Reminds me of the giant redwoods in northern California.
A few decades ago they were not doing so good, some were dying, new ones weren't sprouting, everyone was in a panic.
Then some rocket scientist tree hugger finally figured out that forest fires were a natural part of the reproductive process and the life cycle of these trees and was necessary for their survival. Take away the fires and the forest dies.
Prior to that the giants were "protected" from fires, basically we were caring them to death.
Shortly after it was decided that fires were to be allowed to burn and the health of these forests is returning.

Remember the yellowstone fire about 15 years ago? Darned near burned down the whole southern region of the park because it had been protected from fires and mother nature was pissed. She decided to rectify the situation and it was ugly.
I was there last summer and the scars are still obvious.
If they had let nature control it's own burns it never would have gotten so bad.

My parents live in wickenburg and while that is a long ways from the Sedona fire it still makes me nervous.

have been jumping from SW incident command website and its now up to 3000 acres+. this is turning into a boomer! winds 32mph out of SW, temp right now, 97 degrees.

Please tell us what part of his post is incorrect? Everything that he said is correct and would love to have you explain why its different depending on what year the trees were cut.

Which part didn't you understand? I thought the post was pretty clear.

I just realized I was now old enough to remember when people spoke to each other with respect and without the underlying assumption that any position other than their own was idiotic and therefore automatically unreasonable. I think conversation was more interesting.

F**k me - I am now officially an old fart. And all this time I thought I'd die before I got old.

We all did...
;)

So you're saying that because something was done a few hundred years ago it should be done forever?

Not at all. Its just very interesting to watch someone try to defend a "do not build in a forested area" stance when you are living in an area that used to be forest not so long ago.

Sedona is not and never has been a national park, so people are building houses there. Look at how much of SoCal used to be prime forest or excellent farmlands that have been turned into housing developements. How can someone live in one of these areas and tell someone that they should not be building or living in Sedona?

if your worried about forest fires...i hear they have some room in NOLA...did a pretty good thinning there last summer :)
could use some help rebuilding down there. no forest to burn now...

fires in the mtns in the SW should be expected just like hurricanes in the SE.

anywhere you live you better know what MOTHER NATURE has in store.

i live in Seattle, so i expect it to rain 9months of the year. stopped *****ing about it years ago.

Basically what Joe said.

We aren't talking about national parks or protected forests here. We are talking about land that is open for development. I simply find it odd that people who are currently living on land that was cleared of pristine forest a few hundred (or sometimes much less than that) years ago are now suggesting that other people should not build their houses in forested areas. I'm also not talking about "slash and burn" methods. I'm talking about responsible development of land.

Nothing says that land that was once forested cannot return to that if left to its own devices. In fact, I visited a ranch about an hour outside of San Antonio about 2 years ago where the rancher did just that. He burned all the commercial vegetation off the land and allowed the natural vegetation to germinate again and take over. His ranch is now pristine prarie once again.

I guess my point in general is that people who want to tell others what to do should make an example of themselves first. Barbra Streisand wants us to stop driving SUVs. Well, I think a good first step would be for her to stop flying in a private jet, taking limos to every occasion and sell her mansions which burn tons of electricity to heat and cool.

Someone who thinks we should allow the forests to return to nature and keep people from building in them should first consider selling his/her own house to allow the land that he/she currently owns to return to its natural state.

One last point. I understand that Thom feels that forest fires are a natural occurance (he's right) and that they serve a benefit to the forest (right again). My point is that we can probably get a lot of the same benefit by controlled thinning of the forest without all the fire risk to people who happen to live nearby. That fire risk is spread to all of us through their insurance companies and through federal measures to fight said forest fires, and/or bail out those homeowners when their houses are destroyed. If you have a problem with the thinning practices, then fine, fix the practices. Saying that people just shouldn't live in the forest because all thinning is wrong misses the mark, IMHO.

The part of Orange County where I live used to be a desert, not a forest.
The native plants are scrub bushes and wild flowers and some grasses, not forest type trees.
In fact most of what I know as Southern california fits the same description.
Sure we have areas that used to be or still are forests, but they make up a very small percentage of the total.

There are "desert huggers" too Sammy...better watch yourself.

And for the record, I think Thom lives in Nor-Cal.

I still don't get the part where someone can clear a space anywhere they want, build a house, and to hell with the consequences. Is this a liberal or conservative position ? Is it even an ideological position ? Or merely a decision on the part of an individual that has costs / benefits to society at large and therefore the society has the right to express an opinion about or (god forbid) regulate the decision.

Why does a citizen have to experience the consequence of a decision before they have the right to discuss, support, or oppose the desires of other citizens ? Is that in the Declaration or Bill of Rights?

Frankly, I think Rick's missed the point. The point is not that Thom now lives somewhere there was once no development (don't we all) and wants to express an opinion about the extent of urban development. The point is that Rick doesn't seem to even want to discuss the issue. Rick just wants to paint Thom (and all them tree huggers) as hypocrites so the issue and those ideas no longer merit discussion.

Corporate interests rarely coincide with a society's interests because corporations are interested in profits (a good thing, generally) and society's are interested in citizen's well being (also a good thing, generally). Unfortunately, as Thom points out, lumber companies are rarely, if ever, interested in the extra costs of "cleaning out or thinning overgrowth" because there is no profit in it.

There is no more such a thing as a "free" market as there is a "free" lunch. What is a society's intelligent response to a corporate interest that refuses to bear the costs of its profit making ? Keep in mind that this is not an ethical / ideological question for me. Just a practical matter.

Oooh, someone came out with guns blazing...

So you think I miss the point. Hrm. I think I got the point spot on. I'll try to explain it:

First, I don't want this to turn into me bashing Thom because I'm not. I understand where Thom is coming from, he seems to have a problem not with thinning the forest, more with the real world practices that go over as "thinning".

My issue is with the idea that because the loggers don't follow the rules (or the rules are poorly written), that people should not build their houses near forests because we should let nature take its course and allow forest fires to do the thinning naturally. I guess the thought there is that if you are in the way of a forest fire, then so be it. I'm curious as to how someone would reconcile that position with their position on the poor unfortunate folks in NOLA who got wiped out by Katrina. Perhaps their response would be something like "damn people shouldn't build their houses by the ocean", but I doubt it.

I am in no way saying that people should be able to clear land wherever the hell they want and build on it. Obviously there are national parks and such that need protecting. What I AM saying is that people who currently live in areas that were once pristine forests really can't say much to those folks who want to build a house near the forests say 50 miles away. The forests USED to be 50 miles closer until all the tree hugger's ancestors cleared it out.

A house in the woods looks beautiful. However, it is folly to build in a forest as it is to build in a dry wash. Sooner or later, the obvious is going to happen. Forests are best admired from a safe distance, far from a structure that can catch fire and burn to the ground. It took one visit to Summerhaven atop Mt. Lemmon a few years back to show me the devestation that a forest fire can do. And what have the residents done? Rebuilt. "Disaster the Sequel" arriving on your local news soon.

Of course living near a forest has it's own inherent risks just like living on the gulf coast, Mississippi flood plain or tornado alley. That isn't the issue.

If you don't want people to build near a forest then petition to have it declared a state park or national park. Then people can't build there. If the land is up for sale and zoned for residential development, then who are you to tell that landowner what he/she can do with their own land?

my room mate is getting ready to start building home not a cabin in mountainaire, az. 12 miles upslope in elevation from sedona. he is going to do exactly what i did the last 3 weekends. CLEAR DEFENSIBLE SPACE 30-40 ft from homesite. ie. no trees close enough to fall on structure. since being a native and doing a reno on the house in '97 we went with fireproof shingles at added expense. but hey i choose to live in the middle of raw dezert. i have added more natural veg. than i have removed w/exception of removing mini cholla forest. if fire comes thru i will be pretty damn safe. its worth the blown weekends, sweat equity, beer expense to fill dumpsters w/vegetation so i dont look at charred remains someday. plus i get the value added bonus of finding all the rattlesnakes, scorpions, centipedes, and walapai tigers(assassin bugs).

girlfriends home and her parents 2 homes had defensible space, but winds, 0 humidity, ambient temps110 degrees + & lack of available hot shots allowed fire to explode into an inferno by the time it got to their homesites. embers from winds is what started their places on fire. forest service did not have bombers or helos on call til 1pm following day. fire started from lightening @530PM previous day. forest service was not risking loss of life for structures.

cause of "BRIN FIRE" already found "transient campers"!

One of the ironies in my previous career as a firefighter was the flak (albeit relatively gentle) we took when we went around early in the season, trying to educate people about clearing space around their homes, and then later in the summer during during an incident, we'd take one look at a house with beautiful trees growing right next to it and say "nope" and pull back 20 yards to a more defensible position.

The problem isn't as much as trees falling on structures as it is the ease of which the fire can reach the structure.

The parents of (one of) the psycho chick(s) I went out with last summer lived up in the El Dorado Hills area, right on a ridgeline, S/W aspect. Great location, but the largest gap between the brush and the house was no more than 20' - get any fire going up that hill and you can pretty much write off the house.

great book i read on fire science writtian by guy at ASU 'fire on the mtn". gave a lot of insight on fire behavior. when i was kid i was volunteered for hot shot crew at camp geronimo outside payson. had real fun cutting line a couple times because of idiot campers not putting out camp fires during summers. the science involved now with fire suppression is unreal. the manpower involved is beyond belief. last summer during cave creek complex fire got first hand look at at 7 different style helos and spotter planes do aerial ballet less than 1 mile from airport. got some great pics i will post when i get home.

This is exactly why I think you miss the point about social interest.

You state that people who live in "once pristine" areas don't have the right, or an equal right, or that their opinions are somehow devalued, regarding forest use simply because the areas in which they now live were once forests. To me that is tantamount to saying one can't properly express an opinion about crime either because a) "I am not a criminal" or b) "I am not a police officer." Your point just doesn't make sense in a representational democracy - at least not to me.

While you certainly can believe that tree huggers or old development urban dwellers opinions don't matter or carry the same weight as those who want to develop forests - it doesn't follow that those citizens should not have (or do not have) a fundamental interest in those laws or property development reg's that may affect them or their local areas.

That's what democracy is - conflicting interests represented and reconciled through votes.