fire ecology

Salvage logging is not the solution to forest fire rehabilitation, and it only removes merchantable timber leaving small diameter fuels behind.  It makes forests more susceptible to future burns, and it negatively impacts natural regeneration. It doesn’t make economic or ecological sense.

During fall season, tribes went into the forests and gathered the dead limbs and debris, the brush and leaves and cones.  They made piles of the dead and drying materials and covered the piles with bark slabs, abundant on an old windfall where much of the debris was piled.  Then they waited for the proper time.  At the proper time they took pitch torches into the forest and set the forest piles on fire.