No it hasn't. For a century the policy of the NFS has been to put the fire out by 10 am the next day. Remember Smokey the Bear? That is what has caused the problem. The NFS has also allowed all of thier land to get way overgrown with both trees and understory.
I will say is select areas they and BLM are allowing fires to burn out and have reintroduced fire ecology. However, they are still planting non-fire resitant trees (loblolly pine) instead of the fire resitant tree (long leaf pine) in the pine forests here in the south. The NFS people I have met here in the south would be lucky to find thier asses with both hands and a road map. A properly maintained forest should look like a park with a tree density of between 150 and 500 trees per acre and no or little understory. The are are plots of USFS land that have densities approaching 10000 trees per acre. And this isn't just aproblem in the south. In Colorado, there are places under NFS stewardship that have been allowed to overgrow badly. I have seen photographs from the 1930 and from 2000 of places in Colorado and the forest density is significantly denser today than 70 years ago. > The latter has been the rule for several decades now, at least for > lands managed by the National Forest Service. The trouble is with > 'unpopulated'. With our ever spreading population that area is > getting smaller and smaller. These horrible fires are in places where > some developer went in and built a huge subdivision spreading through > the woods. Then those who buy the properties do not or will not > understand the requirements to maintain their land. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Get involved in the latest ColdFusion discussions, product development sharing, and articles on the Adobe Labs wiki. http://labs/adobe.com/wiki/index.php/ColdFusion_8 Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:241227 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
