SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters and numerous studies credit intensive forest thinning projects with helping save communities like those recently threatened near Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, but dissent from some environmental advocacy groups is roiling the scientific community. Forest managers credit such burns with helping protect the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park. While most scientific studies find such forest management is a valuable tool, environmental advocates say data from recent gigantic wildfires support their long-running assertion that efforts to slow wildfires have instead accelerated their spread. Critics say forest thinning operations are essentially logging projects in disguise. Forest managers cite examples like where a 400-foot-wide (120-meter) fuel break helped protect rural Sierra Nevada homes.

Source: Egypt Independent October 08, 2021 19:30 UTC