Forest management for safety

I am writing concerning the Forest Management article on the opinion page June 27, 2018 (“Cooperation can address forest health, wildfire crisis,” Hilary Franz).

My deceased (six years ago) brother-in-law, Robert (Bob) Tonioli, was one of nine fire bosses for the U.S. Forest Service directing the fighting of wildfires on the entire Wasatch Front. This includes Southern Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and other areas. He had a sixth sense of what a wildfire would do.

1. He said that the only thing we can do is wait for nature to give us favorable weather in order to fight the fire.

2. Forest management since the 1930s has resulted in extreme fuel loading and trees all about the same age. These trees are weakened due to age and disease. They are prime candidates for a wild fire.

3. During a wet spring, ladder fuel (the greases and ground hugging foliage) grows high and dries out during summer. This fuel is easily ignited and allows the fire to get into the tree branches, crowning at the top of the tree to spread quickly.

4. Due to these conditions, Bob said, the U.S. will lose a small town or community in a wildfire; including trapping the residents that have only one way in or out.

We need to reduce the fuel loading by wisely harvesting the trees, reducing the fuel loading and planting younger trees in the thinned forest. Last August, in perfect fire conditions, a lightning fire started in British Columbia and moved over the mountains into Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. The Kenow fire burned 70 percent of the Waterton Forest and 30 percent of Parks Canada Infrastructure and threatened communities in the foothills of Alberta near the U.S. border. We need to reduce this fuel loading before it is too late! Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park is located where the Alberta, British Columbia and Montana borders meet. This is the only place in the world where two nations came together to make one national park.

Kenneth M. Johansen

Cheney