LET 'EM BURN!
During the summer of 2015, fires burned an awful lot of land in the American West. I have to ask WHY. I have written two previous articles here showing how fires are simply allowed to burn. (See Fire Circus and This...is What Makes America Exceptional in this blog.) They seem to like to call it "fire management." In This...is What Makes America Great posted in August/September, I displayed the front page of the Bonners Ferry Herald newspaper in Bonners Ferry, Idaho which details citizen efforts to stop a fire that the US Forest Circus refused to fight. Had these farmers not acted on their own initiative, the fire would have been in a position to create catastrophic results. It could have spread across the Idaho Panhandle and into Canada.
This is a problem all over the west. Fires are simply allowed to burn and when a wind comes up, it becomes a firestorm. Sometimes it just cannot be helped, other times it is done on purpose. Everyone in my area of existence says the same thing, that fires are NOT being fought. Even some fire fighters agree! Pictures posted from various fire scenes show men in the latest uniforms with the latest equipment often just milling about. Seldom shown are pictures of actual efforts. When I ask why, the farmers call the Forest Service "Stupid" which I do not doubt. However, most will say "I don't know." My take is: it is a part of the destruction process our regime engages in. The purpose is to drive people off the land and into cities. It is an example of planned conflict. Too much emphasis is placed on "Evacuation" which is not the business of anyone other than the individual. For illustration purposes, in this article I will discuss the "Tee Pee Fire" on the Kootenai National Forest in Montana. It was a small fire, but illustrates the problem. It burned for months and burned about eleven hundred acres. There was NO need.
As can be seen above, damage was relatively minor and mostly appeared to be near the ridge-line. The rest of the fire consumed the forest floor and underbrush with an occasional flare into tree-tops.
What I found curious about it, was that it was first attacked by helicopter and heavy equipment. Then it seemed to take on a life of its own. It should have been held to less than forty acres.
However, it was NOT fought at night, so basically the fire has its own way during night-time hours. Then regional headquarters banned all travel: all "being upon a trail or road," was punishable, allegedly in the interest of public safety. It might be that, but why ban travel on thousands-of-acres and on all trails and roads leading to the fire? Well, most likely to keep nosy, suspicious, investigative-minded public eyes like mine from seeing what is done or more correctly what is NOT done! When the area was opened to travel again I went up there. It was OCTOBER 26th, several months after it started when I found it STILL BURNING and took these photographs!
I made my trip up there after the rains had started and as the picture above shows, smoke was still coming out of the woods adjacent to the road! Most of what was on fire was what we call "duff" or organic material that is often six inches to a foot deep. When it burns, it smolders and is hard to put out. Next to live trees, it burns deep in the ground and often kills those trees. The following pictures will illustrate the circumstances and the problem it creates.
Here in the above photograph we can see the duff is burning in irregular patterns with the most damage done next to trees.
In this above photograph we can see what is happening next to tree roots. The little tree is a dead (dry) snag burning red hot at the base and gradually sinking in altitude as it burns! Next to the small tree, the duff is especially deep and standing there causes a boot to sink a foot or more. It can result in serious burns. The big live tree probably will die as a result of the fire damage. Worse yet, such hot spots may OVERWINTER and flare up again next year! Nothing like job insurance!
Here we see actual flame at work on the forest floor, burning mostly garbage and is of little concern, but the fire creep in the duff continues.
Much of the "Tee Pee Fire" just burned the forest floor here as indicated by our last photograph. As long as no huge downpours occur, the area will regenerate next spring with minimal damage.
This little series of pictures will illustrate what happened this summer over all of the Kootenai National Forest and many others in the West. It is a disgusting practice that has a lot of people angry and some simply buying fire trucks and water trailers to help themselves if it becomes necessary. The Boy Scouts are right: BE PREPARED!
Written, Photographed and Posted by
Harald Hesstvedt Scharnhorst
