NJ Forest Fire Impacts 30 Acres
- Thread starter dogg57
- Start date
For some reason I thought that the fire was down closer to Washington/Maxwell. I was going to try to head down there Saturday with my camera, but I recently got rid of my truck and am not going to take a new car down to where the fire was.
I wasn't expecting to regret getting rid of my truck so quickly.
I wasn't expecting to regret getting rid of my truck so quickly.
By the way, huge thanks to the crews that worked really hard to put the fire out. A job well done!
So I ask the question again....I don't understand the urgency for putting this fire out........ It's not in an area near any homes........ If it is where I understand it to be, it is in an area that needs to be cleaned out of lots of kindling and underbrush. I can understand the urgency to contain it, but not for putting it out. Am I wrong?
'Wrong' according to whom? I.E., No, of course you're not. But do you think you'll hear that from many people, if you ask?
Bottom line is, the powers that be in this case don't have the knowledge and/or balls to tell the guys to stand down and just keep an eye on things once they could confidently say it was more or less contained from doing harm to any citizens or their structures........So they took the old head/simpler route, and just go head and put it out. maybe to do otherwise would just mean too many questions to answer, too many angry emails and phone calls to field/reply to. Understandable, but I agree it's dissapointing.
Bottom line, fire suppression is here to stay. Even in the pines, to some degree. And so the forest and everything that lives there suffers as a result....Ok 'suffers' may be an overstatement; 'Is forced to adapt or fades away'...?
You get the point.
Side note:
Speaking from experience a few years ago in the pines- May be wise to avoid the actual burned area for a day or two following the fire......Or, do so and expect to be: flagged down/stopped, questioned at length, and then asked if your map can be examined by the d**khead in the firefighter/officer uniform.( I agreed to let him look at them-I had nothing to hide). Then you may be told, "Uuuhh, nah, get outta here, this road's closed".
Lol, what an overpaid ignoramus. Hopefully there's not many on the front line like this guy was.
Speaking from experience a few years ago in the pines- May be wise to avoid the actual burned area for a day or two following the fire......Or, do so and expect to be: flagged down/stopped, questioned at length, and then asked if your map can be examined by the d**khead in the firefighter/officer uniform.( I agreed to let him look at them-I had nothing to hide). Then you may be told, "Uuuhh, nah, get outta here, this road's closed".
Lol, what an overpaid ignoramus. Hopefully there's not many on the front line like this guy was.
You have to be more stealthy by walking deeper in the woods and not using a vehicle.
I think one of the things that they'd be worried about is something happening (high winds kicking up, etc.) that would get their large "under control" fire out of control. Then if it spread, started destroying property, heaven forbid taking lives, etc. people would be on the war path and since this is America the lawsuits would start flowing like water. Better to put it out and not risk the liability.
I read an article about this yesterday where some internet commentator was wondering (accusing) if this had started as a controlled burn that the fire service lost control of, and then bemoaned the fact that they "never tell the public what they are doing."
To get back to your point, I don't think the forest is suffering from the fact that they don't let fires burn out of control all the time. They do plenty of controlled burns each year, and the odd fire like this one happens every now and then. This one burned a lot of forest and then they put it out. I'm okay with that rather than them let it spread to all of Wharton or something.
This is rich.Watch the entire clip. She is real people!
I'll see that and raise you one Bob ! Hard to beat Kapooya !
This is rich.
Hey Bob, now I know what you do with all that retirement time.
What search term so you use to find that stuff?
I actually liked it, very clever. Kapooya, Kapooya, I got me a new expletive.
Mostly true Ben, and my tone was probably a little one sided.
I think you are underestimating how badly the pine barrens in general is starving for fire. They absolutely are, still. The Nj forestry service is absolutely slacking here. Probably a problem with underfunding, and/or understaffing. If that's the case then someone is not successfully educating the powers that be of the need for fire there.
It's become such cliche to say that the 'specialized flora and fauna of the NJPB's benefit from occasional, no, frequent fires'. ... .But we need to keep saying it, to more people. It's evidently not ENOUGH of a priority to the state agencies that should ultimately be ordering these burns up and executing them- among a public that has a sufficient understanding of why they are done routinely.
With all due respect I will say that anyone who believes the pines are burning frequently enough either isn't getting around many areas of the barrens enough(certainly not the same places I have been), or they simply cannot claim a proper understanding of fire ecology. No way.
But I think you're probably right as to why they put out the fire, and that they basically had to with things the way they are now. Which is beurecracy(sp?) as usual and it's yet another culprit choking the pines.
I never can't find the stones, they are just not there.
I doubt there are any in that area. But I will go there and look around.
