Bulldozers in the Wilderness

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dave54
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Bulldozers in the Wilderness

Post by dave54 »

The Incident Command Team for the East Zone of the Dixie Fire requested, and was given, permission to use bulldozers and mechanized equipment in the Bucks Lake Wilderness. That decision is not made lightly and approvals are granted only after reviews at the Regional Office level. The request was made for the extremely dry fuels and large number of homes and infrastructure threatened. In this case hand line only would have a low probability of success and present an unnecessary risk to firefighters.
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rlown
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Re: Bulldozers in the Wilderness

Post by rlown »

I'm good with it. More please preseason before the fires. When I lived in SoCal, they had fire breaks carved into the hills/mountains. Time to bring them back from disrepair. That was decades ago.
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dave54
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Re: Bulldozers in the Wilderness

Post by dave54 »

I am grateful the federal IMT is the one with approval to use dozers in the Wilderness. They are mindful of the damage and are careful to minimize the suppression impacts.
Calfire's concept of minimal impact suppression tactics is a 6 blade wide dozer line instead of their normal 8.
When I was a Hotshot I loved dozers -- they put in a lot of fireline in a hurry. Then I got involved in the BAER end of firefighting -- Burned Area Emergency Rehab -- cleaning up and repairing the damage. Then I began cursing dozers. They tear up the soil real bad. The rule of thumb is half the environmental damage from a fire is the suppression actions.
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c9h13no3
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Re: Bulldozers in the Wilderness

Post by c9h13no3 »

dave54 wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 6:55 pm I am grateful the federal IMT is the one with approval to use dozers in the Wilderness.
What is the Federal IMT, for those of us out of the loop? I assume it means "Incident Management Team" but that doesn't mean much to me either. Is this an off-shoot of FEMA or some other agency?

My gut reaction is that fire is a natural part of these lands, so the fire shouldn't be suppressed in the wilderness. But I also know pretty much zero about fighting fires.
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BillyBobBurro
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Re: Bulldozers in the Wilderness

Post by BillyBobBurro »

"My gut reaction is that fire is a natural part of these lands, so the fire shouldn't be suppressed in the wilderness."

Humans have been interacting with, impacting and modifying the Sierra landscape ever since the last ice age glaciers retreated. While our understanding of this early history is not solid we do know that human management was relatively extensive leading up to the arrival of the Spanish in CA.

What is natural for this area? I don't think midsummer crown fires are anymore natural than a clear cut. This ecosystem has had a long period of intentional management in the form of shoulder season controlled burns. I for one do not want to see area after area turned into a burned out waste land.

Last summer the southern Sierra SQF complex fire burned though some areas that not burned for over a 100 years. This ended up killing a significant percentage of old growth giant Sequoias. Until we can return to a more "normal" or historic ecology I'll take chainsaws and bulldozers over 1000 year old trees dying.
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