http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_re_us/wildfires

Prayers to the families and friends.

They do note that trees are torching, meaning that green trees are dying. The purpose of the WFU is allegedly to impart “forest health.” It is difficult to understand how killing green trees indiscriminately with wildfire accomplishes that goal. In fact, it is just more BS from a fire-happy, anti-stewardship agency that has squandered their budget on pointless (and illegal) holocausts.

The Maximum Management Areas (MMA’s) have been set in advance, but it requires a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to pry them loose. They are secret documents made in the total absence of any NEPA process and represent the areas the USFS wishes to illegally incinerate by wildfire.

I believe the MMA for the northern Rocky Mountains is 4 million acres in size. That’s what the USFS has alleged, at any rate. I do not know if that includes the Caribou-Targhee NF.

MMA’s are completely flexible in any case. Fire managers routinely violate the alleged secret boundaries. During the Warm WFU Fire on the Kaibab in 2006, the MMA was “resized” four times during the fire until 58,000 acres were burned. The Warm WFU also directly violated a federal court order, but nobody went to jail for it or even got their hand slapped.

The Clover WFU Fire in June (this year) blew up and burned 15,000 acres, much of it far outside the MMA. The Gunbarrel WFU Fire is burning outside the MMA right now. It makes little difference to USFS managers.

A statement of the MMA pre-set acreage is required on the 209’s for WFU fires. That box is almost never filled in. I note that lack of proper reporting on every WFU I post about. It does no immediate good to do that, since the USFS doesn’t give a rat, but I am building a record of their incompetence and criminality for my own future use.

Yet they have plans to burn out vast tracts of national forest and private lands. Those plans are on the books and are well documented. The Flag Knoll Fire or it’s equivalent was planned long ago. They have maps of the area they wish to burn. All the apparatus (personnel, equipment) to burn it has been prepared and is at the ready. All they were waiting for was the lightning to strike within the multi-million acre intentional burn zone.

Please see SOS Forests [here] for further discussion of this issue.

Came across this information and was wondering if the FEDS have to do NEPA during wildland fire operations? I have heard that during suppresion operations many different micro/macro environmental dependent species could be poorly influenced by certain activities performed during fire extinguishment?

Joanna is doing a great job, as evidenced by her reading and responding to your posts, among other things. Unfortunately, she is the exception.

The “technical” difference you accurately portray between “watching” and “monitoring” a wildfire is splitting hairs. In both instances, the fire is allowed (”let”) to burn. No effort is made in either case to contain it or put it out, no matter the ocular and “professional” involvement.

Also, “hall monitors” rarely issued reports in my High School, either, and I think the sophomoric actions and rationales of today’s USFS are merely following that lead. So much for “professionalism” or “accountability.” I only hope you’re right about a day of reckoning and revulsion at some (hopefully soon) point.

Her job is to put a happy face on a catastrophe. I do not envy her task, nor do I blame her for the situation as it exists.

There is a technical difference between monitoring and just watching. Monitoring implies that the monitor is somehow measuring and recording data for a report. That report might be written or verbally transmitted via a radio.

However, since written reports are never issued, and very often the radio repeater system is dysfunctional, and the monitors can’t see the fire anyway for the smoke, the sad fact is that so-called monitoring is really nothing more than mindless gaping at the fire.

In fire after fire this year, the fire managers have called for aerial infrared detection flights. That’s because on-the-ground monitors can’t see shinola and have no idea what the fire is doing. Only aerial observers equipped with technical sensing devices can produce useful information.

The whole idea of sending youths out to “monitor” fires from the ground is romantic nonsense. What’s worse, it puts those youths in harms way and many tragic consequences can and do result.

One of these days the USFS is going wake up out of its dream world and it will be a massive shock to the system. Dreamland Orwellian gibberish is killing our forests, and when a significant number of employees realize what they have done and what they are doing, there will be a major mutiny and systemic insurrection. The leadership is holding on by a thin thread right now, which could snap apart at any time.

Thanks for all the information and clarification! You have provided a wealth of insight on both the Flag Knoll Fire and on BLM (federal) policy regarding WFU fires.

Two points of clarification are in order, however: 1) there is zero (no) difference between watching (”monitoring”) a wildfire and “letting it burn.” That is just semantics, on your (and the federal government’s) part. You either put a fire out or you let it burn. Anything in between is just word games.

2) What is good for deer (and the minute part of the US biped population who hunt them in your area of Idaho, and, probably, introduced wolves), is likely not good for butterflies or songbirds. “Wildlife” is not limited to ungulates and their predators. It is limited to wild (usually animal) life. The ESA even says to not play favorites; at least on federal lands.

Mike is right. If the beneficial effects of logging (including their benefits to local deer, wolf, and hunter populations and as an economical and safe method of fuel management) require NEPA, so should/must wildfire. That’s just common sense. And the law (at least the way it appears to be written).

As an information officer, I hope you realize that public discussions such as this are an efficient and effective way to transmit data and ideas to others. Certainly the tone of the discussion can’t be perceived as any more adversarial that that used by Environmental activists and their legal representatives, and the content is far more immediate and useful.

Please keep up the good work!

Please remember that our local website is updated daily with .1 acre fires to big fires. We decided to use this tool instead of Inciweb so it would be easier for the public and media to find local fire information. Inciweb is a good tool sometimes, like teams, but for our local fires, we find our website to be much earlier and better for all. If we get an incident management team in our area, then we will start using Inciweb but it will always be linked into our local website.

If you have further questions about our fires in eastern Idaho, please check our website or phone line. Our phone numbers are also located on our website if you need to get ahold of us.

Good luck in your stat findings! This is my last note.

Another was put together by some great people up in Butte County who just did a darned good job updating info on the BTU Complex and are very good at providing resource information to local residents affected by the fire. The site is [here]

Another great site is this one which shows national forest resources for the Sierra Nat’l Forest and their assigned areas. All the units are listed, [here].

Good luck to all concerned and affected by this incident and God bless the fire personnel. — Dave

The way NEPA law is written, it does not matter whether the impacts are allegedly beneficial or detrimental. What matters is if they are significant. The point of the NEPA process is to sort out the various impacts and weigh them all in an open, participatory fashion, and to create a documentary record for judging outcomes later.

Most if not all proposed projects are proposed precisely because they are thought to be beneficial. That does not excuse them from NEPA.

For more discussion on the effects of fire on flora, fauna, soils, water, air, recreation, heritage, public health, public safety, economics, and other considerations, please read Shall the USFS Allow Fires to Incinerate Our National Forests?, a series currently being posted at SOS Forests [here].

There are other ways to achieve healthy forests than by burning them in the middle of summer. I would argue that burning with no forest preparation in the middle of summer degrades numerous resources and does not lead to healthy forests at all. I base that opinion on a wealth of evidence collected during my 35 years as a professional forester.

Those other ways, the ones that actually do achieve healthy forests, must undergo the NEPA process. So too should unprepared fires. The damages wrought to 800,000 acres of the Payette, Boise, and Nez Perce NF’s by catastrophic fires last year are extreme and will impact natural resources in central Idaho for decades. We need a better way to manage our public forests than simply burning them. That does not lead to good outcomes. Incineration is not stewardship.

Between you and me, this is the place to go hunting this fall and all the locals know this little bit of information. Soon the grasses will be growing and sprouts from other vegetation will be coming up out of the black. That is what the animals love! So the animals are back in the fire, quite often, as the fire is just passing. You see this fire is not a raging wildfire, it may make a few runs up a hillside, but for the most part, this fire is burning hot here and there and not burning other locations. This is a very healthy burn and one that we like to see.

The reason you have not heard about this fire before on some of those national websites and reports is because they only report larger fires and for quite awhile this fire has not been very large, so you have not heard about it on those sites. I will ask our dispatch center to please add more information, but you can always get it from us or our website.

I talked to my husband last night and he said the fire was pretty quiet yesterday. I am sure it will make some more fire runs up some hills and get larger, but it is only doing good.

I know I will not convince you of this, nor am I trying too. I am just trying to give you all the information as why we are doing what we are doing in this area.

Unlike other areas, our WFU fires around here, in the past, have not turned into those megafires that you are talking about. Actually, I was an information officer in McCall last year on several of the WFU fires in that area. Yes, some areas did burn really hot, but for the most part those fires just tinkered around and made a run up a hill here and there. The megafires were those that were actually wildfires and not being managed under WFU. Although at one point the WFU we were managing did close the Salmon River, but only for a short period of time.

I do not have costs on our fire to date, but that is another reason why we do this, to keep costs down. But that is not the main reason. Their are approximately 35 fire fighting personnel on the fire. No estimated time for containment, snow or rain will determine that. No roads or trails are closed either, at this time.

Please let me know what else you may need. We are working on getting more information posted. Thanks for letting us know! We are working on making those changes.

If the BLM has done all that prior to initiating the Flag Knoll WFU, great. Please supply the documented proof.

If not, please cease and desist from illegal activities.

Thank you.