Gail Blows It Bigtime
When Gail Kimbell was first appointed as USFS Chief, I welcomed her. I wrote (at SOS Forests No. 1) [here]:
SOS Forests welcomes you to the Chieftainship of the U.S. Forest Service. We salute your prior accomplishments, share in the joy of your appointment, and wish you every possible success.
And we really mean that. We really do wish your tenure as Chief to be successful. It is going to be a difficult road, though. The deck is stacked against you, but we will help you all we can.
I even went so far as to send that statement to her directly via email. Gail did not respond, but I didn’t expect her to. I also included some advice to aid her Chieftanship:
First, please use the word “forests” in speeches and writings. You are going to be Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. The ground you will oversee is neither “timberlands” nor “wildlands.” It is forest, forests, or forestland. Please refer to it as such.
This is easy to do, costs you nothing, and will demonstrate your core values. (Not to mention that failing to do so will handicap you right away, and come back to haunt you later, too.)
Second, cancel the Whoofoo program. Whoofoo’s (wildland fire use fires) are accidental fires in accidental locations started by lightning during the height of the fire season. Such fires should be suppressed with rapid initial attack, not left to burn. Whoofoo’s led to enormous and expensive tragedies like the Warm Fire, the Tripod Fire, the Tatoosh Fire, the Middle Fork Fire, and many others last year.
Whoofoo’s are the renamed equivalents of “prescribed natural fires” which caused catastrophes such as the 1988 incineration of Yellowstone National Park. The lack of rapid initial response with adequate firefighting forces was directly responsible for the 500,000 acre Biscuit Fire of 2003 and dozens of other mega fires in the last two decades. Poor response has been ultimately responsible for every modern mega fire, as a matter of fact.
Gail, please terminate the Whoofoo’s. If you accomplish nothing else, that will be enough to yield an honorable legacy.
Third, please bury the Audit (the 2006 IG Report on Large Fire Suppression Costs). It is stupid and worthless and should NOT be guiding USFS policy. The Audit recommendations, if followed, will cripple fire suppression nationally, get a lot of people killed, as well as destroy forests, farms, ranches, homes, and whole communities via holocaust. Bunch it, shred it, round file it, bury it in the backyard. Whatever, make the Audit go away.
Fourth, please initiate a national program to develop natural histories for every National Forest in the System. The histories should reach back at least 10,000 years, and should document the actual, historic, forest development pathways that occurred, in reality, location by location.
Gail failed to follow any of those tips. Indeed, she went out of her way to violate my well-meaning advice with gusto.
Not only does Gail not refer to forests as forests, but she now wants to extend the intellectually bankrupt notion of “wildlands” to 400 million acres of private land!
That is so stupid and vile as to defy all reason.
She also has promoted, not canceled, the whoofoo program, and deliberately burned down millions of acres of forest in her own Region in her very first year.
Gail Kimbell should be terminated with prejudice today. I don’t care if she is a woman or not. Her brand of dis-competency is intolerable.
No doubt none of that will happen. Not one individual in Congress will call for any kind of investigation of Gail Kimbell, or for hearings, or even issue a statement of concern. Congress is composed of slime worms, in the main. Geo Bush will not do anything. He appointed Gail after all, and besides that, his administration has collapsed, in no small part because the Slime Worms of Congress have undermined it.
Gail Kimbell must driven out by public protest. I call upon everyone who cares about forests to raise your voice in opposition to Gail Kimbell. I beg you to demand her immediate removal from the USFS. If we are going to save our forests , homes, and very lives, we need to abate the hazard. Gail Kimbell IS the hazard, and her tenure as Chief of the USFS must be terminated BEFORE the next fire season.
by Jack J. Lafayette
Land trusts and conservation easements are a HUGE SCAM. I will post some revealing stuff and expose the CON GAME in a few weeks, when I get past this start-up phase.
Key point: there is no deed or trust that a clever lawyer cannot break whenever the desire to do so manifests. After you are dead, your rights over the living tend to diminish fairly quickly.
I whole heartedly agree with you re this woman’s incompetence. She’s definitely in the wrong calling in life. Furthermore it’s because of people (embedded) in govt positions such as hers that are bringing this country to its knees.
I like your vociferousness Mr Dubrasich !
I am on record against perpetual land-uses decided by current owners of the land. Since we are finite creatures our ownership and land-use decisions should only be relevant during our lifetimes and the lifetimes of the people we decide to leave our land to.
Future generations will all live in cities, in cramped dormitory settings if we continue this so-called “feel good” approach to securing the land for future generations.
If we are not to use the land for anything beyond recreation why do we even allow land ownership to trade hands by exchanges of capital for assets.
The ramifications of this and other land trust arrangements are terrifying to anyone who believes in the individual’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and property.
I know this goes beyond the scope of the fact that the US Forest Service will grossly mismanage any additional lands they acquire as they grossly mismanage the incredible inventory of land they already hold, but this goes much deeper than a simple management or mismanagement. The issue strikes at the very core of this nation’s founding principles.
And I for one reject the socialists’ planning devices on their very face.
I only wish more Americans would realize the ramifications of decisions made today on the lives of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.