The West is on fire.

We should let it burn.

The exception to that, of course, would be to protect life and property as much as possible.

The West is on fire not from climate change, but from poor natural resource management.

Fire is natural. Fire is useful. Fire is not always bad.

Why are the fires so bad now? Because people think that fire should always be stopped, all the time. Forests have been left to grow out of control with no management. As such, there is a lot of undergrowth that has gotten out of hand. This provides fuel to a fire that eventually gets so big that it gets into the canopy and then spreads easily, creating it’s own wind (from consuming the air around the fire) and causing it to spread uncontrollably.

Forest management and use of fire isn’t a new concept and it still gets used, but not to the extent that is should be. What is new is that groups of activists who have no desire to manage forest lands so much as to stop all activity in forests. This is an issue of environmentalist being out of control and locking down good, demonstrated practice.

If you wanna stop fires so bad, how about we send them environmentalists out there to fight them? Let’s see if they can stop what they have set in motion with their emotions instead of science and management.