The Smoke Has Finally Cleared

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I was out in the Carr Fire burn area today. It’s quite devastating to see the thousands of burned acres of forest. This fire destroyed over 1600 structures, but it also killed millions of trees. We are faced with an epic fire salvage operation that will take years to complete. That will be followed by an equally epic reforestation program

17 thoughts on “The Smoke Has Finally Cleared”

    • Yes, we are just beginning our salvage logging operations on our company lands. It is a race to harvest the dead trees before the wood goes bad. This is a massive process that will take at least two years. There is also timber on small privately owned parcels that we are buying. The greatest amount of dead timber is on the the federal land. I expect they’ll harvest along the roads, but not much else. It’s unfortunate because those are your trees.

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    • No, it isn’t how they used to handle salvage timber. Plus, this isn’t an official policy change. The Forest Service has lost most of their expertise on how to do this type of project along with the will to do it. Many folks in the agency don’t agree with harvesting timber and the NEPA process that they go through to develop a salvage project is easily challenged by by people or groups that disagree.

      Interestingly, your question about whether someone could harvest dead trees, there is a program. The Forest Service used to write what was called “green sheets” for people who located salvage and wanted to harvest it for sale. Unfortunately, it is no longer used. Firewood permits still allow people cut dead trees, but it’s a drop in the bucket.

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      • Dreadful waste on a massive scale! Not for nuthin and of far less import, in 2007 or so, an article found that NY spent $350,000/year cleaning up roadkill and that over 100,000/year of deer alone were killed , in the tri-state area. I sent an idea to the state to fund a feasibility study on pooling hunters and licensed personnel who could determine status of the meat at the kill site, for harvest to the benefit of animal shelters. Animal lovers could assist. Crickets of course. I bet there are tons of ways we could reclaim what we put to waste. Sorry, just came to mind and had to put it somewhere.

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    • We had some rain, but that passed and now we’re back under red flag conditions. There have been a number of fires, but they’ve been brought under control quickly. October can be a bad month since our rain doesn’t kick in until November. There is a lot that could be done, but what needs to happen isn’t high on the priority list of the great state of California.

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  6. I am glad to see thaht the fired have under control very quickly. It should be a very hard job to cut of the dead trees but I suppose you are doing that already. And like us, you didn’t have any rain… In France we have rivers nearly dry as well as some lakes.. it is just terrible.
    Have a good week Tim and I hope some rain..
    chatou

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    • We have rain coming tonight and with that the end of fire season. It is only the second real storm since last May. It will be very welcome. We are harvesting the dead trees now. There are so many that it may take 2 years or more to complete the job.

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Let me know what you think!