General Holocaust, Part 5: Institutional Whoofoo

According to the Audit, the best way to manage America’s public forests is to burn them to the ground (the Audit is the Report on Large Fire Suppression Costs we have referred to in previous posts in this series).

Our use of the word “forests” is an anachronism. The New Speak is “wildlands”. The Audit uses the word “wildlands” 103 times. It uses the word “forest” (lower case, as a noun) four times.

Wildlands (a bureaucratic euphemism for forests) are a big drag to the Auditors, because they just cost money, especially when they catch fire and the FS (the acronym the Audit hangs on the US Forest Service) has to put the forest fires (whoops, wildland fires) out.

So the New Plan is to destroy America’s priceless, heritage forests (whoops, we mean worthless wildlands) in catastrophic fires. The idea is to burn them down sooner so they don’t burn down later.

Guided by this general objective, [the Audit recommends] increasing the use of wildland fires to reduce forest vegetation such as underbrush that may fuel future fires and thereby increase costs.

Does this make sense? Burn our forests down so they don’t burn down? It makes sense to the Dale Bosworth, Chief of the FS, because he signed onto all the recommendations in the Audit.

The fires of choice for this apocalyptic purpose are lightning-caused fires. Lightning-caused fires are “natural”. Mother Nature is responsible, and Mother Nature knows best (it’s a sure bet that Mother Nature knows better than FS personnel, by their own pathetic admission). In expression and fulfillment of their ignorance, the FS has devised a name for such fires: Wildland Fire Use (fires), or WFU’s, or Whoofoo’s.

Whoofoo is a new name for what the FS used to call Prescribed Natural Fires, or PNF’s, or pniffs. The million-acre Yellowstone Fire of 1988 was a pniff. The old idea was that if lightning started it, the FS should not interfere but instead let the fire burn. The new idea is exactly the same as the old idea. Whoofoo’s are pniffs, more or less. This is how the Audit defines them:

(WFU, a fire managed for resource benefits such as fuels reduction)

Forests are now wildlands in need of fuel reduction. The tool of choice is wildfire. No consideration is given to habitat, or recreation, or endangered species, or any resource you can think of. All resources are harmed by Whoofoo’s. Whoofoo’s also increase, not decrease, dead fuels. Although fine fuels are sometimes consumed by Whoofoo fires, green trees are killed and turned into dead snags and so add to the available fuel load.

Get it? There are no resource benefits from Whoofoo’s. They do not even save money. The half-million acre Biscuit Fire was a de facto Whoofoo. The fire could have been put out at less than an acre, but the FS decided to Let It Burn. Then later, to contain the resulting holocaust, they backburned 200,000 acres. Over 100 nesting pairs of northern spotted owls were killed and 175,000 acres of spotted owl habitat destroyed.

WFU involves allowing naturally ignited fires to burn in designated sections of the forests to help restore forest health and mitigate the escalating costs of fire suppression.

How is “forest health” improved by killing all the trees? Granted, “forest health” is one of those indefinable, fuzzy, meaningless, pseudo-scientific, PC terms, but all the same, a dead snag wasteland is not a healthy forest, by any definition. The Audit is fundamentally insane in this regard.

The Biscuit Fire eventually cost $150 million to suppress, wiped a heritage forest off the map, and destroyed $5 billion in timber value alone. If the endangered species and habitat were worth more than the timber (which was the reason the FS let the fire burn) then more than $5 billion in habitat was also destroyed. Is that “cost mitigation”?

The Warm Fire this summer was an official Whoofoo. The Warm Fire was started by lightning in an accessible spot, which was accessed, but the fire crews were ordered not to suppress it. Eventually the fire destroyed nearly 60,000 acres of old growth ponderosa pine and endangered squirrel habitat on the Kaibab National Forest (whoops, we mean Wild and Crazy Land) at a cost of over $7 million. Such a deal!

Whoofoo’s are wild and crazy, man. Sometimes they kill off more than the wildlife:

For example, the suppression objectives of one wildfire we reviewed included protecting private property, tribal timber, cultural sites, recreation areas, infrastructures, and endangered species habitat. However, while nearly all of the suppression objectives relating to private interests were met, more than half of the known activity areas for the endangered species were destroyed because the protection of private property was given priority.

Damn those tribal types. Why can’t we burn them out and save the endangered species habitat instead?

Because, Silly, it’s all a lie! The FS makes no effort whatsoever to protect endangered species habitat from fire, whether tribal types are proximate or not. In fact, the FS promotes the destruction of habitat and forests (and adjacent lands) with Whoofoo’s. Whoofoo’s are the dream goal of the Official Policy, endorsed by Chief Dale himself.

Despite the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy directing the reintroduction of fire into the landscape, and abundant evidence that natural fire reduces hazardous fuels, the majority of natural ignitions on FS land are still suppressed. Of the 78,857 natural ignitions that occurred on FS land from 1998 through 2005, only 1,590, or 2 percent, were allowed to burn as WFU.

The “reintroduction of fire” is like the reintroduction of wolves or grizzly bears. It is done for spiritual reasons, or secular and cynical political gain, not biological or ecological considerations. There is no “abundant evidence that natural fire reduces hazardous fuels.” In fact, the evidence is the opposite.

In a recent post we reviewed a paper by Dr. Stephen J. Pyne suggesting that the fire community needs a biological paradigm for fire. We say good luck on that, Steve, because the FS does not even have a biological paradigm for forests! The FS thinks that if they burn a forest (whoopsie again, wildland) the fuel problem will be solved, but here’s a dirty little secret: botanical stuff like brush grows back after forest fires, and within a few years the fire hazard is usually much worse! Because forests are alive and they grow. Meaning there is more fuel coming along all the time.

This may not be a difficult concept for your average 3-year-old, but the FS AIG misses it entirely, and so does Dale!

That equates to about 102 million acres of FS land that have missed two or more expected burning cycles, leading to systemic forest health problems and, in areas where frequent, low intensity fire should occur, hazardous fuel accumulation and an increased chance of uncharacteristically severe fire.

That’s a new one: expected burning cycles. What breed of dog is that? Are expected burning cycles part of natural fire regimes? How natural are they? Is there a meter somewhere? How does the FS know when the cycles are “supposed” to occur?

Has the FS got the least clue how our forests arose in the first place? A frayed knot, Virginia.

Woofoo’s are institutionalized mass destruction of forests, for the most ridiculous and ludicrous of justifications. It would make just as much sense, or even more, to advocate for Uoofoo’s (Urban Fire Use fires).

Why spend all the taxpayer’s money putting out urban fires? We should let them burn. After all, what is there of any value in urban areas? Urban fires are cleansing and lead to urban health. The more urban fires we have now, the less we will have later, because the fuels will be significantly reduced. If urban firefighters stay far away from urban fires, then they will be safer.

Up with Uoofoo’s, down with Whoofoo’s!

And down with the leadership of the FS. Way down. All the way down to street level, and out the door, with a boot print on their backsides.