Re: RC: Re: RE: Politics, Fires and Trails

["Duncan Fletcher" <dfletche@gte.net>]

I stated they tend to spend money on pre commercial thinning. I am not
certain any timber company does any controlled burns - it would not suprise
me if they were legally prohibited from doing so. I have no idea whether
that timber company is doing a good job of managing their property, but the
fact that a fire started on their property is not evidence of poor
mangagement. The nature of the fire would be more indicative. A fire that
burned low without destroying mature trees is a 'good' fire. There are also
a lot of regional differences. Had a discussion a couple of months ago with
some FS folks about controlled burns and their specific applicability to
western Washington. There are none - the west side of the Cascades naturally
operates on a average fire cycle of 500 years - a fire that doesn't occur
very often, but will probably be a doozy when it occurs. Not sure how to
plan for that one.

Duncan Fletcher
dfletche@gte.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol Thompson" <CYThompsonFL@webtv.net>

> Not all the private timeber companies do better.  The fire in our area
> during Florida's firestorm in '98 started on private land owned by a
> timber company who had not and still has not done any controlled burning
> (to my knowledge, maybe they got smart).  On the other hand, controlled
> burning is frequent on the Merritt Island Nat'l Wildlife Refuge, which
> encompasses the Kennedy Space Center.  While these controlled burns
> sometimes are not completely controlled, they seem to serve the purpose
> of protecting 2 National Resources - the refuge and the Space Shuttle.
> They have recently been working to restore the scrub jay's habitat.
>
> Carol in FL
>