US Forest Service Burn Started Wildfire That Nearly Reached Los Alamos, New Mexico, Agency Says

As reported below, another prescribed burn went out of control in New Mexico with very bad results. Plenty of folks are up in arms  about how these burns are conducted, but none seem to question the “science” that justifies these fires in the first place.

 

Our friend Allan Savory – the noted ecologist who, over the past sixty years, developed the Holistic Management framework and holistic planned grazing  process with the help of thousands of fellow scientists, ranchers, farmers and pastoralists –  had this comment about such fires:

 

“Chris, Interesting the article on “prescribed burns” to prevent mega-fires!

 

Aborigines used fire to manage Australia for over 50,000 years and are praised for those prescribed burns that led to the desertification of Australia!  And now Australia is suffering mega-fires.

 

And Native Americans here used fire (like all humans we only had technology and fire) and again used it to prevent catastrophic fires which we now have.

   

We did it all my life and they still do in the Game Department and all government agencies in Zimbabwe and other countries in Africa – called “early burning” to prevent catastrophic fires and in every case it only increased biodiversity loss and global desertification and thus mega-fires.

 

As “scientists” they now call it “prescribed” i.e. determined by an institutional scientist.  So do expect more mega-fires – not usually at the treated site but somewhere else as happens with ecological reactions.”

 

CLICK HERE to see Allan Savory’s TED Talk (now viewed by millions) on the essential need for animal impact to avoid wildfire, biodiversity loss and desertification, such as what can be seen all over New Mexico.

 

 

NOTE: this article was originally published to APNews.com on July 24, 2023. It was written by Morgan Lee.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service’s own prescribed burn started a sprawling 2022 wildfire that nearly reached Los Alamos, New Mexico, the agency acknowledged Monday in a report published after a lengthy investigation.

The Cerro Pelado fire burned in dry, windy conditions across more than 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) and crept within a few miles of the city of Los Alamos and its companion U.S. national security lab. As the fire approached, schools closed and evacuation bags were packed before the flames tapered off.

Investigators traced the wildfire to a burn of piles of forest debris commissioned by the Forest Service. The burn became a holdover fire, smoldering undetected under wet snow, with no signs of smoke or heat for months, said Southwestern Regional Forester Michiko Martin.

The revelation prompted immediate rebukes against the Forest Service by New Mexico political leaders, including Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. She said she was “outraged over the U.S. Forest Service’s negligence that caused this destruction.” Episodes of extremely hot and dry weather in recent years have triggered concerns about prescribed burns as techniques for clearing forest debris, concerns that Grisham echoed.

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