i always find myself trying to correct a public error. there's no profit in it. in fact it makes me miserable when nothing happens. i keep expecting to create a life-changing blog, one shaking up the world, making it come to its senses. fat chance. crying in the wilderness, that's what it feels like. the tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear!
ok, enough weeping. i'll soon be gone to a better world, leaving this one behind. let's say it again: FIRE PREVENTION IS NO LONGER THE NAME OF THE GAME. and why is that? in 1962 when i started looking out for the forest service, plenty of patrols were out there checking on campfires and logging. lookouts dotted the landscape to give early warning. alas, most of the patrols disappeared and a huge number of lookouts were closed, especially the california system.
the reason given always financial. we don't have the funds. lookouts too expensive, even with their staffers supplying their own vehicles and working for minimum wage, which i still am after 56 years and no benefits. "the upkeep, the maintenance, it's all too much!" other than a paint job and new appliances, my lookout has had nothing new in twenty years. "patrols have to take care of you!" i started taking out my garbage and bringing up my own drinking water so that didn't have to happen.
what is really going on here? i've heard the forest service now spends half its budget on fire. and it used to be if a forest had big fires, the next year they would get more funds. now, if they have big fires, they get less the next year. this happened on plumas national forest the year after one of the worst disasters in fire history: the burning of paradise california. were we being punished? i don't think so. we were encouraged to have bigger and better conflagrations. then we would get huge amounts of money to fight a particular fire, without any increase in next year's budget.
yes, money comes to big fires. people celebrate the firefighters: thank you, thank you. if the crews extinguish small fires nobody says boo. the organizations become heroes. opposed to the forest service in california, calfire, the state organization, has been flooded with money: new planes, helicopters, engines, cameras, on and on. they have benefited tremendously from the increase in homes and lives lost, from the immense growth in acreage.
i have answered my own question. prevention keeps fires small. if the aim were to do so, THERE WOULD BE MANY MORE LOOKOUTS FOR EARLY WARNING. unfortunately, lookouts work too well. they have reported themselves out of job. expensive technology costing much more than tower maintenance feeds the ego. of course, no one in any organization would tell the truth, they might not even think it. when will legislatures and voters wise up? i suspect not any time soon.
