Originally posted by photoptimist The "fire-free" concept also raises the controversial issue of fire suppression in forest management.
Humans may think forest fires are "bad" and burned areas are "ugly," but fire plays an essential and multifaceted role in many ecosystems. Some of the problems the US is facing with very large-scale forest fires stems from a naive and regrettable decades-long policy fo fire suppression.
In some cases, preventing "human impact" creates a more serious problem.
The record on the big pines shows the for thousands of years, the natives in this area burned portions of the park to provide feed for deer. Fire suppression has been a complete disaster. Every dry summer somewhere in Ontario has a major forest fires, which are getting to be bigger and bigger all the time. The forest behind my house is so full of dry deadfall, an out of control fire would almost certain damage my house.
The historical record shows a long history of the forest regenerating itself through fire. Then a bunch of folks come along and decide fire isn't a natural thing. From my perspective it's completely bizarre. Many native plants only occur as first growth after big fire. It would seem to be the goal of "conservationists" to eradicate these plants.
There was a controlled burn at the old airfield in Algonquin a few years ago. Now every summer there are 20 bears there feasting on the first growth blueberries. So this is not theoretical. There is less for wildlife to eat because of fire management. It affects the whole ecosystem. It's a travesty to call these managed forests a natural environment, just because of the reduction in the number of wildlife present.
Paul (the native we bought our house from) tells me, after the last clear cut behind my house you could drive to Hardtack lake, 7km from my house and see 150 deer along the way. Now, we see one or two every three for four years.
Instead of being able to augment their income hunting, now we have forest managed for loggers. For the locals, it is taking money out of their wallets so we can have a PC correctly managed forest, which doesn't even work out all that well for the loggers. Urban ideals of what wilderness should be have been implemented at the expense fo the locals, and completely without compensation of any sort.
Folks like myself are always caught in the middle. We want the southerners to control the hoards of urban tourists that come this way in the summer, but we don't need them making the kinds of policy decisions they've imposed on the environment.
And we certainly don't need outsiders telling us we can't pull dry brush that is sooner or later going to be tinder for a huge fire out of the bush to make campfires on sites that have been thoroughly prepared by park staff, including digging 7 feet under them and removing any tree roots, and back filling with sand.
Urbanites think their back yard gardens are natural and the way all nature should be as far as I can tell.