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In reply to the discussion: Prescott Courier: 18 firefighters dead in Yarnell wildfire [View all]NickB79
(19,253 posts)The forests themselves have changed since we started attempting to manage them a century ago. Today they are thicker and more brush-filled, largely because of the fact we so aggressively stamped out any and all fires over the past century. They are also being ravaged by beetle-kill, as the climate has warmed and the beetle populations explode. There are literally millions upon millions of acres of nothing but dead pine trees throughout the western US.
Combined with the increasingly hot and dry summers we've been seeing (again due to climate change), these make for an explosive mix. Frankly, I don't see how we can stop the western forests from eventually burning on a truly massive scale without massive inputs of money and manpower.
Is it better to just pull back, abandon smaller towns, and let it all burn? Probably not. Is it a losing battle trying to stop this from eventually happening? Probably so. I have no idea how we can address these problems, but they must be addressed, even if we don't like the final decisions.