poor smoky, carrying 27 national forests on his back, the only constituency the forest service has. in washington conservationists fight the playmate groups - hunters, fishermen, off-the-road vehicle drivers, snowmobile people, and so on, the forests advertised as playgrounds. if i'm asked what has changed since 1962, i have to say the end of people working in the field. no road and planting crews, no fish and wildlife experts, firefighting prevention reduced to almost nothing.
here's a comment i received on facebook:
Mark A. Brown As you said, prevention is the key. In the 70s I was a prevention patrolman with a 200 gal tank and 500' of hose. Our district, Clackamas District on the south end of Mt. Hood Nat'l Forest, was divided into five patrol routes which covered all of the district. Each route was covered by a patrolman each and every day. Every lake on the district was walked, every campsite and heavy use off-site camps were covered each and every day, they also met with the public, instructed on fire safety, posted fire safety signs, etc. I drove around the district last summer and never saw a single forest service truck at all. The whole district seems abandoned. The old Ripplebrook Ranger Station is now a convenience store. The Clackamas District and Estacada District combined into one and is administered from Estacada. With no presence showing, people are doing whatever they want up there it seems.
so the evidence goes beyond what i've seen with my own eyes!
since i haven't mentioned my first love, lookouts, here goes. this forest once had 26 lookouts, now effectively five. the fact was: two lookouts could see a smoke and where their compass readings crossed, there was the smoke, pinpointed. the system work well. alas, 21 lookouts eliminated, and a dependence on a helicopter which often isn't here, deployed to fires on other forests, days at a time.
eight lookouts used to overlook my area, half a million acres, now there's only me. in a way, i don't mind. lookouts tend to compete with each other and i don't have to worry about that. alas, it is rather lonesome. and to figure out where a smoke's at can be pretty challenging. if the helicopter not on base, crews on the ground will take a lot longer. that can have some devastating consequences. the flames can go from the size of a match to hundred foot flames in high winds absurdly quickly.
on that note i would like to mention, after 56 seasons i have no benefits, no retirement, and work for minimum wage, having to supply my own vehicle and gas, no mean feat, as lookout roads are notoriously bad. how does this relate to cutbacks? for 35 years i received pay for my lunch break. last summer, from their majesty in washington, that was eliminated, cutting my pay 12.5 percent (thanks for the pat on the back) and leaving a half a million acres unwatched when the wind comes up and the temperature rises. SO MUCH FOR LOOKOUTS BEING EXPENSIVE.
i do want to say, i love the job and the people i work with, forest service folks the best, one of the things that's kept me going. as i'm reaching my dotage, i feel it my responsibility to say something. the forest has always been the enemy of civilization. and what we call 'civilized' is getting the upper hand. meditate on the desert lands of north africa and the remnants of their great roman and greek cities. they lost their forests and sacrificed their lives.
THE MYTHOLOGICAL HISTORY OF FORESTS
