Succinct explanation in WSJ.
What Causes Forest Fires
‘How clever of the climate to decimate only the lands hamstrung by these environmental laws.’
From “Only Good Management Can Prevent Forest Fires” by Rep. Tom McClintock (R., Calif.) in the Journal, Dec. 18, 2018:
Pundits and politicians have taken to calling the rising incidence of catastrophic wildfire “the new normal.” But California’s experience in the 21st century is neither new nor abnormal. It is, in fact, the old normal. The devastation unfolding today is how nature manages forests. Like an untended garden, an abandoned forest will grow until it chokes itself to death. Nature deals with morbid overcrowding through drought, disease, pestilence and ultimately catastrophic wildfire. . . .
Excess timber comes out of a forest in two ways—it gets carried out or burned out. For much of the 20th century, harvesting excess timber produced thriving forests by matching tree density to the ability of the land to support it. Foresters designated surplus trees, and loggers bid for the right to remove them at auction, with the proceeds going to the U.S. Treasury. . . .
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What went wrong? In the 1970s, Congress passed a series of laws subjecting federal land management to time-consuming and cost-prohibitive environmental regulations. Instead of generating revenues, forest management now costs the government money. As a result, timber harvested from federal lands has declined 80%, while acreage destroyed by fire has increased proportionally. . . . The environmental left blames climate change. Yet this doesn’t explain the dramatic difference between federal lands and private forests that practice scientific forest management. The boundary lines can often be seen from the air because of the condition of the forests. How clever of the climate to decimate only the lands hamstrung by these environmental laws.
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