Author,
Chuck Frank

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 Once upon a time, some years ago I lived in Paradise, CA. which was a beautiful town.  I remember that many times I walked the flume along the Feather River which had been built slightly above the river by the electric company.  And since the Camp Fire just went through the town I wonder if that portion of the forest had also vanished. The fire is one of the saddest burns ever, displacing so many people. The property, much of what is private, was covered with thousands upon thousands of evergreen trees.  Because of the devastation of the burn, there now needs to be a total reassessment of how forested public lands are managed and now we must forge ahead with a new vision of how lands and people must be protected from fire.  The previous forestry blueprint laid the groundwork for seasonal fires to move dramatically and rapidly to where they would not only burn uncontrollably, they would also burn for months until the rains came.  The infernos, then and now were still part of a policy that did not lend itself to proper preventative fire management which would include protective firebreaks and the thinning of trees, whether it be on public or private property.

   Around the year 2010 I interviewed the Tahoe National Forest supervisor who has since retired and he then shared how the management of the federal forests was actually an “experiment.”  So, there is no real science going on here, and with 300 million people in America at risk, previous policies which allowed fires to burn naturally from lightning strikes does not consider the risks involved and the safety of the people. More