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Dear everyone who enjoys our forests in Douglas County: how our state and federal forests are managed is not working. Our poor management of these forests goes back decades. Year after year we watch these fires burn more of our precious forests and yet, we do not change our ways. The chosen solution appears to be the creation of the Fire Industrial Complex, which is basically a slow responding behemoth which only kicks into action after small fires have become big fires. This path has led to us spending more and more money on the problem with only worse and worse results. It's insane.

Our national forest management policy needs to change. Fire happens but then all the dead snags can’t be touched and are left to burn a second third fourth and fifth time. That creates extremely unsafe conditions for ground fire crews so they aren’t able to go in. To make things worse, there aren’t enough air resources available, which become the only way to fight these fires in these dangerous environments, especially in old burns scars. The air resources, as I’ve been told, are managed nationally and local officials don’t even have control of them to put our fires out. 

Change the incentives for responding to wildfires quickly, like the example we have in our local DFPA. Amazing what can be prevented if you jump on a fire fast and heavy! 

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while hoping for different results. If we do not drastically change our approach to managing our state and federal forest lands, we will end up with nothing but burned match sticks. Our beloved hiking trails are slowly being burned up, one by one, never to be the same again in our lifetime. This will be terrible for everyone, as well as our birds and wildlife. 

This isn't, or shouldn't be, a partisan issue. Environmentalists who are seeking to preserve our forests and wildlife habitat, clearly see that allowing the entire forest to burn up over and over is not helpful to wildlife or our environment. Leaving burned up forests untouched after fires, leads to more fires, over and over as we have seen in the Boulder Creek Wilderness and other areas along the North Umpqua River. 

Radical environmental policy has led to the outcomes we have observed over the past several decades. It's had it's run, and we all see that the experiments have failed. If Democrats/Republicans's can't come together and change course together, the losses will continue until everything is burned. 
We are stewards of this land for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We are doing a terrible job, and need to own that, and then change course. 

Our state and federal agencies need to sit down with our private timber companies and ask for advice, and listen to it. Nobody has more better incentives to prevent the destruction of all our forests than private timber companies. And contrary to caricatures often circulated about them, they do care about our birds and wildlife as well.

Checklist of things to do to make the biggest change:

Change National Forest Policy

Allow pre-fire treatments and management of land. Reduce fuels ahead of time.

Allow post-fire treatments of burned land. If you don't, the partially burned trees become the super dry fuel for the next fire. I've been told old-timers say it takes three fires to put the burned snags on the ground. So you wait until three fires happen, or we can put the burned snags on the ground ourselves and create a better situation for everyone.

More air resources controlled locally. Could still be shared when possible or needed. 

Redo the outdated funding systems for the state and federal agencies tasked with dealing with these fires. Align incentives to get fires put out as quickly as possible

Photos show the Boulder Flat/Pine Bench Fire NW of Toketee Falls and how it grew from a few acres on Thursday morning (first photo) to 773 acres as of Friday morning. It's located in an old burn scar, as you can see the old snags in the first photo, so fire crews were kept away from the fire for safety reasons. Apparently there wasn't air support available, even though it was requested. Then the fire blew up and caused the hydroelectric dam next door to be turned off. No suppression efforts are happening as of this moment Friday afternoon.

We Need to Rethink Forest Management and Wildfire Response Strategies