Summertime or Fire Season

If you are old enough (over fifty) maybe a little younger in some areas. You can remember a time when every summer wasn’t filled with smoke and devastating wild fires. All the small towns throughout Northern California and Oregon had lumber mills, healthy forests, vibrant economies, thriving schools, and clear skies.

In the last twenty five years or so in the name of saving the spotted owl and the environment. Those managing our forests, and the activists that drive their policies have killed small town economies, wildlife, their habitat, and devastated people’s lives. They have left forests filled with dead and dying trees like in this picture I took last week when we where going along fence. Just waiting for one lightning strike. Every year it gets a little worse.

This may seem like a bold accusation, but I am tired of tiptoeing around it. Folks out west have had enough, and I can start to see younger generations begin to think this is normal.

I know most common since people can see the problem and know what we need to do to fix it. So why isn’t something being done? Have they reversed any of these bad policies? Do they plan to? Has the health of the environment improved? Has the spotted owl been saved, or did his habitat burn up?

I don’t think they have any intention of changing any of the current bad policies to improve the health of our forests. Fire has become big business. There is too much money involved.

The wildlife doesn’t matter, our homes and businesses don’t matter, lives don’t matter. Everyone always says, log it, graze it, or watch it burn. I guess we are gonna watch it burn.

Another big fire started just last week in northern California. It is almost 400,000 acres and most likely won’t see full containment until the weather changes this fall. Both Oregon and Idaho are full of fires, and the season isn’t over yet. So at best we will have another summer of smoky air to breath. At worst we will have flames driving us from our homes, jeopardizing our livestock and livelihoods. This is normal?

But for all you young people just know, this never use to be normal. We use to have summer not fire season. We have to start managing our forests again.