in torrents, washing away even more of the precious topsoil.  No, instead the Environmentalist "won" and the forest will have to regenerate on its own.  Check back in a few hundred years and see how that is going.  Forests have a very difficult time regenerating themselves in desert areas.

Back to the Murphy Complex which happened near me.  The Environmentalist had the sheep and cattle kicked out of the range land, because they were deystroying Sage Grouse habitat.  There was no study to back this up...Environmentalist said it was so, and had big money (Hollywood actors, and everyone who thinks they are doing good and donates to them) backing them.  The cattle ranchers didn't have the money for the big lawers.

So sheep and cattle ranchers lost in court, and the livestock has mostly been evicted from the rangeland for several years now.  

With no sheep and cattle, the dried, dead fodder continued to build up year after year...until the fires started.  Then with all that fuel, it was a raging inferno, and totally uncontrolable.  

Where the fire crossed onto privately owned ranch land, still grazed by cattle, it was like magic...time after time, the fire went out all by itself.  

The pictures are dramatic.  Burned charred ground with only rocks showing, and 20 feet on the other side of a fence (land owned by the ranchers)  there is still sagebrush, and all kinds of desert plantlife.  The difference was it was grazed, and there wasn't all the dry tinder to turn it into a raging inferno.

The rare  peppergrass, and the sage grouse that were supose to live there?  Everything is dead and gone.  It's raining and snowing here today.  That means the streams containing the rare bull trout will be filling with silt.

The money being spent to fight forest fires is in direct relation to the amount of money being spent by Environmentalist, and the number of wins they have had in court.  

I truely wish the average American citizen would wake up and REALLY study what the Environmentalist are "acompishing."

The Environmentalists have funding from VERY wealthy people.  They have Hollywood stars willing to put their picture and their voice to campaigns.  The lie to those people, only showing them part of the picture, and telling them 1/2 of the story to get their backing and their money.  Being an "Environmentalist" is a huge multi billion dollar often tax free business.

Want to know what's REALLY going on with America's forests?  Visit both a logging camp, and a fire supression camp some time.  Talk to the people on the front lines, and hear how frustrated they are with "Environmentalist."

By the way, my husband & I live on a permaculture farm.  We grow most of our own food, and produce our OWN BIOFUELS.  Our next house will be straw bale construction.  Hubby works on the commercial wind turbines now.  Our lives are EXTREMELY "green" and earth friendly compaired to the average person.  We care deeply about the earth we live on, but we also educate ourselves as to what the real story is.

Want to see less money spent of fighting fires (paid for by your taxes) and less devistating fires?  Allow selective logging, and give an "Environmentalist" a swift kick in the rear.

Worried about what is happening to rainforests in South America, with their cattle ranches?  Don't buy fast food hamburgers...it's as simple as that.  We do not contol those governements, nor the people of South America, but if the demand is not there, the cattle will not be raised.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 7

organized deforestation,then fires

get the poodwaddle earth clock

and you will see how many trees come down by the hour

Answer 8

No data to indicate which of yhem.

Answer 9

Interesting question, I've heard about the increse in fires from the other side of the pond. How many of the trees would you advocate chopping down?

Is the large cost, in life as well as money, not also down to a releatively small number of rich and influential peple building oversized log cabins out in the wilderness, and then demanding the forest service protect them from that self same wilderness?

If you had to reduce the forest service's costs then cut permament fire breaks around those 'log cabins', harvest according to market forces, and leave the rest to nature.

The report I heard also spoke of the rise in temperatures in the area, Another one chalked up for global warming. Sooner or later some decision may have to be made as to the suitability of the area for habitation, in a similar way to New Orleans.

.

Answer 10

In Canada,British Columbia,pine beetles are killing millions of trees.Faster than they can be cut down .There is no need to cut down any live pines in North America.

Answer 11

Well Fire, Bark beetles and Root Rot are all natural causes that we really cant control. I know this sounds contradictory to my last sentence but The cutting that the U.S. Forest Service embarks on is actually a preventative action to keep the trees alive. They usually take the trees with the diseases and dead trees but they also cut down the really big trees which are shading and taking nutrients from the smaller trees which need to get healthier. Also the Forest service cuts trees down to prevent the fires from spreading to quickly through root fires and tree top jumping.

Answer 12

Cutting.

Answer 13

it's the clear cutting and forest fire..both can kill more trees in a short period of time..but fire can do it faster!

Answer 14

fire...cause i think fire spreads fast and could burn a large forest in a day!

Answer 15

definitely cutting w/o a doubt !!