Blazing forest trails

While not a complete authority on the Canyon Creek fire in 1988, I was there to cut snags and later me and Elden Rammell were sentenced to cut that burned timber.

That fire camp there looked like a reunion of retired Forest Service people. I’m sure they donated their time.

I’m thankful someone finally admitted that is a “let burn policy.” Apparently the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing because they’re still doing it with most fires.

A certain person who “sat” and got paid to look at the Rice Ridge fire told me the state fire crew were there to put it out. The Forest Service ran them off because it was Federal land. He called the Forest Service the biggest arsonist on the planet. If this is true, is there someone out there who is not afraid of their job to come forward and spill the beans?

The Forest Service MO is let it go then we’ll fight it.

Heather Richards’ pictures of an incinerated Pyramid Pass should stir everyone’s moral code. For those of you who never got to see its pristine beauty, take my words for it, God’s country. So glad I saw it many moons ago with son Troy and Tadd Herbert. We camped near there late one evening on our way out. A rock rabbit always on guard whistled at us from her perch on a stone just left of the lake. The boys caught some nice trout there. You don’t forget places like that.

Letting the Rice Ridge fire get away was maybe not all the ranger’s fault. Perhaps she was following Forest Service policy. Until Mr. Zinke grabs the bull by the horns and changes leadership in the Forest Service and realizes what has happened to this once great agency, get used to the smoke.

And it isn’t just some Forest Service people getting fat off these fires. There are a lot of other people riding the gravy train.

If anyone can get their hands on a book called “Blazing Forest Trails” by Charles D. Simpson, the Caxton Printers LTD Caldwell, Idaho 1967, chapter 4 is on fires. He was an early day Forest Ranger. From that book you will see how far the Forest Service has fallen.