Legitimate and Needed
SOS Forests posts may be sparse for the next few days, due to time commitment to the CA fire situation at W.I.S.E. Fire Tracking [here]. We planned last Fall to track fires (it seemed a useful and reasonable thing to do), but we did not expect 900 in one day.
The CA fire situation will worsen over the next two weeks. Many fires are unstaffed and many engaged fires are growing rapidly despite firefighter efforts. Firefighting resources are stretched beyond thin and personnel are already experiencing fatigue from long shifts.
Fire reporting on the usual sites has also become threadbare, and some sites (InciWeb) are not working at all. Right now W.I.S.E. Fire Tracking may be the most comprehensive and up-to-date site out there. Visitor counts have expanded 10-fold, and we feel an obligation to continue our efforts to provide the best information that we can.
But for some insightful filler, here are comments from SOSF stalwart and forest scientist Dr. Bob Zybach. Ph.D. that appeared in this AM’s Oregonian:
To the editor:
The long-standing federal funding crisis in Oregon’s rural counties is starting to affect urban schools and now our governor and statewide news media are beginning to pay attention.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski said, “This isn’t just about rural Oregon. The ripple effects of this loss will extend to every K-12 student in the state” (”$238 million crisis hits Oregon,” June 24).
The real problem in rural Oregon is not about extending federal welfare payments another year or so to keep county governments and services afloat. It is, and has been for more than a decade, about jobs — real jobs that produce tax revenue, not government jobs that depend upon them.
Oregon has more than a million acres of dead and rotting trees going to waste on our federal lands. They are mute testimony to failed efforts to “save” our old growth.
The loss of legitimate and needed logging, trucking, and sawmilling jobs in our rural communities has destroyed the culture and economies of these towns and families, perhaps irreparably. A return to scientific management of our federal lands will cure all of the self-inflicted hardships the governor is complaining about.
BOB ZYBACH Springfield
