Here goes! I’m about to put my foot in it. But in the immortal words of the movie, “I’m sick and tired of this and I’m not going to take it any longer!”
I’ve watched as the Forest Service managers BOTCHED putting out the Tamarack Fire when it was easy to put out, now from Grovers Hot Springs to Topaz Ranch Estates, it looks like a nuclear bomb went off. So many folks directly hurt by this, in lost homes and lost property values, etc.
Next up, a small fire in Grizzly Flats near Placerville has burned all the way to Heavenly Valley. Why? Because, once again, the Forest Service managers failed to put it out when it was small.
The forest services (federal and state) will give their usual argument about managing limited resources. They knew about the dry fuel. They knew about the winds. They knew about the heat. They should have been much more pro-active and asked for assistance in the form of massive amounts of additional federal and state firefighting ability (usually air-attack) to put these fires out while they were still small instead of waiting until they become monsters and then have to call for the “professionals” (Class 1 and 2 fire bosses) who admit that all they could do was try to “herd” the fire away from homes and communities in California and into Nevada instead.
I cannot leave out the Sierra Club who killed the logging industry in California. Loggers were quite responsible in managing all the forests to reduce ground fuels, grow healthy trees properly spaced apart, etc. They were stopped in order to save the spotted owl. I wonder if the spotted owl appreciates flying over 100s of thousands of acres of burnt-out forests, thankful that loggers had not disturbed their homes? I wonder if lumber would be anywhere as expensive as it is right now, if we had access to all the lumber available in the Sierras? Think about all the lumber that has now burned up instead. If you need lumber, does that make you mad?
So where do we go from here? You know the adage? When you keep doing the same thing over and over, that’s the definition of insanity! We need to act in our legislatures to push for changes in the way forests are managed, instead of leaving them to grow into major fire hazards. We need to erase the legal protections surrounding Forest Service managers. Right now, all that happens to them is they maybe suffer a little bad press, then say, “My bad.” Then, they get to keep making the same insane decisions, which keep causing these monster fires. If they are grossly negligent, they should suffer massive fines and possible jail-time, just like the rest of us who might accidentally start a fire are currently subject to.
Contact your Assembly and Senate representatives, also the governor. Demand action to make massive changes in the way the forest services (federal and state) handle putting out small fires and bring back logging to the forests. To find your state representatives, for Nevada go to https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=9c2cd4575624417fa56fd084a7ee4dd9
Did you hear? Psalm 83:14 says, “As fire consumes the forest, as the flame sets the mountains ablaze…”
Kelly Bullis is a Certified Public Accountant in Carson City. Contact him at 882-4459. On the web at BullisAndCo.com. Also on Facebook.
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