This summer at Whitelodge, in addition to bears and hummingbirds and Texans, there are young men all over the forest cutting trees. This is spectacularly engaging and loud.
Fuel reduction of "black-jack" ponderosa* pine to a density of about 50 trees per acre may slow wildfire. People don't need much more convincing than that, most having witnessed the Missionary Ridge Fire ten years ago.
The thinning certainly lightens up the forest and gives remaining trees, including fire-resistant aspen, room to grow. Only the squirrels and jays are mad. But absolutely everyone hates the huge chipper that sounds like a small plane crashing into the woods - over and over. And Fargo.
*I read somewhere that early loggers thought the young black pines were an entirely different tree from the mature yellow ponderosa and named them "black-jack" pine.
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