Reply To: San Gorgonio Wilderness is Burning Again!

[Tin Cup]

I was a firefighter for CDF (Cal-Fire) and USFS. These forests are unfortunately are way over grown . +100 yrs ago fires burned naturally but with low intensity burning up the ground fuels and essentially cleaning the Forest floor periodically. I recall reading  about a fire in the early 1920s that killed some folks so they started to extinguish these natural fires. The USFS realized this wasn’t a good idea and went back to a management style of fighting fire , which was to let it burn unless it was threating lives or property . Now with all these people that live in the forest areas the  USFS and other fire depts have no choice but to extinguish these as quick as possible , again not letting these fires naturally burn out forest litter, ultimately causing years of build up and so once a fire does get established it is very difficult to extinguish. Now with the wilderness area you cannot use any mechanical device (chainsaws , bulldozers etc ) in those areas , nor air tankers .