The Wallow fire is now about 350,000 acres. The people
fighting the fire estimate that they have it about 5% contained. That is a lot
better than the situation on Wednesday where they had 0% containment. Still, 5%
is not much. The fire is still basically out of control except for one small
area. It burned 22 homes yesterday.

We really now need to look at the blame for the fire.
Obviously whoever set the fire is primarily to blame. If they had not set the
fire, the fire would not be going. But that is not the entire story. Because
the conditions in the forest were so bad, the fire was going to start sooner or
later and it was going to be bad. So, the people that set the campfire that was
not put out are partially to blame. It would have happened anyway from a
lightning strike or some other method.

Conditions in the forest were allowed to degrade to the
point that the underbrush was so thick that a fire that started was inevitably
going to be a catastrophic fire. There are a couple of reasons why the
conditions were allowed to deteriorate so much. First is that the environmentalist
groups like the Sierra Club would file lawsuits every time someone would
suggest clearing out the underbrush. The environmental groups believe that the
forest is to be left is a pristine condition without any human intervention at
all. Managing a forest that way is asking for a catastrophic fire every few
years.

The second reason why the conditions were allowed to
deteriorate so much is the Forest Service itself. The Forest Service was
established to insure that the United States has a steady supply of lumber.
Over the years the Forest Service has been infected by environmental groups.
That means the people doing the managing of the Forests are every bit as much
an environmentalist as the environmental groups fighting against managing the
forest. That means they cave to the environmental groups very quickly. They
also do not make second or third attempts to get the forest managed properly.

My experience with the Forest Service has been extensive. I
worked with them for about 20 years when I worked with the Natural Resources
Conservation Service. They do not like people outside of the Forest Service
giving suggestions on how to manage the forest better. My experience usually
was that if you suggested an improvement, they would implement something
exactly the opposite just to show you that you were wrong or that they could.
These spiteful actions usually resulted in the environment being harmed. They
did change over the years. When I first started, a suggestion from an
environmental group was met with derision. When I retired, a suggestion from an
environmental group was taken seriously.

There is a lot of blame to go around in the Wallow Fire.
Primarily, the blame should go to the environmental groups that have prevented
sound forest management for years. Even though the Forest Service knows what to
do, the environmental groups have prevented the Forest Service from
implementing those cures by filing lawsuits. Secondarily, the Forest Service is
to blame because they did not fight hard enough to implement the sound forest
practices that would have prevented the fire from becoming catastrophic. In
areas where sound management was practiced, the fire is not causing much
damage. In the rest of the area where sound management was not being practiced,
the fire is destroying everything. That was also seen in the Chedeski-Rodeo
fire years ago. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have learned from the earlier
fire. Hopefully, people will learn from this fire. I have my doubts that the
environmental groups will learn. My experience with them is you could show them
facts and they would ignore them to stick to their fantasy. That will probably
be the case here.

The last of the blame is on those who left the fire and did
not put it out entirely. You should always put a fire completely out before you
leave your campsite. Unfortunately, people do not always do that. So, the
government in its wisdom treats everyone like the idiots that do not know what
to do. They ban all fires. Those of us who know how to build and put out
campfires are penalized because the people that do not know cause problems. I
could go into the most fire prone area of the country and have a campfire
safely. There would not be a fire caused by my campfire. When I left, the fire
would be completely out and the ground would be cool. There are thousands of us
who could say similar things. The government cannot tell those of us who can
take care of ourselves from those that cannot. So, they just ban everything. It
is easier to enforce and achieves their goal. It is just more inconvenient and
less enjoyable for the rest.