Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Mar 18, 2012 - 06:48pm PT
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Kath, and others, I have turned my thinking tremendously WRT logging.
I used to be as opposed as any, a real tree-hugger. I still love trees.
But they as I became a forest worker, I came to understand what our defense against all fire has done. Our forests are tremendously overloaded, TREMENDOUSLY. Each acre has 4 times or more the trees that it should have, weakening all the ones there due to the competition, and making them far more open to disease.....and the concentration greatly enhances crown fires which are the worst, but catastrophic fires in general.
I don't discount the possibility of the coming conflagration. The fire near Los Angeles was an eye-opener.
by the way, Kath, lovely home.
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eKat
Trad climber
BITD3
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2012 - 06:53pm PT
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BRING FLAMABLE MATERIALS INTO YOUR HOUSE AND CATCH THEM ON FIRE?
And. . . I'm gonna add one more thing. . . for cry-y-y-y-y-ing out loud. . .
Being actively involved with heating your home might very well put you in the Hall of Flame. . . no, no, no. . . what I'm trying to say, here, is. . . . when you physically do the work and you feel where the heat comes from, you finally have the tools to control your consumption.
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stunewberry
Trad climber
Spokane, WA
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Mar 18, 2012 - 06:54pm PT
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Hand-picking the buckskin Tams at my "secret spot" (helping the State Parks with 'fuel load management' and doing trail work at the same time). Also paper birch and Norway Maple that I scrounge whenever someone needs one of those weeds cut down. Significant 'cost' in terms of gas, time, and danger, but it's work I enjoy doing so that doesn't count. Go through about 4 1/2 cords in a winter. Keep the house toasty warm and don't pay the utility company except to heat the water.
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stunewberry
Trad climber
Spokane, WA
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Mar 18, 2012 - 07:01pm PT
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There's a lot of propaganda regarding thinning forests to keep them healthy. That may be true in the dry Ponderosa forests where getting rid of the brush and dog-hair trees does reduce the low fuel load. I've seen it work, and it promotes 4-foot dbh forests with open park-like settings. The moist North Idaho forests, however, are designed to grow like crazy for 200 years until they get a summer like 1910 when all hell breaks loose and a few million acres of hemlock, fir, alder, red cedar go up in a conflagration. All that happened before there was any forest management, so that's that kind of forest's natural path.
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eKat
Trad climber
BITD3
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2012 - 07:05pm PT
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I still love trees.
Oh, Ken. . . that's a real good thing!
Trees are the magic.
(then I see a bird. . . and I say BIRDS ARE THE MAGIC. . .then I smell a flower and I know, for sure, that FLOWERS ARE THE MAGIC. . . then. . .)
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eKat
Trad climber
BITD3
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2012 - 07:09pm PT
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by the way, Kath, lovely home.
Thanks.
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Tobia
Social climber
GA
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Mar 18, 2012 - 07:17pm PT
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Not much of a winter this year; but I burn wood in fuel efficient, wood stove.
And I burn Hi-test Hickory. Shagbark, Pignut and Scaly-barked. It's to a fireplace what Golden Grain is to a drinking man.
...but unfortunately I can't make cool air with firewood and I have a feeling I will need as much of it this year as last.
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Rolfr
Social climber
North Vancouver BC
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Mar 18, 2012 - 07:19pm PT
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Better to burn wood than to truck in fossil fuel to heat your home. Someone will always try to piss on your fire.
Here in BC we have so much beetle kill Pine, that eventually the coast will go up like a tinder box. I cut it, chop it , move it, burn it as my primary fuel source here in Princeton. My small contribution to reducing the available fuel for the inevitable big blaze.
We take it pretty seriously up here at Chain Lake, everyone has a five HP water pump beside the lake in anticipation of the inevitable. Most people misunderstand how fire spreads, the common belief is that it jumps from tree to tree, but most forest fires spread along the ground and travels tree to tree, via "fire ladders," the dead unpruned branches at the base of trees. We invited one of the commanders from the 2009 Kelowna Fire , to teach our community preventative practices and everyone here tries to be as fire preventive, pro active as possible.
Yeah we burn a lot of deadfall Pine Beetle Kill, every spring, better that than losing our whole community.
Ditto, very nice place!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mar 18, 2012 - 07:20pm PT
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Apparently Chaz' dogs think that master is somewhat overdoing things in the "sticks to throw" department. Maybe Donald's border collie would be interested, though.
Trees that fall naturally do eventually rot, with some of the carbon getting back in the atmosphere. But much goes to add to the biomass of the forest.
Felling trees, chopping wood, making fires, and sitting and cooking by them are all high in the double plus good category.
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manzanita man
Social climber
somerset, ca.
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Mar 18, 2012 - 07:21pm PT
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ekat,
i am doing my part. in el dorado county, manzanita is a major fire
hazzard and a ladder fuel for the pines. my company is all manzanita based
and i have cut hundreds of truck and trailer fulls in areas that had high
fire danger because of it and i dont charge anything for removing it. the
people i remove it for cant afford to pay to have it removed because there is
so much of it. [ senior citizens etc...] and since i use over 90% in my
business, im only burning 10% or less. while i am cutting the manzanita
from around the pines, i am also cutting all of the lower branches on the
pines and thinning to 10'.
and i was a wildland firefighter with over 5000 hours on a fire line as first saw on a fire crew.
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eKat
Trad climber
BITD3
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2012 - 07:46pm PT
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One of the frequent comments about America from precolonial times right on through the 1840's was that any American frontiersman had more fuel available than a European nobleman.
Seems to ring true in 2012, as well. (But we better hurry up!)
Signed,
Frontierswoman
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manzanita man
Social climber
somerset, ca.
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Mar 18, 2012 - 07:55pm PT
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eKat
Trad climber
BITD3
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2012 - 07:59pm PT
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LOVE THE GARDEN!
 Missing photo ID#241390 |
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manzanita man
Social climber
somerset, ca.
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Mar 18, 2012 - 08:15pm PT
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edejom
Boulder climber
Butte, America
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Mar 18, 2012 - 08:28pm PT
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I'm with Rolfr--Bah Humbug on the beetle kill, we're under siege here as well and need as much of that stuff cut, burn/used, and gone ASAP.
Once the Doug's were re-placed with lodgepole around here we were doomed...
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Mar 18, 2012 - 08:29pm PT
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I was told once by a taco whose word I trust implicitly, that because of an endangerd (?) beetle or something that lives in Manzanita, it is against the law to burn Manzanita in California.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Mar 18, 2012 - 08:33pm PT
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hey there, say, ekat! love the firewood...
do NOT have a fireplace, but would love to warm house that way--when we were kids, we had one, but used it on holidays, only...
my mom's sis, in ohio, however, before she died, would go out and cut
her own firewood (was 80, when she sadly died by falling through the ice in her pond) during a winter, that was not as cold as usual, so we suspect--judging by the winters there, now... :(
my twin buddies, they cut their own as well, and so their dad, when he helps, and he is in his 80's ...
sure hope WE get to enjoy firewood in our 80's, :)
me--i make outdoor eve fires, as chaz's idea... or daytime ones, just to enjoy... though much simpler set up :)
and any woodscraps i can get, ....
i sure enjoy your post here, it feels sooooooooooooo 'ekat'ish, :)
and 'outdoorish'....
thanks for the share... may be making a fire, tomorrow outside,
too, for me and patty ann marie....
:)
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Mar 18, 2012 - 08:34pm PT
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hey there say, jaybro... i remember many a walks with my folks, when we enjoyed all the manzanitas... :)
thanks for the memeories, :)
love seeing them trees...
:)
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Mar 18, 2012 - 08:38pm PT
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spiders hang out in them thar wood piles,
brown recluse,
best to store it down yonder,
near merle haggard blvd,
and keep your so called social security,
there's good people in montanna dang it,
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