Fuel Load – Not Climate Change – Biggest Factor in Wildfire Management

June 8, 2023

As New York City woke this weekend to thickening smoke, the geniuses in the climate movement thought they’d found their new talking point.  “Let’s blame the air quality on climate change!”

Those of us in the Western U.S., who deal with wildfires at some level year after year, know better.

While weather patterns and lightning-laden thunderstorms play a significant role in starting wildfires, it is poor forest management practices that lead to many fires having a much greater impact than they should.

Eco-activism around logging and timber production, which gained momentum in the Carter administration and peaked during Clinton’s presidency, led to large swaths of mature forests being put off-limits to development.  Like any other living ecosystem, trees that should have been logged instead died naturally and fell to the ground, creating a forest floor ripe with dry fuel sources for wildfires.  Once a fire got into that carpet, it was effectively supercharged and much harder to contain.

Radical environmentalism has affected every facet of traditional resource development, and continues to inflict damage on American families daily.  Whether we’re talking about timber jobs, mining, oil and gas or energy systems, the drumbeat of ‘save the planet’ is doing more harm than it is helping to economies across the nation.

Power The Future prays for the men and women fighting wildfires across North America, as the supercharged fires are life-threatening on many levels.  We understand the need to safely and responsibly develop all of our nation’s natural resources, and we’ll continue to work to ensure the jobs and opportunities are enriched, not driven away by eco extremism.