Chief Blames “Climate Change” for New Mexico Prescribed Burn that Got Away

In its report on the New Mexico prescribed burn that got away several hours after ignition to burn 341,471 acres so far, the Chief places the blame on climate change: “Climate change is leading to conditions on the ground we have never encountered.” Washington Post commenters aren’t buying it.

1) Loosely translated, some USFS employees screwed up badly by ignoring the weather reports, and are using climate change to cover their mistake.

2) All lies and a coverup. Any first grader in New Mexico can tell you not to light a fire in the spring. The Forest Service operates under a blind and arrogant determination to set fires at any cost.

3) This actually isn’t a climate change issue. This is actually an issue of outright negligence! The Forest Service in New Mexico ignited a controlled burn on a week with red flag days, and strong winds that were gusting to gale force. That’s actually very normal weather for the higher elevation areas in New Mexico at the time those controlled burns were started. If this isn’t an example of outright negligence by the Forest Service, then I don’t know what is! “Climate change” is just a dodge that is a pile of cow crap a mile high!

4) This is BS. Who is running the agency? Larry, Moe, and Curly? The day I heard about the prescribed burn, I thought this is a terrible day to start a fire. It was windy as all get out in Santa Fe. And it is just about always less windy in the city than NE in the higher elevations (where they fires were started). At that time we had experienced no significant rain since last summer and little snow in the last two winters.

46 thoughts on “Chief Blames “Climate Change” for New Mexico Prescribed Burn that Got Away”

  1. Hmm. Lots of people, not just the Chief, even the WaPo with its 20 recently hired additional climate reporters, blames everything bad that happens on climate change. It’s a common reflex. If you hire loads of climate specialists/reporters and so on, they will see everything through the eye of climate change. That’s why some folks call it the “climate industrial complex.” Nuance is not part of the deal in the CIO.

    The Biden administration has connected wildfires to climate change, for example, in the recent EO
    “However, these magnificent ecosystems are threatened by the climate impacts that are already here, with intensifying wildfires demanding urgent action to protect our forests and the economies that depend on them>

    Here’s another example with Gov Newsome of California:

    As the Bay Area and other parts of California deal with the devastating effects of raging wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday attacked the idea that the fires are natural in any way. He said the cause is climate change and said anyone who thinks differently is in denial.

    “The debate is over around climate change,” Newsom said as he toured a burn area in Northern California. “Just come to the state of California. Observe it with your own eyes. It’s not an intellectual debate. It’s not even debatable any longer.”

    He also said he’s “exhausted that we have to continue to bait this issue.”

    “This is a climate damn emergency,” he said. “This is real.”

    Craig Clements, the director of San Jose State University’s Wildfire Research Center, said Newsom is essentially correct.

    I don’t think the Chief, serving at the behest of the Biden Admin, could have left climate change out of the equation. Yes, it does make a convenient excuse, and moves the locus of enemization to “bad guys” like the oil and gas industry, and away from potentially pesky questions like “how well is the fire situation being managed.”

    As for me it’s hard to hold “unprecedented nature of fires due to whatever (suppression, climate)” and “we know what we’re doing with PB so leave us alone”; or the academic variant “it is good for the ecosystem so leave practitioners alone” in my head at the same time. There is middle ground, of course, the tedious process of better management and building social license, but no clicks there so…

    FWIW I read through part of the report. There’s a surprising amount of “not using the most up to date models” and “there was no RAWs station around”. I would say the challenge is at least partially integrating on the ground knowledge with different models, and giving feedback to those models to improve them. I also keep thinking that heat sensing drones and other technologies we may not be aware of could help with resurgent post-winter fires.

    I think we’re fortunate that the wildfire culture enables learning without (apparent) finger pointing and blame.

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  2. One of the greatest drivers of “outright negligence” in the forest service is an unwillingness to learn and adapt to changing conditions and knowledge. There’s an intentional disconnect when it comes to the advancement of the many fields of science that are a part of USFS. This institutional bias to treat advancements in knowledge and methods as a threat rather than a benefit, creates a dogmatic institution, rather than a thoughtful and conscientious one.

    But maybe someday when we no longer get the usual circle the wagons to show zero willingness to apply adaptive management based on new knowledge things might become sensible again? Specifically:

    1) When global warming is changing fire severity from bad to worse the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere matters! It’s pure insanity to think that we’re going to burn our way to a healthy landscape in a way that reduces fire severity over time when the current mindset at almost every level of forestry is increasing fire severity by not accounting for how much CO2 these “prevention” activities create. And just telling everyone that the people who long ago lived here used fire to cultivate with doesn’t in any way justify logging and burning the forest to save it. It takes way more intelligence than that!

    2) How about a reality check? How often do we document wildfire areas that have had the right amount of fire and is back in balance and doesn’t need more thinning, salvage logging or controlled burning? The answer is that identifying these areas would create a “threat” that leads to more meaningful protection and less “management” which at the USFS is still treated not as the ultimate goal, but as losing more exploitable land to environmentalists. That’s dogma, not science!

    3) Archaic thinning methods that run around the forest making stumps and slash piles to burn as thousands of bonfires at a later date maximizes the amount of carbon released, rather than minimizing it. Even the most severe wildfires leave most of the trunks still standing, which provides huge habitat and soil health benefits over time. So it makes sense to leave these main stems as dead snags that hold moisture and habitat once the soil ecosystem digests it into rot. And if you had wheelbarrow size wood chippers for pruned branches right at the spot where those snags are made all the material goes back into the soil to make it fertile rather than into the sky, which makes wildfires more severe. In place like New Mexico where a typical trees’ height isn’t that much of a challenge to remove branches/fine fuels from, these methods could dramatically reduce not just the carbon footprint, but lower the cost per acre for the treatment. It will also dramatically improve large woody debris recruitment, which drives the whole system back towards balance.

    4) The number of acres prioritised for controlled burns and slash pile burns don’t seem to change much due to an increase in areas burned in wildfire in terms of a comprehensive planning process. With 1 of every 8 acres of California burning in past decade for example, we could map out areas that are now healthier and not in the need of thinning, burning or salvage logging for a long while, yet instead we get the same old exploitation push to “manage” aka “damage” without adequate analysis and the same old tired rhetoric about how fire suppression is out of control and the only way we can stop it it is to make more stumps and burn everything more.

    WILL THINGS EVER CHANGE?

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  3. Quoting usfs internal review (no doubt after consulting legal departments: “In an internal review of the burn set on April 6, Forest Service investigators found that fire managers had followed a plan within approved limits. But a subsequent analysis of weather and vegetation showed that “the prescribed fire was burning under much drier conditions than they understood.”

    Really ! So as long as usfs employees don’t understand what their involved doing; “working in a office rather than being in the forest long enough to know what drought stressed evergreens look like” ; ” followed a plan within approved limits”! Such plans approved were absent ” analizing just how dehydrated were the trees/forest! That is none other than “gross negligence”.!

    Many many of the injured are not in a position to protect their rights= full restoration + punitive compensation. Apparently the NM State legislators passed a new statue in June 2021 denying victims of exactly that.

    The facts are that any nature lover living in the area was well aware the trees in the forest were dying off allready , dropping needle mass in attempts to survive , and only in late January thru February 2022 came 5 weekly back to back snowfalls all light allowing quick melting and rehydration of all survivable species, including wildlife about to bear young…mother nature came to the rescue right in time..just as it has this week 6-2022 to again rehydrate all living and again dry period stressed between late February and this week. 350,000 acres of forest and animals are not alive now to be in tune with the ebb and flow of Mother Nature..precisely caused by usfs and maybe others involved PHD fire advocates who claim expertise on maximum sustainability ” they call resilence” ; who didn’t have a clue outside office and truck life whats going on in Santa Fe National Forest, for that matter any outdoor landscape.

    Thus from usfs report , now that 350,000 acres are destroyed of productivity described in the 1960 Sustainable Forest Act ,can it be guessed they will now tell the public prescribed burns are beneficial and necessary and can be safely accomplished because we office pundits with usfs forest badges will include in our planning guidelines to look at the landscape and forest and think about whether evergreens are so dry/drough stressed on the verge of death that people running around with 3 year old maps and schedules with dripots might be starting a catastrophic crown fire. Now its time to speak about overpaid , lazy , expert office bureaucrats, claiming final authority over what is the peoples valuable resources- uh , duh ! Being very appropriate terminology. Shameful and those in charge obviously commanding a absolutely inferior and destructive fire theory to improve the forest like the ancient Indians did at a time when they possessed only crude stone axes to work the forest any other way….all today pure nonesense with losses of billions of board feet of lumber, timber firewood for at least one century!!

    This is the best modern 21st century modern man can come up with, “Burn it” , which is not science , nothing but a roulette wheel , a roll of the dice!

    A planned destruction of Americas valuable resource as we witness extremely high prices for lumber / building materials for sale.

    Behind the USFS theory of resilient forests is a theory that makes non sense and no solution as the ” subject matter forest store carbon which will reduce global warming and drought crisis”…so burn down another 350,000 acres which release carbon , never again to absorb it , and the significant loss of oxygen production…The forest can and will only absorb so much carbon just like a sponge only absorbs so much water….such a USFS theory from the top down is negligent of all issues , just as their hired employees further down the ladder set Hermit Peak afire because of negligence of all issues pertaining. Combustion of fossil fuels is the root cause of global warming , pollution and a cry for more forest to absorb such , mediate such which conditions of the planet allready prove the nonsense that carbon sinks are the answer….the answer has been hidden for 50 years , by no other than a fossil fuel industry! Hydrogen production by electrolisis using renewables like solar electricity where hydrogen combustion engines that release no emissions other than water vapor is the hidden and witheld clean and virtually unlimited energy ..every home could have its own independent energy supply and refueling station for cars parked at each….such is not a eutopic world but the radiant and beautiful world free of pollutants and next weeks unexpected soaring prices caused by unexpected shortages of several of the resources mentioned herein.

    Forest should be carefully nurturned, pruned if you will , replanted , monitored and carefully designed by the God given smartest creatures on the planet for that maximum enjoyment related to outdoors and wildlife along with maximum sustainability and productivity of timber and all products Mother Nature can provide all. With a ever flowing balance for all involved.

    Just prior to the fire devastation there was a group of concerned conservationist citizens attempting to bring to the attention of USFS that prescribed burning of the forest was not providing benefits and much harm. The USFS ignored that citizen complaint , stating they have provided nothing meaningful to alter USFS plans…and the evidence is in of the disaster and yet locally and around the country particularly PHD university advocates who made a career advocating ” fire” , still are making staements of the benefits of fire….ludicrous and dishonest statements like “fire is beneficial when done in a safe and controlled manner” and another ” its not natural for forest to grow thick with dense stands of trees”!! That particular phd was asked if it was not mother nature which grew the dense stands of forest , thus a false statement , a theory , in fact careers and books written on such nonsense , all promotional and leading to the disaster and destruction forever of the remainder of very injured peoples lives and livelyhood.
    Even after the disaster is a clamor to burn.

    The entire damaged area and communitys lives must be restored , at whatever expense, and an expense so great that the USFS cannot afford to continue the roll of dice , the spin of a roulette wheel.

    The lower elevations should be mass planted with the two species of drought tolerant Junipers, one seed juniper and rocky mountain juniper which they can and will begin the natural processes of reforestation. And then so on with the state tree pinon pine and ponderosa pine which will have very low survivability at lowest elevations in these drought highlighted conditions. Mass collection of seeds must begin from local supply trees. 1992 was the last major ponderosa pine cone production in the Rowe, NM area (drought began then) and now likely stimulated by the smoke from the fires the ponderosas are producing pine cone buds. Mother nature at work and evidence of a basic science to be observed by the office phds’ of mother nature. Throughout their writings they repeat in advocations of prescribed fire ” evidence suggests” , ” the evidence suggest” light a fire….such is not science and pure theory where as real science that can be proven that running electrical current thru water separates hydrogen and water molecules into two groupings attracting by positive or negative polarity..from which hydrogen gas can be abundantly produced for our energy needs if ever we can get around the very stubborn fossil fuel group who likely is behind the stubborn usfs still adamantly promoting ” fire” after destroying the entire 50 mile east side of the southernmost Rocky Mountain Chain.

    My father introduced me to the Pecos Wilderness in the 1950’s of which he made a rather quiet and modest career promoting “The Great Outdoors”. Thus it was very easy to determine how and why usfs employees could possibly have burned half the mountain off…certainly and absolutely ruining the lives of so many..on its simplest terms it is wrong to set fire to anything with total disregard for springtime bithing of all animals offspring helpless to escape , or indiscriminate burning of whatever future great trees to come now seedlings, ect ect ect…such is the work of lazy men ad woman mostly operating from a desk and artificail computer screen which has so little ability to give evidence of whats going on in the woods. In the area of Hermits Peak is habitat of birds called Orange Crowned Warbler which require low and dense vegetation which is exactly eliminated even when a prescribed burn works as theory planned. Truthfully an environmental study for habitat for such specie is long overdue. And on and on with the truth of the forgotten USFS 1960 Sustainable Forest Act.

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    • Great writing Tricky… Read the whole thing! When I work in people’s gardens I often think about what you said about how: “Forest should be carefully nurtured, pruned if you will, replanted, monitored and carefully designed.”

      That’s because if I prune a bush or tree a small amount once or twice a year after decades goes by there’s not much for problems or issues with the health of it or with what grows around it. What’s more because I worked with gardens I’ve pruned multiple times a year for decades, I know what’s worked and not worked and what I can ignore indefinitely and what has to be addressed sooner than later.

      However the entire basis of so called modern forestry, aka: tree farming is about stripping the land down to nothing and planting new trees and then coming back many decades later to do it all over again. Any work on the land in between liquidations that “improves” that forest with herbicides and cutting down anything that’s not a merchantable sawlog isn’t focused on a resilient ecosystem or ensuring healthier soil for future trees, but fattening up the crop as much as possible for the next slaughter.

      For example, your point about replanting the most appropriate type of trees for ecosystem survival isn’t relevant to the USFS because they only understand planting trees at scale for lumber production, not habitat production and we’re finally at the end time of USFS malfeasance. Their way of serving the forest has failed by every measure and it’s time to disband them and replace USFS with managers from US Fish & Wildlife service that aren’t driven by archaic capitalist agendas, but actual expertise in ecosystem science.

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    • I commend you for calling out the ignoramus puppets that sit way too high in their offices and bark out orders to do prescribed burns during the windiest time of year! How doped does a higher up have to be to be considered for a mental institute to approve a forest fire? And not just in Santa Fe Forest but in all parts of New Mexico! What form of negligence is considered to qualify for down right stupidity? I am sick of the term “Climate Change” as an excuse for brainless wonders to sit high on their hobby horse, getting big bucks to be off the wall stupid, yet considered for government offices… “Duh” is a great word, but I’d like to add another if I may; how about, “brainless wonder approved to take government offices and cheat the voter’s vote while sucking water for swimming pools and golf courses and draining wells of ‘lesser’ individuals all in the name of Power hungry self absorbed creep”!! I remember back when ‘We The People…’ could purchase a permit to go and pick up fallen limbs and timber, not to mention ground debris from the mountain forest floor. This would benefit not just the forests here, but also fund planting saplings in the mountains to renew growth. Being at the age of 75yrs, I remember “We The People…” having a say in this the United States of America, not a one world order, which is the plan of corrupt and down right evil.

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      • Kathy.. your comments are unnecessarily mean and not helpful You can critique policies without calling people bad names. You’ve probably learned and seen a lot in your 75 years and we could benefit from your observations, and we’d like to hear your views.. minus the name-calling.

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        • Sharon, I understand your concerns for my outrage. Yes I have seen and watched many uncalled for reactions of gravis concern by public officials that don’t have to live through their
          detremental decisions that impact the “citizens” of this Country. I have written letters and made phone calls from the time I was of voting age and with respect of the office that they held, but to no avail. I have seen the disregard of those attempts ignored. Now I see the shape this whole Country is in and wonder to myself, why did my family, including my husband, put their lives on the line in battle to volunteer for serving this Country only to see the disregard for them and their supporters to be looked down on. I appreciate you and all the persons that spoke here, and I apologize for any rude behavior on my part, but I will say that I finally received a very cordial reply and I thank you Sharon for that. Happiness to You and yours. Sincerely.
          Kathy

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  4. New York Times readers are of like mind:

    1) Every New Mexican knows that you don’t start fires during the months of April and May because the winds are consistently wily and accelerated.

    There were 10 other months the Forest Service could have safely done prescribed burns for the area, but instead they relied on this guy who is not from here and who not only destroyed our beautiful forests and communities, but defended himself for doing it.

    How is it that this man has not been fired?

    2. The victims of the fire should be compensated for their losses – no ifs, ands, or buts. The federal government started the fires and we should make that error good. And in a timely manner, no decades of hesitation and regurgitation.

    3. The failures by New Mexico forest service employees are not just inexcusable, they are unthinkable. Several specific conditions must all be met to launch a prescribed burn. All forestry personnel know that vast destruction can occur if the fire gets out of control, so it is never acceptable to proceed without confidence that all conditions are met. They were not met in the Los Alamos blaze some years ago. They were not met in the recent prescribed burns. These actions are professionally almost incomprehensibly reckless. Why is it only New Mexico where the Forest Service ignores the standards met by public and private foresters all across the US? Prescribed burns are a good thing but they are also the way that forestry professionals can destroy lives, homes and livelihoods. Something is wrong in New Mexico or this deadly violation of professional standards could not keep happening.

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    • Hi Bob, the article you wrote is entirely ignorant of how natural beetle kill cycles, if left undisturbed, create much more diverse forests and bigger trees with much healthier soils that are far more able to survive future droughts and disease.

      (Ref: “Lodgepole pine stands heavily hit by mountain pine beetles then left unmanaged for 25 years have become forests comprising an array of tree ages interspersed with standing and fallen snags. With their complex structure, these forests now provide valuable wildlife habitat and in some cases are also growing harvestable volumes of timber.” https://www.currentresults.com/Forests/Mountain-Pine-Beetle/there.php )

      And of course this actual science is considered blasphemy by you and USFS because your true objective / only way of understanding reality is to take as much as you can get from the forest rather than giving ever giving anything back by limiting disturbance. You even go as far as mentioning the idea of chipping up all the branches and hauling them off to market too. What? Have you ever thought that short-term greed creates a great deal of long-term loss and ecological need?

      Just like the USFS analysis in this discussion your “outright negligence” uses climate change as an excuse to not adapt archaic harmful management practices to new knowledge and dishonestly claim yet again that the only problem is there’s not enough logging.

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      • Hi Deane: Thanks for pointing out my ignorance and dishonesty. I’ll try to do better. Your analysis is superficial and irrelevant, as usual, but you still have a skill for mind-reading and colorful adjectives.

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        • Hi Bob, you seem to be an expert on what’s superficial and irrelevant when it comes to forestry…. But at lest you don’t feel bad about your “outright negligence” when it comes to solutions that makes the problem worse rather than better. If I were you I’d hate going to sleep at night because I know I’d wake up being unable to sleep because my career in forestry created way more problems than it ever solved.

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          • Lucky you’re not me then, Deane. Pretty sure you have no idea what you are talking about, per usual, but don’t stop now. That portable chipper and pruning sheers combination might revolutionize forest management yet. Probably not, but maybe.

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            • Yep… Just like these dummies that wiped out 532 sq. miles of once barely recovering logged-out landscape because just about anybody who calls themselves a forester, the first thing out of their mouth is always: “you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

              And after 30 years of focused study on advancing all the actual forest sciences rather than your loser timber industry dogma that never learns from mistakes just makes excuses, I totally agree that anyone who works for the timber industry is too stupid to actually understand 1% of what environmental activists understand when it comes to the health of an ecosystem.

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  5. Here are the quotes from Bob’s article:

    “emergency. This is real and it’s happening.This is the perfect storm, ” Newsom, 52, said as he stood on charred, smoky mountain terrain near Oroville in Northern California.

    Jay Inslee, Governor, Washington, September 11: “Fires have become commonplace, as predicted. Fires across the Pacific Northwest and California shouldn’t be called wildfires, but ‘climate fires’ …This is not an act of God,” lnslee said. “This has happened because we have changed the climate of the state of Washington in dramatic ways.”
    Kate Brown, Governor, Oregon, September 13: “The harsh reality is that we’re going to see more of these wildfires.

    They’re hotter, they’re more fierce, and obvi­ously much more challenging to tackle. And they are a sign of the changing cli­mate impacts … Climate change is here, it’s real, and it’s like a hammer hitting us in the head …And we have to take action…This is truly the bellwether for climate change on the West Coast,” Brown, a Democrat, said on “Face the Nation.” “And this is a wake-up call for all of us.”

    So Chief Moore is clearly not the first to blame wildfires/bad conditions for prescribed fire on climate change.

    As I see it, that leaves him, and the FS in a conundrum. Academics sign letters wanting more PB. Some ENGOs want PB instead of mechanical treatments (otherwise known as “logging” even if no mills are involved). Affected people do not want PB until the agencies have a better handle on it. It’s easy to blame that on “unscientific rural folks of the wrong political stripe” elsewhere, but not in New Mexico. They can still be unscientific, but not of the wrong political stripe. It should be interesting to watch how this plays out.

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  6. Only now , as Mother Nature and rains extinguish the fires no government can stop and should not be starting, its time to speak. Again if you cannot guarantee to put out a fire then you have no right or authority to start it.
    It makes no sense regarding the Calf Canyon Fire being caused by and responsibility accepted by USFS for that out of control prescription pile burn! No doubt USFS is the source . That would amount to gross negligence. What usfs calls a pile burn , or burn pile = burning a pile of slash or larger diameter logs . There safety procedure is required to have a safe zone surrounding of non flammable fuel sources and attended by usfs appointed personnel until such pile burn is completely consumed .( As said by the icon Smokey the Bear – “dead out”. ) The USFS. admission would indicate personnel abandoned the pile before all flammables were extinguished as in ” its 5 oclock lets go time for dinner or so similar lack of responsibility..From.late January thru February there were 5 back to back weekly winter snowfalls all moderate and all melting quickly rehydrating the forest and saving many trees from dying. The usfs claim is highly unlikely that a pile smoldering underneath for 2 and 1/2 months- unless they negligently abandoned what was a giant piled bonfire with flammables left behind = gross negligence. Such is a story of irresponsibility now called the worst fire in New Mexico history. The area destroyed is a big part of New Mexico history since the days of the Spanish conquistadors exploration and settlement. Those generational families justly require immediate and future care and compensation and be it said the lives they lived in the forest they loved will not be seen or felt again for the remainder of their lives nor for their children and granchildren as an entire century- 100 years before with only bountiful replanting, rebuilding and the help of Mother Nature can a man a woman a family look out their home doorfront and feel the enrichment of the Heavens and Earth. 100 years of healing and then only if the government submits to Justice for All.

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  7. A bit of advice for the PHD’s making a living with their theories , suggestions from research, non science= burn like the Indians did( nothing against modern Indian tribal culture- there lands , traditions, their business)all relied upon by USFS. Regarding photos posted ” just after a second burn near Santa Fe and peoples view of stark barren landscape with no fruit! Information from the Wisdom of Creation and Life Experience found in a mans back pocket , called learning by the seat of your pants; if you remove all the protective and not nuisance as usfs calls underbrush litter ect , leaving only tree stalks by the few here and there – those devasting bark beetles , pine tip months and multitudes of other foreign to American forest insects, have no place to go except the few trees remaining- the tree truck and nothing else boys and girls..when u leave the bushes brances and smaller trees the insects are going to land on that protective vegetation and serve to protect and deflect flying crawling insects . of couse that goes against the patience of a forester who just wants to see straight clear tree trunks and nothing else..and then theres the story of underground microbial life and nutrient uptake . And what fool who repeatedly burns all seedlings growing can claim to know which one of them or the trees left to grow were the best genetic species of the future.
    You do not know because you are not God , yet you extrapolate the latest summations of science which are really opinions of the decade into computer models. Nice offices , nice uniforms , nice vehicles , nice looking computer generated planning, looks good until the mountain has been destroyed by all that concise and highly fictional presentation , aka public appearance ” we get paid well to manage the nations forest”. Office workers do not make good tree farmers boys and girls. Caring for lovingly the forest, planting , pruning , harvesting is very hard work and requires on site experience.. Transfering employees from one forest to another eliminates any knowledge of the health of a particular mountain. A SUCCESSFUL TREE FARMER spends a life in one place. He learns and lives with one mountain zone. The SUCCESS OF FORESTRY lies it its simplicity to watch it work via the rules of MOTHER NATURE. Part of that rule is a man under the trees , planting, pruning, observing what goes on…if the same man plants 10,000 trees and watches their progress or failure he learns .. If the same man is transferred and another comes along he hasnt the perspective of much of anything…of course thats what caused Hermits Peak was a stranger in the woods just lighting it all up without knowing what except its 1200 acres on a map and todays the day..all be it other strangers far away whipped up the greater plan across America that we need to burn this many acres by some deadline…just a feel good ridiculous theory of how to manage what it calls overgrown forest and no time to mechanically thin. Whoever mandated such a theory couldnt care less about “all” resources in the forest . “Too many trees here , so lets just burn em out”. Burning up resource , denying public from utilization of resource…and now peoples homes and backyard paradise.
    All evidence indicates the USFS are lousy tree farmers , wildlife managers , stewards of the mountaintop now crispy black, ect, ect. Whoever runs the organization needs to go, retire, be fired and find. And rethink the necessary leadership from the top down . Maximum production with maximum sustainability! Burning down Los Alamos and 22 years later burning down the Las Vegas Mora all the way to SiPapPu and Angel Fire is about a cancer that needs removal…yet the voices of burn again , the voices that caused these disasters in New Mexico and other states continue . No excuse , no forgiveness is acceptable. Absolutely unconcionable for any proponent of fire to continue to preach that its ok if we burn down half a mountain and 600 or 700 hundred homes because ” hey our track record shows prescribe burns work 99% of the time! ” =

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  8. I’ve heard people exist in this world who possess the ability to understand two different facts can be in conflict, but also simultaneously be true.
    Yes. The forest service can be negligent. All it takes is a moment of inattention and I’m suing you for all your worth because a bee flew in your window while you were driving prior to smashing into that school bus.
    Yes. Climate change can seriously exacerbate said negligence.

    Were you driving 35 mph in a 35 mph zone when the bee flew in?
    Or, were you doing 120 mph in a 35 mph zone?
    If you’re doing 120 mph, the slightest deviation of the steering wheel sends you flying into oncoming traffic.
    The risk defines the damage and we’ve been cranking the risk nob beyond 11 for decades.

    So, some overworked and under paid GS-9 took their eye off the ball and everyone clutches for their pearls while ignoring risk nob stuck at 11.

    I’m shocked, shocked to find an agency that brokers in fire had a big one get away when the risk keeps climbing to the moon. Shocked, I tell ya.

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  9. What gets me is the FS did not have the resources to put the fires out when they first started to spread. Year after year i have watched as FS has spent millions managing these fires while waiting for rains to put them out. I read a term the other day I thought appropriate, blowtorch forestry.

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  10. Even bigger shocker is the burning of Americas western forest over the last several years may be other than accidental and or acts of God/ lightning / ect. Chinas industrialization begun with Richard Nixon may be the root cause of climate change and or climate wars aimed towards the USA. The unexplained logic of covid , and on to war with Russia and ever increasing drain on Americas economic future might give a wise man pause to consider!! Have a nice day America….Socrates might say that there is a plan to regrow damaged forest but without Americans watching , rather a plan back to the Virginia and Columbia as the continent was first discovered and colonized by the early explorers and the European Nations who made claims to those discoveries. Americans may have just been had!

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    • Preaching to the choir.
      I struggle to find a difference between humans and lemmings on a march.
      Outside of the fact that I’ve never seen a lemming use slaves for labor so they could have more money than they could spend.

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  11. Reading the report, my impression was that they went to great lengths to take the blame off of the individuals involved in the management of these two Rx burns. I don’t know if that was wise. I think a lot of people will read it and quickly come to the conclusion it is a whitewash. I think the people doing the review did an honest, sincere effort but there may have been an underlying blame avoidance. I don’t know. People make mistakes doing this kind of work. Any of us who have had a hand in prescribed burning have likely made some mistakes, I know I did. It’s just that some mistakes have little consequences and some have huge consequences. The mistakes made in this instance, turned out to have unbearable consequences.

    The report came up with some good suggestions for future actions. We’ll see how that goes. I remember the report that came out after the 30-Mile Fire and its long list of things that people were supposed to follow. It was well intentioned but became somewhat cumbersome. Checklists can serve a purpose, they work great for pre-flight air operations but they will not solve everything. The biggest things needed are: experience, top-notch training, the right equipment and enough of it, sufficient workforce, public support, and excellent leadership! All of this takes lots of money and time. But money will be spent, one way or another. Pay me now or pay me later.

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      • Good question. I think in the past, there was a tendency with these reviews to blame individuals closest to the actual incident while whitewashing the greater systemic problems of the Agency. Examples would be South Canyon, 30 Mile and others. Then there was a move away from that to where no blame was placed anywhere. I believe the Agency has some real leadership issues and things like that rarely come out in reviews like this. If you look at employee surveys, Senior Leadership does not score very well and hasn’t for years. Other Agencies score much better on their Senior Leadership and that tells something.

        One of the reasons I enjoy The Smokey Wire is because it provides a good variety of viewpoints and it makes me think. Your views are often different from a number of others here and that’s ok, in fact it is good. Sorting through the different ideas is a good thing.

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      • Do we have any examples when any fed/state/local agency doesn’t whitewash wrong doing? I’ll remind everyone of the Iron Law of Institutions:

        “The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution ‘fail’ while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to ‘succeed’ if that requires them to lose power within the institution.”

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  12. And then we have the conspiracy theories, too. Luckily, people who believe in Jewish Space Lasers and forest arson by ANTIFA and BLM haven’t quite arrived at this blog, yet. Similarly, the far left have their own ‘stories’ about wildfires and forest management, which have no merit.

    The Forest Service has their work cut out for them. Misinformation is a huge problem, from both sides.

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  13. Good question. I think in the past, there was a tendency with these reviews to blame individuals closest to the actual incident while whitewashing the greater systemic problems of the Agency. Examples would be South Canyon, 30 Mile and others. Then there was a move away from that to where no blame was placed anywhere. I believe the Agency has some real leadership issues and things like that rarely come out in reviews like this. If you look at employee surveys, Senior Leadership does not score very well and hasn’t for years. Other Agencies score much better on their Senior Leadership and that tells something.

    One of the reasons I enjoy The Smokey Wire is because it provides a good variety of viewpoints and it makes me think. Your views are often different from a number of others here and that’s ok, in fact it is good. Sorting through the different ideas is a good thing.

    Reply
  14. Guess it’s time to dive in here, 30Mile fire having been invoked. I was the lead investigator. When I convened the investigative team, fully aware of previous accusations of “whitewash” in South Canyon and that team members refused to sign the report, I vowed there would be NO WHITEWASH, and we would all be able to sign the report in good conscience. I strongly believe we succeeded in issuing a fair, competent analysis, concluding there were grievous mistakes made at ALL levels of the FS.
    We did assign blame (shared by many) and named names, but discipline (not our job) came later. The real tragedy? After many, many mistakes EVERYONE should have survived a horrendous burnover because they selected (in my view) the ONLY survivable location in a box canyon. 14 of 18 did survive, but 4 died due to poor leadership in a crisis, and fateful personal choice.
    The systemic failure we described is one that remains today (though improvements have occurred): pursuing risky behaviors when conditions warrant stepping away from a “lost situation”.

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    • I forgot you were the lead investigator, Jim. I guess it was far back enough that my memory was a little fuzzy. I did read the book though when it came out, which I thought McLean did a good job with. I was probably conflating the investigation report with the Agency’s follow up afterwards. I just looked it up and the Agency sought disciplinary action on 11 employees, ranging from termination to reprimand. The Agency eventually reduced most of the disciplinary actions and no one was terminated. Ellreese Daniels was brought up on criminal charges and plead guilty to two charges of lying to an investigator.

      To my knowledge, and I certainly could be wrong about this, he is the only FS person that has ever been convicted criminally for any of these fire related incidences. Did that send the right message to employees? I don’t know. There are probably members of the public that want to see that kind of thing. Certainly, family members of deceased employees want to see things like that sometimes. Ellreese didn’t get to that fateful day in a vacuum, there were a number of people that played a role in that. Having a person that was not up to the job, in charge of people’s lives in what turned out to be an extremely dangerous situation, lead to a very bad outcome.

      I just don’t think that the higher up the chain you go with these things, such as in New Mexico, that anyone will pay a price. I think it is extremely rare for a line officer to pay a price, even down to the District Ranger level. How many times have Senior Leaders messed up with something, even Regional Foresters, and they find a nice safe place for them in the WO?

      I completely agree with your last statement. Improvements have been made, for sure, but there are still problems as you suggest.

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  15. Shortly after I retired there was a 2 fatality Cramer Fire in Salmon River Canyon… I believe For Supv got hit pretty hard. Helo could not extract people due to smoke/poor visibility (in a fire area? surprise!). I think you are right that Daniels has been only criminal conviction. I still wonder what he lied about. Possibly that he’d advised everyone to “gather on the road” 3x… some of our interviews seemed to confirm he said this; others not.
    One statement from McLean’s 30Mile fire book stuck out to me: Chief Bosworth was quoted saying “One thing I learned was never blame the victims.” And our amended report reflected that sentiment. All I can say, from personal experience, is this: rare is the accident where I have had NO BLAME in my own injury or suffering. Think about it…

    Reply
    • You made me want to dust off the cobwebs of the Cramer Fire. The Type III IC did get probation (not a criminal conviction) and lost his job. He was allowed to reapply to the FS after his probation, I don’t know if he did. I believe the Forest Supervisor and DR did receive some type of administrative punishment.

      After this, there was a movement in the FS to emphasize being a “Learning Organization” and assigning blame to individuals was seen as counter-productive in this effort. There is some merit to this, but it can possibly be taken too far. The issue can come down to were legitimate mistakes made or was there gross negligence? I like your analogy of personal accidents. Almost always when I have screwed something up, it was because I got in a hurry or cut corners. I probably knew better but dismissed my own concerns as not having merit, later having to admit that they indeed had merit.

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  16. Not sure if this story was posted so we could have a good old head bashing/scoring bias points or to have an intelligent discussion of the findings of the report (heads up it wasn’t Climate Change.) To take the first line statement from Chief Moore excluding the rest of the foreword is doing everyone a disservice. Read the whole foreword and see:

    “Fires are outpacing our models and, as the final report notes, we need to better understand how megadrought and climate change are affecting our actions on the ground. We must learn from this event and ensure our decision-making processes, tools, and procedures reflect these changed conditions.”

    and:

    “I hope you will read the entire report to truly understand how this fire went from a prescribed fire, in which the employees involved followed all procedures and policies, to a fire that escaped its containment lines and became the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history…..”

    It’s a foreword, a state of facts, not a conclusion or blame.

    Does anyone want to discuss the findings or is this just for head bashing and throwing out rhetoric?

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    • I think I was attempting to blunt the bashing and put things in a larger perspective. My comments upthread don’t go into specifics (my wife — FS fuels planner read it in full and we discussed) but essentially capture the takeaway from my point of view. The speeding driver analogy is spot on.

      I’m happy to discuss them though. Seems nobody took my bait. Might’ve scared the would be commenters off.

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    • You make a good point and I took another look at the report. It has a lot of good information. The findings and lessons learned are really pretty good. But when you read through them, it gives the impression that a number of things in the planning and implementation of the rx burn were overlooked, missed or dismissed. You can follow all policy and procedures and still miss a lot of stuff, as it seems here. You can follow a plan to a T but what if the plan is not a good plan?

      There are a number of good recommendations in the report. But I don’t think the greater, systemic issues are emphasized. Line Officers, Fire Managers and Rx burn implementers need extensive training to do complex burns. If we are going to ask them to do this kind of work, they deserve to be very well trained with significant experience under Rx burn experts. If this doesn’t happen, then maybe this kind of burning shouldn’t take place.

      I don’t know if I buy the climate change issue as part of the blame. Yes, I believe climate change is real but when you implement an Rx burn, you evaluate the conditions that you have on the ground, however they got that way.

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      • “Yes, I believe climate change is real but when you implement an Rx burn, you evaluate the conditions that you have on the ground, however they got that way.”

        BINGO!

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        • Total agreement, Andy. Prescribed burning is a weather-related operation and has nothing at all to do with “climate change.” The climate is always changing, and the people using this as an excuse to explain poor workmanship should immediately stop being paid by taxpayers. They are either grasping at straws to deflect blame, or they have no idea what the hell they are talking about and should be ignored. And looking for other employment, in my opinion.

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      • Yes you plan and implement based on conditions on the ground and current weather. I think it is a mistake to read into this report that climate change is to blame. No, climate change has brought us to this point in time but our mindset, planning, policies, processes and personal experiences are still in a different climate scheme. The Hermits burn plan was flawed as stated in the Conclusions section (it’s wording sucks since it said we checked all the boxes and did it by standards and policy “BUT” “the conditions changed… etc “- pretty lame, if the conditions changed why continue with an outdated plan). Understanding current weather patterns due to the current climate/drought is paramount, yesterdays thinking won’t cut it.

        The Calf Canyon burn pile: Do you think current policy, standards, procedures and experience would say a burn pile from January would reignite three month later thru multiple wetting events? Yes, it can and does happen but I think it points to the lack of understanding of the current climate conditions and how it drives local weather and weather patterns.

        Climate drives weather and weather patterns. To predict or anticipate weather you need to know the climate regime you are in. To exclude the role of climate in this discussion serves no purpose. To blame this fire on climate change serves no purpose. It become a wedge issue based on rhetoric.

        The fire plan was wrong for current conditions and the response to the pile reignite was flawed. Lots of people and decisions to blame for this one. And for those that need heads to roll and careers extinguished, someone will pay, but probably not at a high enough level or with the public fanfare you demand.

        Now that the USFS has done their investigation, I would support an external review with recommendations. Not a fan of inbreeding 🙂

        Reply
      • How precisely does one evaluate a start that duffs around underground for a year?
        Here’s a a link to an NPR story on a 20 season fire lookout on the Gila: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/20/1106193379/a-new-mexico-firewatcher-describes-watching-his-world-burn

        If you listen to the 6 min story (it’s not in the article) he describes digging down into the exposed earth under old giants that had fallen over exposing the entire root wad. He dug down at the bottom of the exposed pit to try and find moisture. There was none. He said he could use the roots he unearthed for kindling.

        Now, this isn’t commentary good or bad, one way or another, in re the USFS. But it seems plain to me given the conditions on the ground that if the primary goal moving forward is to protect private property owners, then the agency can’t PB at all.

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  17. These days only about 500,000 bison inhabit North America or less than 1 percent of their historic range, just 3 percent of the Earth’s land surface remains untouched by human development and a sixth mass extinction is underway. Urban sprawl, accelerated global warming and drought are reducing productivity on the remaining grasslands of the Great Plains, according Dr. Jeff Martin. He’s the Director of Research at the Center of Excellence for Bison Studies at South Dakota State University. “The key is maintaining a high level of diversity and innovation to enhance sustainable solutions to climate change impacts. The Center of Excellence for Bison Studies aims to continue to support diverse, innovative, and precision research and practices for all bison stewards,” he writes.

    There are no mysteries here. Every incident like the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak Fire is a teaching moment. These are episodes where humans are humbled by climate disruptions created by our own failures.

    People who build in the wildland-urban interface do so at their own risk and not because they expect the feds to bail them out but because insurance companies won’t cover fire-prone properties. Not talking about fuel treatments during a wildfire is akin to not talking about background checks during a mass shooting.

    The solutions are simple. We must talk more about how stakeholders and policy makers interact with voters instead of reacting to Republican cattle and timber industry propaganda. We’ll adapt or die.

    Clear the second growth ponderosa pine, restrict non-native cattle, conduct fuel treatments, restore aspen and other native hardwoods, build wildlife corridors, empower tribal nations like the Picuris Pueblo and Confederated Salish and Kootenay Tribes in Montana then approximate Pleistocene rewilding with bison and cervids.

    Reply

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