Letter: Prescribed fire is bad forest management

Published 6:15 am Wednesday, November 23, 2022

To the Editor:

Limiting the use of forest resources has been a major factor in the destruction of millions of acres of our forests. The irony is that so many of the harmful practices being done today are in the name of helping preserve the forests. The use of “prescribed fire” as a means to manage the forests is clearly a failure in many ways. I have coughed and sneezed my way through countless years of smoke as the FS set smoldering fires in wet brush and grass. Then I have witnessed several hundred thousands of acres of forest completely burn up from catastrophic fires in the same areas that the FS had spent years ruining the air with their “prescriptions.” The historic productive uses of our forests, such as firewood gathering, logging, thinning and grazing, were considerably more effective at removing and utilizing the dead and dying vegetation.

The 1897 Organic Act and the “1905 Use Book” describe how national forests were supposed to be managed. It is clear that the forest resources were set aside to be used by the people! “The timber, water, pasture, mineral, and other resources of the forest reserves are for the use of the people; They may be obtained under reasonable conditions, without delay; Legitimate improvements and business enterprises will be encouraged. Forest reserves are open to all persons for all lawful purposes.”

On another note, a paragraph that is of particular interest in relation to the recent arrest of a FS employee by the sheriff: “The jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, over persons within such reservations shall not be affected or changed by reason of the existence of such reservations, except so far as the punishment of offenses against the United States therein is concerned; the intent and meaning of this provision being that the State wherein any such reservation is situated shall not, by reason of the establishment thereof, lose its jurisdiction, nor the inhabitants thereof their rights and privileges as citizens, or be absolved from their duties as citizens of the State.”

Ken Alexander

Unity