Fires: Global Warming or Poor Forest Management?

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In the wake of the recent California fires, it makes you wonder what if anything can be done to prevent such horrific disasters.In a 60 Minute report on Forest Fires, some experts are of the thought that the “Mega Fires” that we are experiencing in California and throughout the West are the result of Global warming. Higher temperatures causing Spring to start earlier, snows are melting up high in the mountains and running off, leaving the vegetation more time to dry out, and thus a longer time period for fires to start. Or so says Svetman, a leading fire ecologist from the University of Arizona. Based on his study of tree rings that go back 9000 years, he can tell that recent decades have been the hottest in 1000 years.

Tom Boatner who is chief fire operations for the federal government, agrees. With 30 years of fighting fires under his belt, he points out that fires of the size and intensity of fires such as today’s Mega Fires that burn half a million acres, were very rare 15-20 years ago. When asked about the un-believers in Global Warming, Boatner says” You won’t find them on the fire line in the American West anymore, ‘Cause we’ve had climate change beat into us over the last ten or fifteen years. We know what we’re seeing, and we’re dealing with a period of climate, in terms of temperature and humidity and drought that’s different than anything people have seen in our lifetimes.”

But, he also admits that part of the problem is the old Forest Service Policy started 100 years ago, and that was “to put out all fires immediately.” Now that sounds like a strange thing to say, coming from a Firemen, but he explains that “we so successfully fought fires and eliminated fire from this ecosystem for a hundred years, because we thought that was the right thing to do, we’ve allowed a huge buildup of fuel in these woods. So now, when the fires get going, there’s a lot more to burn than historically you would’ve seen in a forest like this”

And then there are others like Steve Milloy of FoxNews.com who reportedly believes that “There’s no evidence that man-made climate change is playing any role whatsoever in the current Western forest fire season. Poor timber management practices and drought conditions are the primary causes. Current drought conditions are within the range of natural variation. We need to determine what the best forest management practices are for different weather conditions rather than trying to manage the weather to suit poor forest management practices.”

My feeling is, whether one or the other turns out to be right, does it really matter? Or does fixing the problem matter? If we need to change environmental laws, then let’s change them, if Forest Service Policies need to be changed then let’s change them. If we don’t do anything, isn’t the smoke from the forest fires the ultimate contributor to global warming. Four years ago the same debate was going on in California, what has changed?

Steven J. Milloy is the founder and publisher of DemandDebate.com, JunkScience.com and CSRwatch.com; an investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund; and a columnist for FoxNews.com.