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luckystrike_bh t1_j7t6r86 wrote

Yeah, that's why I spent a month breathing smoke last year. Poor forest management.

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iamlucky13 t1_j7tiqu5 wrote

The Bolt Creek Fire was on federal land. It's not managed by the DNR.

In fact, a big portion of the burn area was wilderness area, so it's deliberately not managed. If the Forest Service tried, there are several groups of lawyers waiting and ready to sue them, including the group in Montana that is currently trying to prevent the USGS from monitoring our volcanoes adequately.

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XelfinDarlander t1_j7tygni wrote

What? Why don’t they want volcanoes monitored? Now I’m curious about this group.

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iamlucky13 t1_j7v159h wrote

Specifically because Glacier Peak * is in a wilderness area, and it could take as many as 20 helicopter flights into the wilderness area to install permanent seismic monitors.

It's the same group that sued to have a historic fire lookout (Green Mountain) removed, because the Forest Service used a helicopter to move supplies to restore it. I suppose one could make a case that preservation of a historic site in a wilderness area was not adequate cause to justify the use of helicopters, but they insisted for years after the work was completed that the only acceptable remedy was removal of the lookout. The fiasco didn't end until Congress passed an amendment to the Wilderness Act allowing the lookout to stay.

Every time I see Wilderness Watch come up in the news, I find myself debating whether it's just another law firm that likes to cash in on reimbursement of legal fees masquerading as a conservation group, or if a bunch of obsessive-compulsive types who couldn't find an HOA to ruin simply banded together with misconstruing the intent of the Wilderness Act as their common goal.

* Glacier Peak is considered by the USGS to be the 15th most hazardous volcano in the US, out of the 161 volcanoes they assessed. Its ranking in the "very high threat" category has made the fact of its very limited monitoring a major concern:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2018/5140/sir20185140.pdf

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XelfinDarlander t1_j7v47ec wrote

Thank you! Super informative! I grew up in the area and wasn’t familiar with this.

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[deleted] t1_j7up0nd wrote

You don't know shit about forest management, you're just reciting a stupid talking point you were fed by conservative fucksticks who think anything shy of slicking off thousands of acres at a time is "woke environmentalism".

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MadRollinS t1_j7w62q5 wrote

Thank Trump for cutting national forest management budgets. The whole country burned on account of that genius move. It's a wonder there was anything left after that to burn at all last year.

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