3 Responses to “Comments & Suggestions”

Great information, thank you.

-- SBouyer -- March 12th, 2012

Hello,
Found your website this morning while researching Dobson Knob. Your mission statement for your project is very appealing to wife and I. The reason I was researching Dobson Knob is because of the USFS Collaborative Forest “Restoration” Plan in which it is recommend to burn the entire Linville Gorge Wilderness Area 2 – 3 times over ten years. A group of us visited Dobson to observe the affects of USFS prescribed burning.

In the same vein as your mission, a growing number of impassioned public believe that the premise of Wilderness is being surrendered with the precribed burns. Is NC Mountain Treasures aware and/or are actively working on the USFS Collaborative Forest “Restoration” Plan? If NC Mountain Treasures is aware and involved, are you supporting the USFS burning of the Gorge?

-- Lonnie Crotts -- November 17th, 2012

Grandfather District’s Collaborative Forest Landscape “Restoration” Program (CFLRP) is a big gamble with prescribed burning throughout the Grandfather Ranger District and particularly on the Linville Gorge Wilderness.

The CFLRP is the one that plans for prescribed burns for the entire 12,000 acres of the Linville Gorge Wildeness 2 – 3 times in the next 10 years, and an adjacent 4,500 acres of forest. Setting fires in the steep and mostly inaccessible Linville Gorge will surely cause large out of control fires destroying much of what we know of the Gorge. Catastrophic fire will reduce species diversity, especially when occuring throughout the Gorge.

The U.S. Forest Service has proposed to burn North Carolina’s Linville Gorge Wilderness Area entire 12,000 acres plus and additional 4,500 adjoining acres 2 – 3 times over the next ten years to “restore” it . The Linville Gorge is one of the few old growth forests remaining in North Carolina and as a Wilderness Area by definition, should not have mechanical intervention.

The 1964 Wilderness Act states “In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States…leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” Given this clear provision by the Wilderness Act, the proposed U.S.F.S. Grandfather District Restoration Project’s planned “prescribed” burning of the entire 12,000 acres of the Linville Gorge Wilderness 2 – 3 times in ten years’ time will remove the vestiges of Wilderness and the Linville Gorge will become a “managed forest”.

While the Linville Gorge Wilderness is planned for 12,000 and 4,500 adjacent acres of burning by the USFS, there has been little to no consideration to its old growth forest and the conditions of this specific environment that will not allow control once fire is set by officials.
1. The concept of controlling fire or the use of the phrase “controlled burns” is an oxymoron, and has no place in the discussion of setting fires in the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area due to:
a. Setting fires in terrain as steep as the Gorge creates a high risk of getting out of control burns and remains unpredictable.
b. Chimney effects where fire in the steep canyons will create its own wind currents, increasing the inability to control the fire
c. The inability to have men on the ground to work effectively in managing fire.
d. The duff layer (a peat like layer of organic matter) is known to harbor fire long after it has been ignited and will remain beyond weather predictions, therefore creating risk b. The first “prescribed burn” results in forest that is more fire ready than prior to the use of “prescribed” burning.
2. With the first burn and its more fire ready state, the risk of wildfire increases to a level higher than before the “prescribed burn”.
3. This burn plan is experimental.
4. The plan to burn large tracts of the Gorge in multiple areas, multiple times, increases an already higher risk for out of control fire by another factor of multiples; in the meantime the standing “prescribed” burned forest is more ready for fire and will be in the vicinity of new burn areas so that escaped fire will have a greater chance of igniting.
5. The concept or use of “controlled fire” in flat terrain is not necessarily controllable, i.e.: the Croatan’s “controlled burn” in which 20,000 unplanned acres were burned when the fire went out of control in this “prescribed” USFS burn.
6. The “prescribed” burning of the Linville Gorge Wilderness will require ongoing maintenance with funds that may not continue.
a. If the required ongoing maintenance ends, the suggested outcomes of “restoration” will result in notably increased risks of catastrophic wildfire and invasive species.

-- Lonnie Crotts -- December 29th, 2012

Leave a Comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Enter the code above -- helps prevent spam *