Grand Canyon Forest Holocaust Planned
The Grand Canyon National Park is planning to deliberately set fire to the North Rim forests in a grand experiment known as the Walla Valley Prescribed Fire. This experimental holocaust has been subject to zero, nada, the empty set NEPA process. There has been no EIS written, no public involvement, and not the slightest gesture towards compliance with the environmental laws of the United States of America.
From the GCNP Press Release of June 16th [here]:
Grand Canyon, Ariz. - A prescribed fire is scheduled to take place on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park in the next several days if conditions allow. The 6,200-acre Walla Valley prescribed burn unit is located in the Walla Valley and Point Sublime area, approximately 5 miles west of the North Rim developed area.
In an effort to simulate natural fire events in the north rim forests, the Walla Valley prescribed burn will use a point source ignition technique intended to mimic receiving a group of lightning ignitions. These ignition points will be allowed to burn in all directions in the same way a naturally ignited fire would burn. The fire is expected to burn over a period of at least 3 weeks, exposing it to a variety of weather and wind conditions. As a result, it is expected that the effects of the Walla Valley prescribed burn will more closely resemble a natural fire then the effects seen on most conventional prescribed burns.
The spit-on-the-law criminal elements responsible include Maureen Oltrogge, Shanna Marcak, Robert Dauphinais, Assistant Supervisor, and Steve Martin, Superintendent, Grand Canyon.
The National Park Service is infamous for horrendous forest fires that do extreme damage and cost $billions. In 1988 the NPS burned up nearly half of Yellowstone N.P., the original and most treasured of all our national parks. In 2000 the NPS deliberately set fire to Bandelier National Monument, and their fire escaped. The Cerro Grande Fire burned up half of Los Alamos and left a bill of over a billion dollars in the taxpayer’s lap.
In 2000 the NPS deliberately set fire to the Grand Canyon NP North Rim forest in a mistake called the Outlet Fire. That fire also forced evacuation of the Park. In 2007 their sister agency, the Kaibab NF, deliberately burned 58,000 acres of old-growth spotted owl habitat adjacent to the North Rim, in utter defiance of a Federal court order commanding them not to do that. (For reference, see Back to the Rim [here]).
But learning from past mistakes is not their style. Repeating them is.
So once again an incompetent crew of headstrong, middle-finger waving government functionaries are going to roast the holy hell out of the North Rim. The Walla Valley Prescribed Fire will cost $millions (money that has NOT been allocated by Congress for the purpose), do extreme damage to heritage forests, historical sites, wildlife habitat, scenery, and tourism in a National Park, probably escape the pathetic “controls” planned by the pathetic GCNP fire team, possibly kill firefighters, assuredly kill endangered species, and all be done illegally, with no NEPA, no EIS, no ESA Section 7 consultations, no NHPA Section 6 consultations, etc.
Just wild and crazy government-employed eco-terrorists hellbent on burning a National Park to ashes.
Business as usual in Amerika. Burn baby burn.
by Chauncy
And whoosh, there she goes!
They lit off the North Rim on purpose this evening at 6:21 PM, AZ time. Today, after record high temps and lightning storms visited AZ and NM. With more of the same predicted for tomorrow, including winds 20 to 30 mph.
We will be tracking this fiasco at W.I.S.E. Fire Tracking [here].
One thing is for sure, the original inhabitants would have NEVER set a major conflagration at the end on June. People have lived on the Kaibab Plateau for thousands of years, they burned regularly, but in early spring or fall, not in the dead of summer. That would have been suicide.
But the GCNP has no clue how to manage their landscape, in part because they are extreme racists who are in utter denial about the original inhabitants and their ancient lifeways, and in part because they are blindly ignorant about forests and forest ecology.
Your tax dollars used to destroy your heritage landscapes by recalcitrant public servants without a clue. Another American tragedy in the works.
Where are the loonytoon leftist enviros when you need them? They should be tying themselves to the trees to prevent them from being burned. They thought it was such a great idea to climb and camp out in trees here in Oregon to prevent them from being cut, but no word from the commune types when the forests are to be burned to a crisp! Break out the marshmallows and pass me a stick.
The World is upside down and back assward. Destruction is called rejuvenating and burning is called conservation. Where do they get these ideas?
Real scientists and people who care about the forests wouldn’t recommend “treatments” like these being considered in GCNP. If anyone else tried it they would be thrown in jail, which is where these perps belong.