The pile of logs continues to grow

In years past, fire went through places along the Spencer Meadows Trail. The forest floor was left clean of flammable debris. Big beauties of trees, trunks more than three feet in diameter rose to a shady canopy. These survivors were spaced hundreds of feet apart. Where fire had not touched, the forest floor was littered with dry branches.

During the Dixie Fire, I thought it would all be burned to dirt. But, after the light rain in mid-September, I went to see. There were a whole lot of trees left alive! The problem, though, is that someone went through and chopped down the big survivors. Magnificent beauties with five, six, even seven foot diameter trunks were toppled and stacked by the road. More giants still lie where sawn off.

It is bad enough to take the surviving big trees from the Dixie Fire area, but, to the side of Highway 36 where fire has not touched, the big trees are being logged as fast as can be. Mounds of scrub and branches are piled up and left. The piles of logs have continued to grow, now over 20 feet high along Highway 36 between Lassen National Park and where Highway 32 meets Highway 36. Oct. 9 there was a 20-minute wait on Highway 36, while the loggers rushed their cranes to retrieve the slain trees. If this is what passes for “forest thinning” I am decidedly against it. — Kristi Ayars, Chico