You can listen to Jared Blumenfeld’s Podship Earth podcast on Fire Myths here.
According to the bio on the Podship Earth website:
Jared Blumenfeld, was appointed by President Obama to be the regional administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (2009-2016), he also served as the Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, chaired the first United Nations World Environment Day held in the US, and founded the Business Council on Climate Change and Green Cities California. He worked for non-profits including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) where he helped protect millions of acres for wildlife and held corporations accountable. He thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. He is a trusted source for environmental stories and appears frequently in the New York Times, BBC, Economist, Los Angeles Times, NPR and other media outlets.
In this episode Blumenfeld interviews ecologist Dr. Chad Hanson of the John Muir Project.
Hanson NEVER addresses human-caused wildfires or re-burns (here in California), which are a part of the bigger environment, and a certainty for us, probably forever. His views are a moot point, otherwise. We’ve seen examples in Yosemite, of extreme forest damages, due to multiple wildfires on the same ground, without any salvage logging. The results are a lack of conifer seed sources (where huge and majestic old growth once stood), struggling brush species, trying to deal with a lack of organic matter in granitic soils, and highly-flammable sparse grasses.
Dr. Hanson’s comments on fire myths are consistent with observations by Forest Unlimited, a non-profit organization founded in 1995. We have observed for over twenty years many wildfire burned areas and fire resistance and resiliency of mature trees. Post fire, some were allowed to naturally regenerate and others were salvaged logged. The difference in the two in the extent and how fast the regeneration is striking. These first-hand observations are supported by the independently published studies by Dr. Hanson as well as others not timber industry funded.
I have been involved in salvage logging. After countless visits to these areas over the last 20 years I have never noticed much different between areas that where salvaged and those that were not, as far as regrowth goes. I am referring to mostly FS land where typically only one or two percent of the burn is ever harvested.