✏️ Stupidhead
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It's all just legal gambling.
We've been gambling recently that the cost of Forest Fires via insurance won't outweigh the cost of prevention via taxes.
As insurance companies are declining forest fire protection in areas... suddenly the cost of prevention seems more reasonable. Either way, home owners are paying. It's just a question of WHO they are paying. Previous Message
Agree on pre-emptive fire management in populated areas.
Question the efficacy of a forest service road in and of itself as a fire break as doesn't fire typically jump from tree to tree and forest service / logging roads typically are relatively narrow. But they are something.
Understand that roads provide access to move firefighters and equipment more readily and efficiently than smokejumpers, but roads can't go everywhere.
Regarding the human element, maybe I'm cynical from seeing so much bad behavior in National Parks and other areas, more access probably means more fires be it from accidental idiots or arsonists.
At the end of the day, I'm good with pre-emptive fire management. My concerns are 1) Where does the funding come from, 2) Interpretation of what this means - removal of dead wood / selective logging / clear cutting, and 3) Where will this done - focus on populated areas, leave remote unpopulated areas (large areas of Alaska) alone.
And when this comes out shortly after bulldozers start rolling through a National Park (though that may be on a pause) I have concerns about how this will be interpreted.
On another note...thanks for the heads-up years ago on RYCEY. Wish I wasn't such a poor and put real money into it. And good call on NLST. I didn't have the patience.
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to this ruling because I haven't even read it and don't know the specifics of it.
I'll just offer my opinion as someone who lives out west in high fire zone areas.
We absolutely need more pre-emptive fire management. Roads (which will be seldom used by the general public in these areas) are a great fire break which can help quarantine the spread of fires. They also provide real access for crews to mobilize and actually fight the fires. Growing up in the Midwest, I had no idea what a smokejumper was. Here, you quickly understand that that is the primary way to get firefighters into these areas because there is no other access. It's an insanely dangerous and marginally effective way to combat fires. Last, I'd much rather have a seldom used road going through the pristine forest, along with some areas of selective logging than have the entire forest burned to a crisp because we chose to do nothing to manage it.
Forest fires are a major threat out here. I've got a lake house in the middle of Washington and my house in North Idaho....four hours apart. Both have been surrounded by smoke and fires for the past 2 months. Billions of dollars of damage has been done to homes and other structures this summer just in my area.
Something needs to be done or its all going to be burned out. Just this summer and last approx. a half million acres around my lake house have burned....just an insane amount of forest.
And regarding the human element, I know of 1 fire that was accidentally started by a person. It was done on the outskirts of Omak, Wa and spread quickly due to high winds that day and went into national forest lands and Canada. The others are all due to either lightening strikes or are set on purpose by arsonists....and the latter is the reason for most of them. The Spokane fire a couple of weeks back was an arsonist and he admitted he had started 25 others in the past. There was also a fire in CDA that week and people have very clear photos of what appears to be a tranny starting them. That person hasn't been caught yet...but all this to say that selective logging and some access roads won't be the issue of more fires starting, but they might be the reason they are contained and put out easier.
probably just another real jerk in life
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on August 19, 2026, 15:36:23, in reply to "