How to consider what is best for our forests

There is no doubt the same tree, cut down and left to dry for months, is much more flammable than it was when alive. So it seems to me the activity the U.S. Forest Service euphemistically calls thinning significantly adds to existing amounts of dry vegetation. And this negative effect is enhanced by the creation of piles, the coneshaped stacks of tree trunks and limbs made by consolidating cut up trees killed by the agency.

The creation of piles has additional negative effects, including slowing the rate of natural disintegration by shielding the interior wood from ultraviolet light, wind and rain, thus preserving its mass, and creating more intense fire hazards by bringing together in a relatively small area material what had been widely dispersed.

You might expect trees felled by thinning would be small, but included in this process are trees up to 24 inches in diameter. And you also might expect piles are disposed of quickly and kept to a small number, but at a public information meeting in early January 2024, the Forest Service said between 8,000 and 12,000 piles are located in the 600 acres of the Hyde Park Project and almost half that many are in Pacheco Canyon, some of which are over a decade old.

This wide range in the number reveals another startling fact — officials with the Forest Service lack accurate knowledge of the quantity and location of piles. This was confirmed by Forest Service personnel at this and at least one more subsequent meeting.

Since the failure to keep track of the number and location of piles apparently began decades ago, and many of the individuals who participated in thinning and pile building are no longer working for the Forest Service, based on the approximately 15,000 piles in two small areas, it seems reasonable to think the Santa Fe National Forest contains many more un-burned piles.

This manifests another significant problem with piles. When piles are burned it, is very difficult to confirm the fire in each has been completely extinguished. So it is likely piles not included in the count because they were burned still represent a significant widespread danger.

The effects of climate change are recognized as becoming stronger much more quickly than anticipated, and higher temperatures and wind speed and lower humidity and annual precipitation are making intelligent and informed observers consider the use of fire in forest management to be impractically dangerous. The escaped prescribed burns in 2022, which destroyed 387,000 acres plus hundreds of homes, have shown once a fire escapes and spreads, it does so quickly and extensively so that it is often impossible to stop until a precipitation event combines with the most powerful firefighting techniques.

These facts make clear the shortsightedness of thinning and making piles which leave in the forest an unknown number of “time-bombs,” which are now made much more powerful by climate change. It is clear thinning and burning must be ceased immediately and the strategy to reduce the negative effects of wildfire must be revised with an emphasis on scientific evaluation of a new reality.

David Birnbaum has lived on this same hillside overlooking the village of Cañada de Los Alamos for 45 years and is passionate in his love of animals, including many people, and nature, including trees.