HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-27-21 Public Comment - N. Bishop - BMW ProjectFrom:Norman Bishop
To:Agenda
Subject:Municipal Watershed Fuels Reduction Project
Date:Tuesday, July 27, 2021 10:05:21 AM
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Mayor and Commissioners:
From 1980 to 1997, I served as a park ranger in Yellowstone, working as resource
management specialist, and later, resources interpreter. I witnessed and read reports on the1988 fires. The unsupportable assertion that fuel buildup due to fire suppression made the
fires worse was challenged by scientific and historical data, just as it is on the Custer-GallatinNational Forest today. Fuel buildup is not the factor that has made recent fires more severe:
numerous studies have shown that the major factors that produce conflagrations are hightemperature and winds, combined with low humidity and a source, such as lightning or human
activities.
I have sent Custer-Gallatin NF Supervisor Mary Erickson dozens of scientific articles that allmake the point that the best use of mature forests is as carbon sinks, and that thinning or clear-
cutting them is counterproductive to preserving that function, and actually exacerbates theconditions that favor wildfires.
Here is an interview with wildfire ecologist Chad Hanson on that topic.
https://www.governing.com/now/scientists-say-that-clearing-forests-worsens-wildfire-damage
Some short clips from the interview:
"Humans are responsible for starting 84 percent of all U.S. wildfires, and 97 percent of those
that threaten homes. From this perspective, people might seem the most obvious target for fireprevention efforts. In addition to causing accidental (and sometimes intentional) ignitions,
human activity is accelerating warming. However, the prevention strategies advocated bygovernment entities tend to focus on removing trees and “snags” – dead trees that are still
standing but continue to play an important role in ecosystems.
Chad Hanson, Ph.D., an ecologist who co-founded the John Muir Project, is a prominentmember of a growing community of scientists who challenge the notion that practices such as
thinning and clear-cutting back-country woodlands will reduce the severity of wildfires. In anew book, Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate, he
describes how recent research regarding fire behavior and ecology could provide thefoundation for a new approach to forest management.
Most recently, Hanson used Forest Service data as the basis for a study of two large fires that
occurred in California in 2020: the Creek fire and the Castle fire. The research, which will bepublished later this year, found that intensive forest management was most correlated to burn
severity, not the density of snags or the length of time since the last fire in an area."
It is time to pay attention to science, not a political-economic paradigm that is fomented by
extraction-bent voices. Stop the Municipal Watershed Fuels Reduction Project now, beforemore damage is done.
Norman A. Bishop
4898 Itana CircleBozeman, MT 59715
(406) 582-0597