SOS Forests

The Big Lie About Fire Retardant

A reader writes, “Doesn’t fire retardant kill fish?”

No it doesn’t. In one case in history, when an entire truckload of the concentrate drained into a stream after the truck drove off the road and over the embankment, a few fish were killed.

Never in history is there one single case of even a single fish being killed by aerially-applied fire retardant.

Never ever ever. It’s a total LIE that fire retardant kills fish.

What kills fish is fire (and firebombing).

Wait, you say, how can fire kill a fish under the water?

Because forest fires burn so hot they sometimes boil streams or at least raise the temperature of the water enough to kill fish.

That’s right, sports fans. Fires burn right to the water’s edge. This may shock you, but riparian vegetation isn’t fireproof!

The new rule prohibits fire retardant in so-called riparian zones 300 feet on either side of streams. So that vegetation will burn and the streams will boil.

Fire also creates ash, which when wet becomes lye, and gets into the water and raises the pH. Fire turns fresh water alkaline via the ash, and that kills fish.

Fire also burns the humus layer down to mineral soil, which then erodes into streams — killing fish by reducing the dissolved oxygen and coating fish gills so the fish strangulate.

The fishing is nil after a forest fire. Nobody goes into a burn zone to catch fish, because the fish are dead. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claimed that fire retardant use ruined their fishing experience (no kidding, it’s in the plea) but the opposite is true — fire kills fish, fire retardant saves them.

Which is all well known to the USFS, but they are on a mission to incinerate America’s forests, and so they kowtowed to the fire retardant LIE.

There was nothing scientific about the fire retardant decision. It was pure politics — and arson politics at that. They are arsonists in a big way. Million-acre arsonists. Arsonists who are burning the Federal Estate with glee and abandon.

Which is why the USFS shuns fire retardant and embraces napalm as the their treatment of choice for our forests.

What ought to be banned in the US Forest Service. Keep them by law no nearer than 30 miles from any public forestland. Dump retardant on them if they get any closer.

The Jaramillo Subchron and the Domestication of Fire

Every now and again the Earth’s magnetic field flips, so that the + pole becomes - and vice versa [here].

A geomagnetic reversal is a change in the Earth’s magnetic field such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged. The Earth’s field has alternated between periods of normal polarity, in which the direction of the field was the same as the present direction, and reverse polarity, in which the field was the opposite.

The geologic periods between polarity reversals are called chrons and subchrons [here].

Chrons are long periods during which the magnetic field remained oriented in one direction for most of the duration of the chron. The current chron, called the “Brunhes normal”, began 780,000 years ago. The immediate prior chron was the “Matuyama reverse”. … Most chrons are interrupted by shorter periods, called subchrons, during which the field flips to the opposite of the dominant orientation during the longer parent chron.

The Jaramillo Normal Subchron was a “normal” period of about 40,000 years from approximately 1.1 million years to 970,000 years ago [here].

Our mid-Pleistocene 40Ar/39Ar age recalibration of the geomagnetic polarity timescale is nearly in accord with the oxygen isotope, climate record calibration of the astronomical timescale proposed by Johnson (1982) and Shackleton et al. (1990). 40Ar/39Ar ages of a normally magnetized rhyolite dome in the Valles caldera, northern Mexico, yielded a weighted-mean age of 1.004 ± 0.019 Ma. A K-Ar age of 0.909 ± 0.019 Ma for this rock by Doell and Dalrymple (1966) was the linchpin for the recognition and calibration of the Jaramillo Normal Subchron (JNS). Other 40Ar/39Ar ages from the Valles caldera and 40Ar/39Ar ages of Ivory Coast tektites indicate that the JNS began at about 1.11 Ma and ended before 0.92 Ma, probably near 0.97 Ma.

Why is that important? Because depositions of iron-bearing sediments align with the Earth’s magnetic field and leave a permanent record of the polarity, known as post-depositional detrital remanent magnetization (pDRM) [here]. And those deposits can then be dated to within their particular chron or subchron.

In a recent paper [here]:

Francesco Berna, Paul Goldberg, Liora Kolska Horwitz, James Brink, Sharon Holt, Marion Bamford, and Michael Chazan (2012) Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa.

researchers discovered burned bone fragments and ashed plant remains inside a cave, and dated the silty aggregates that enclosed them to the Jaramillo Subchron.

The ashed plant remains are situated in the middle of archaeological stratum 10, which shows a normal magnetic orientation and is bracketed between two cosmogenic burial ages of 1.27 ± 0.19 Ma and 0.98 ± 0.19 Ma. The Normal event can therefore be assigned to the Jaramillo subchron (1.07–0.99 Ma), a time range that fits with current understanding of the chronological position of the early Acheulean within the ESA [Earlier Stone Age] in Southern Africa.

The Acheulean is a cultural era or tradition typified by special types of worked tools [here].

[The Acheulean] was the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history starting more than one million years ago. Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organisation arose as a result of their development.

“They” being our ancestors, Homo erectus [here].

What does all this mean? It means that proto-humans were cooking with fire at least 1,000,000 years ago. The Abstract of the Berna et al paper:

The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.

In Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human [here] primatologist Richard Wrangham theorizes that Homo erectus was physiologically adapted to eating cooked food, and that adaptation dates to 1.8 million years ago. If proto-people could cook, if indeed cooking was a biological imperative, then ipso facto proto-people were capable of controlling fire.

And it follows that if our ancestors could cook with fire, they were certainly capable of setting fire to their environs.

Anthropogenic burning is a technology at least as old as Acheulean handaxes. Strong evidence from Wonderwerk Cave dates control of fire to 1,000,000 years ago, during the Jaramillo Subchron.

Hominids have been burning their landscapes for at least that long.

By the time the First People arrived in North America (15,000+ years ago), they had a million years of burning technology experience and practice under their belts.

If someday some fool questions you as to whether the Indians burned Oregon with skill and adroitness (as happened to me recently, by a college professor no less) you can tell him (as I did) that a million years of practice makes perfect.

Government To Purchase 27 New Bombing Ranges

The Federal Government sent little ol’ me a press release yesterday. I guess they wanted my reaction. Well, here it is.

Using funny money printed by the Fed (because the U.S. Government is bankrupt) President Obomber plans to acquire 27 new tracts of private land of unspecified acres for napalming.

The press release is [here]. A quote:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the U.S. Forest Service will dedicate $40.6 million for 27 exceptional land acquisition projects in 15 states that will help safeguard clean water, provide recreational access, preserve wildlife habitat, enhance scenic vistas and protect historic and wilderness areas.

Projects funded are in Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Washington. Projects range from protecting nationally significant lands from threat of residential development in North Carolina to help pave the way to help purchase the largest single parcel of privately held land with the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

“In keeping with the Obama Administration’s America’s Great Outdoors conservation initiative, USDA is committed to conserving and restoring our forests and bringing jobs to rural America,” said Vilsack. “Through our partnerships with states, communities, tribes and others, it is vital that we step up our efforts to safeguard our country’s natural resources.”

Don’t be fooled by the “safeguard” talk. Most of the tracts selected have already been incinerated in massive Federal Let It Burn fires. The rest are slated for firebombing in the near future.

Obomber’s “Death To America” program is well underway.

100,000 Birds Die in Old-Growth Firebombing

The headlines in the Ogreonian today screamed (in large font type) “10,000 Birds Die”. The article [here] goes on to say that maybe 10,000 birds died in the Lower Klamath refuge this winter, maybe from avian cholera, and that maybe low water flows had something to do with it, and that thousands of birds die there every year anyhow.

So the screaming headline turned out to be another stinky cheese piece of yellow journalism, sensationalized nothing.

What the Ogreonian never reported, to this very day, is that last summer the US Forest Service firebombed 10,000 acres at Santiam Pass, and incinerated 100,000 birds (assuming there were 10 birds per acre when the firebombs hit).

It wasn’t avian cholera; it was a firestorm induced by Federal government functionaries in attack helicopters.

That’s a disaster the Ogreonian doesn’t want you to know about. Federal firebombing of green, old-growth spotted owl nesting stands does not comport with their movie, the illusional delusional worldview they are attempting to inculcate into their readers.

The truth conflicts with the propaganda, so let’s just pretend it never happened.

The dead-tree-press is guilty of killing a lot more than birds.

USFS Replaces Fire Retardant With Napalm

The US Forest Service will no longer be using fire retardant to douse forest fires. Instead they will be using a type of napalm to blast America’s forests to charcoal.

In response to a lawsuit brought by the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and the subsequent ruling by Federal Judge Donald Molloy [here], Thomas Tidwell, Chief, USDA Forest Service decided last December to ban the use of fire retardant on 30 percent of USFS lands.

The Nationwide Aerial Application of Fire Retardant on National Forest System Land — Record of Decision is [here]. Some quotes:

Aerial retardant drops are not allowed in mapped avoidance areas for threatened, endangered, proposed, candidate or sensitive (TEPCS) species or in waterways. …

Some species and habitats require that only water be used to protect their habitat and populations; these habitats and populations have been mapped as avoidance areas. Incident commanders and pilots are required to avoid aerial application of fire retardant in avoidance areas for TEPCS species or within the 300-foot (or larger) buffers on either side of waterways. …

When approaching an avoidance area mapped for TEPCS species, waterway, or riparian vegetation visible to the pilot, the pilot will terminate the application of retardant approximately 300 feet before reaching the mapped avoidance area or waterway. …

[T]he Proposed Action prescribed a 300-foot buffer area between retardant application and surface waters on national forests, excluding about 30 percent of NFS lands from aerially delivered retardant use. …

In Western Oregon, a 300-foot buffer on either side of streams encompasses about 85 percent of the land base (because it’s wet here and we have lots of streams).

So the USFS has effectively banned the use of fire retardant on the most productive lands in the National Forest System.

What they didn’t ban was the use of aerially applied incendiaries, such as were used in Western Oregon last summer to catastrophically burn (100 percent mortality) green, old-growth, spotted owl habitat [here].

Fire retardant is a phosphorus-nitrogen-water based slurry that puts fires out. It has no effect on plants or animals, except to very slightly fertilize the soil. The effect is so slight it cannot be measured. Oh yes, another effect of fire retardant is to save the plants and animals from incineration and immolation.

Fire retardant was banned. In place of fire retardant the USFS now uses explosive chemicals encased in polyacrylate “Ping Pong balls” and ejected by AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, and other combat-ready attack helicopters [here].

The chemicals of choice are glycerin (1,2,3-propanetriol) oxidized by potassium permanganate [here].

14KMnO4 + 4C3H5(OH)3 -> 7K2CO3 + 7Mn2O3 + 5CO2 + 16H2O

Explosive chemicals shot from helicopters do not put the fire out; they expand fires by aerially igniting forest canopies and inducing fire storms. The effect is similar to napalm, killing plants, animals, and people [here].

It is unlikely that radical anti-forest, pro-holocaust groups like FSEEE will be suing to stop the use of potassium permanganate-glycerin Ping Pong balls dropped on forests by attack helicopters, because they think the best thing to do to America’s forests is to burn them to the ground.

The US Forest Service agrees. Their de facto mission is to commit total destruction to America’s forests.

Burn, baby, burn.

A Devolutionary Idea: Give Oregon Counties Our Public Forests

The following essay is posted with permission from the author, Jim Welsh, Publisher and Editor of MooCountyNews.com, Tillamook County’s local online news journal [here].

Jim writes: As I examine the relationships between various levels of government, I see a common thread: power arising to the highest or most powerful entity with a corresponding decrease in accountability and effectiveness due to what I will call a lack of ownership by those working at the higher levels of the government.

One of the biggest impediments to what I call “Devolution” is an desire by too many conservatives to go to Washington or Salem with a belief that that Washington or Salem can be made to work more efficiently. It is a political oxymoron. The question is not whether those places can be made to work more efficiently but rather should they even be doing the things they do?

Do we really need the State parks in Tillamook County to be managed by Salem? Do we need Rest Areas on Hwy 101 in Tillamook to be managed by ODOT. Do we need ODFW to run hatcheries to stock our rivers? Do really expect an administrator in Salem will ever have the knowledge of a State Forest that a local Forester who walks it every day has.

Until we can convince the public that the real issue is about what level of government should provide our necessary agreed upon services, I am afraid we will be forever hearing both parties say they can run Big Government better.

*****

A Devolutionary Idea: Give Oregon Counties Our Public Forests

by Jim Welsh, MooCountyNews, March 28, 2012 [here]

We keep hearing from our elected representatives how hard they are working to solve the problems with Oregon’s counties that rely on timber harvesting for their funding. But the real problem is they continue to try to fix the problem with solutions that are at least 100 years outdated. There are two giant landowners in Oregon, the Federal government and the State of Oregon. Let’s look at these landowners and think about whether they really need to continue to be landowners anymore or at least to the extent they are today.

Start with the all forest lands owned by various departments of the Federal government. For the most part these lands initially became Federal property by dint of sale or treaty or sometimes as a spoil of war. However they were gained, they became the responsibility of Washington, D.C. because these acquired lands were not yet states. They were Federal territories. Over time citizens were allowed to stake claims to parcels of land and eventually these territories were populated enough that they became states. If people worked hard and improved these land claims they would eventually gain ownership of the land. Much of the private property of the United States had its origin in this system. Of course, as we see today, not all of these lands were given away or sold to individual citizens. The Federal government retained much of these territorial lands or later ceded large tracts to a newly admitted state.

There are a variety of reasons the Federal government held onto many of these large tracts of land. Some were held because they had no present economic value, some because the land had strategic value (forts, landmarks, etc) and some because they had value for large future projects. (I do not speak of National Parks and most National Monuments which comprise a very small percentage of Federal land holdings).

When these lands were initially acquired by the Federal government, by fiat, it became the landowner. And since there were no other governmental entities to oversee or protect them it fell to the Federal Government to manage these lands.
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