Fires

[MTM]

Gavin is correct- I live about 50 miles due north of Yellowstone Park, I guided fishermen in it for many years.

The best advice I can give you now is to stay tooned. Ask the same questions next spring to me on here and I will do all I can to help you out. But if it were me and I wanted to come at that time of year and stay in the park I would get reservations within the next 3 months or so. They tend to fill up very fast and early in the park. Here is a start for you.

http://www.nps.gov/yell/

That is the Park Web-Site. You can take a look there and get an idea of what, when, were and how. My wife and her sister go in the park each year and hike and sight see. They book there lodging about Oct. or Nov. of the year before. So you can see it takes an early booking to get a room or space to stay. 2 Million people a year could be the cause of it LOL Ron

[damselfly]

We were out there 4 years ago and stayed in W Yellowstone- can't remember the name of the hotel. We were there mid-June and fished--just missed the salmon fly hatch. HUGE BUGS! It was happening up river closer to Ennis. Saw most of the sights in the park-just a phenominal place!! My brother lives in Sheridan and said the park gets a little crazy with tourists mid summer so be prepared for that....but as far as fishing goes.....hire a guide and don't miss the Madison! There is also a visitors center outside the park up by Quake Lake. They have some interesting history there about the earthquake that took place back in the 60's that wiped out the side of a mountain or two there and dammed up the Madison for a while. As I said, interesting if you'd like a little history

[Phil Lilley]

What caused the fires? Lightning strike?

We visited the park back in 1995. We had 14 in our group- 6 of us, another family of 5 and another family of 3. It was one of the best vacations we ever took. Awesome country- God's handiwork. We read about the fires- how they are natural to forrests and are needed for regeneration of life. There's a pine tree that will one gerinate during a fire- is my memory correct?

Did alittle fishing... didn't get very far off the main roads but caught fish. We were there in August so the crowds were nominal. I would love to get back someday.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I believe that the Ponderosa needs fire to open its seeds, I'm sure there are others. If one walks through a Western Pine Forest to any extent, its not hard to understand why they need the opportunity to burn the brush off the forest floor. I've seen areas where a fire has gone through and killed very few trees, because the bark has a lot of fire Resistance. It will then be years before the threat from below can regenerate.

[MTM]

Phil you are correct that lighting is the cause. The smoke was even worse here yesterday if that is possible.. I have to stay in do to my health problems. Real pain in the butt. I had a firend e-mail me a map of the area covereed in smoke out here. I was going to post it on here for you folks. But for some reason I never recieved it? If you look at a state map the only areas not cover with smoke is the far eastern edge of the state up to about 20 miles from the state line and a very small area in the far northwest corner of the state.

Idaho and a lot of Wyoming are having the same problems. All we can do is hope for winter to start early to put them out. That is the word. It will take winter to get a lot of them out. Not good. We normally get our first snow about Sept 19th of each year. It is a high up snow but it sure would help with the fires right now. Ron

[Rolan Duffield]

MTM:

You indicated you live 50 miles north of Yellowstone. This has to be reasonably close to Henry's Lake. I have very fond memories of that lake.

I last fished it in the late 60's. Caught many cutthroats and Brookies up to 3.5 pounds.

A couple of my old (past) fishing buddies that reguraly fished Henrys Lake in the 50's told fishing stories about Henry's Lake that I believe were true, knowing their skills and sincerity. They indicated in the hayday of Henry's Lake (50's)it wasn't unusual to catch and release over fifty trout a day that were in the 10 pound range. Believe it or not.

What is Henry's Lake like now?

[MTM]

Rolan- I live North of Yellowstone, Henry's Lake is to the west of the park.

But I guided out of Last Chance in the late 60's for Will Godfry. I use to fish Henry's lake a lot back then. And the story's are true. I know I had days in June when the Damsels were hatching that we took many fish up to 10 or 12 pounds. Never got a Brookie over 5 pounds though. Mostly the Rainbow Cutthroat High bred's. The fishing has come back some but nothing like it was back in the 70's. But it is a lot better than it was in the late 80's and early 90's. The word got out about the large fish being caught and people from Utah flocked to Henry's and just filled there coolers till they over flowed. The fish and Game left the limit at 15 fish. I watched one guy fishing he had three kids and his wife and he had a cooler that must have had 60 pounds of filets. The Game department finally got some smarts and put a low imit on the lake. That is why it has come back.

I live to far to fish it much. It is about 2 hours from my place to the lake. With gas the price it is and being handi-caped I now stay closer to home. But I would like to fish it agian sometime. Ron

[Al Agnew]

About blaming "green groups" for stopping brush clearing. Some environmental groups do oppose it, but most of them oppose the "healthy forests" initiative of the Bush administration, because it is most probably being used as an excuse to cut big, healthy, marketable timber instead of "clearing brush".

The fire problem out west is complex, but basically boils down to too much fuel. And there is too much fuel for two main reasons...too much fire suppression over the years until recently, AND too much timber cutting. In order for a western forest to be fire resistant, it needs to consist of large, mature trees, either spaced widely apart with grasses on the ground between them, or spaced closely enough that the shade keeps brush from growing. You need fire to maintain such forests, because otherwise in the widely spaced trees, brush WILL grow. But fires in such forests usually stay on the ground and don't get strong enough to crown.

But we've screwed up all this by suppressing fires and letting the brush and small trees grow, giving the fire, when it does happen, a route into the crowns of the larger trees. And, by clear-cutting, you also produce a regenerating forest with lots of trees and brush crowded together.

To remedy the situation, you have to clear the brush and smaller trees, while leaving the bigger trees. Who is gonna do this on a large scale? Not the timber companies, because there isn't a profitable market for small trees and brush. It also isn't economical to cut some of the bigger trees and then clear the brush and the waste from what you've cut, which furnishes really good fuel.

So you can't blame it all on "green groups."

Another thing that kinda bugs me...fire fighting is big business in itself. But when was the last time that a fire was actually put out from all the fire fighting, without major help from the weather? Seems to me that maybe the best thing we could do is, instead of all the heroic (and expensive, paid for by taxpayer dollars) measures that don't really seem to do much good, to concentrate all our effort to building really good fire breaks around stuff we absolutely don't want burned.

Just my opinion.

[MTM]

No you can't blame it all on them but you sure can blame a lot of it on them. They won't budge and it is costing us all the money to fight the wildfires because of there stance.

You say cut fires breaks? Well I have seen that done and the fires get so big they jump them. There is no one answer but doing nothing sure isn't one either. And that is what is happening with the Green Groups. They will not let "ANYTHING" be done period. A few years ago a Company offered to go in and cut all the burnt timber after one of the big fires we had out here. They were going to use Choppers to do the logging, no roads built, replant and seed and help claen up three very important streams used for spawning, but nope they were sued and nothing will be done with that timber. It will lay and rot and be a bigger fire hazard. everytime a Company or the Forest Service trys to get something cut, even though it may need to be cut very bad they are sued.

You are correct in saying the Logging Companys won't go in and brush the timber out for nothing and you sure can't blame them. They have to make money like anyother business or go out of business. But they would go in and do the brushing if they were given a precentage of the timber. I know that for a Fact, and it sure is better than letting "ALL" of that timber go to waste.

This year they are saying will be the largest areas ever burnt by fires in this country. And most of it is just a waste of timber.

Also what people can't understand now is Just letting it Burn anymore just can't work. There are just to many homes being built all around the forests in this country. You can no longer just let it burn unless you want to loose most of those homes. I myself could care less if a bunch of rich peoples homes get burnt. I care about the fire fighters that have to defend those homes and the lives they lose in doing so.

My insurace agent told me that his coumpany will not even insure a home built in the forested area anymore. That Company is State Farm. But they keep right on building them.

Like I said there is "NO" middle gorund in this anymore. Not with the Green Groups there isn't. I know for a fact that several different Logging Companys have tried many times to do things so that both party's could say it was being done in the right way. But the Green Groups won't budge. It is all "my way or the highway". And something that is not being said and should be is that the upper group of people running these Green Groups are making "BIG" money doing it. Check the leaders of these groups pay out sometime. It might suprise you how much they make. I know it did me. So I believe they are in it for more than just our forests. It may have started that way but it is all about the money anymore. Same as PETA. Check out what the head people make in that group.

AL- I know by your last statement you have never fought a wildfire or been around one. They put them out all the time out here. You just never hear about it. It dosen't make good news. Not enough hipe. Heck I didn't see a word about this fire on National news until it got to be over 150,000 acres. They didn't think it worth reporting until they could hype it some. Never even herd about the other 6o some flires going on around the west either. Funny? I wounder why they wouldn't even report on something distroying so much of our country?

I know of aboot 6 fires that have been put out this year in our state. But when they get to be the size of the state of Road Island it is a might hard to get them out without some help from good old mother nature.

Come on out an give fighting fires a try sometime. They are always looking for help on the fires out here. I think you will have a different opinion if you do. I know I have helped fight several of them in years past. It just isn't much fum at all. Ron

[Wayne SW/MO]

MTM is right and their are to many misconceptions about the timber industry, many are outright wrong and the green groups know it.

Al its flat wrong that timber companies leave brush scattered through the forest, and it wrong that there is no market for small timber, in fact it can be quite profitable. At least his is the way it was in Oregon.

The problem is that each FS district has its own concepts and every Cruiser has his ideas of the interpretations.

It wasn't timber companies who decided to clear cut, they don't decide where roads will be, they don't decide which trees will be cut, or how the land will be left. They simply bid on the timber and their bid is based on what it cost to cut it, transport it, and clean up after.

Clear cutting brought the highest dollar to the FS because it was the most economical way to cut it. Roads are cheaper than choppers.

The real culprit is the mandate for the FS to make money from our forest. This wasn't something necessarily that the public wanted, it was money congress wanted to spend.