Re: Inevitability of a fire

fires are the primary means to 'renew' the forests. They burn off the detritus and replenishes the soils with nutrients. Our current practices of preventing forest fires and building homes in areas that haven't seen natural burns in 100s of years typically results in what we are seeing in Durango. So far no human-made structures have burned but it's only a matter of time. There's a lot of fuel in the form of old pine needles, leaves, logs, ect which leads to very hot and intense burns which typically kill the established and healthy trees. This leads to future issues with mud slides because there's nothing left to hold the soils in place and slow the flow of water. We really need to rethink our forest management techniques.