MINNOWS > MAN, again





http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/24998152/detail.html

Lawsuit May End Fire Retardant Use After 2011

Environmental Group: Water, Fertilizer Mix Is Harmful To Fish, Plants & Habitat

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. –– The fire retardant dropped from air tankers to prevent wildfires from spreading may no longer be an option after 2011.



As
many as nine air tankers have dropped retardant –– a mixture of water,
fertilizer and red dye –– on both the Fourmile Canyon Fire in Boulder
County and the Reservoir Road Fire in Larimer County. The retardant is
used to build a perimeter around a fire and is not dropped directly on
the flames to put out the fire.



"It's not an extinguishment, it's a
retardant. It's basically there to slow down and help the ground crews
100 percent," said David Stickler, a pilot for one of the lead planes
that guides and acts as a lookout for an air tanker. "You want to stop
it so when the fire's coming up towards the house, it's going to slow
down at that point and let the ground firefighters get in there and
knock it down the rest of the way."



A federal lawsuit filed in 2003 and another in 2008 by the Forest
Service Employees for Environmental Ethics calls into question the use
of fire retardant.  The lawsuit suggests the mixture jeopardizes fish,
plants and other habitats.



"They basically haven't made a retardant that can put out a fire completely without harming the environment," said Stickler.



Stickler
told 7NEWS that retardant can be harmful to certain fish, but that
retardant is not dropped within 300 feet of a water source unless an
incident commander feels lives or property are at risk.



"For very,
very, very small fish like minnows, that type of thing, you'll see that
once it does get exposed to sunlight, those type of small fish, where
they don't have the strength to defend, will actually start to perish at
that point," said Stickler.



7NEWS asked if that's reason enough to stop using retardant.



"Actually, I've seen where you're getting more damage from ash going
into the rivers than from the retardant going into the rivers," said
Stickler. "We'll go out there a year afterwards and you'll see that the
grass is really green there.



"A federal judge has given the U.S.
Forest Service until the end of 2011 to complete environmental studies
on the impact of fire retardant, as well as coming up with alternatives
to retardant. Otherwise, the use of fire retardant could end.



"Then
we would be dropping (water) right on the fire, (which) is a completely
different strategy. It's better to make it so we can have the fire come
up to it and go out on its own," said Stickler. "We have used water
drops in a lot of places –– then we can go direct on the hits and stuff
like that –– but the effectiveness of that, with a large fire like
(Fourmile Canyon and Reservoir Road, are) very ineffective."




Air Tankers Aren't Based In Any One Area




There are 17 air tankers available nationwide to the U.S. Forest Service to drop fire retardant.



When
the Fourmile Canyon fire was reported on the morning of Sept. 6, air
tankers didn't arrive in Colorado to drop retardant on the fire until
the late afternoon. The Reservoir Road Fire was reported Sunday morning,
and within two hours, tankers that had been in Colorado for the Boulder
County wildfire were dropping retardant on the fire in Loveland.



"It
was unbelievably lucky for the people in Loveland that these aircraft
were here," said Rita Baysinger, public information officer with the
Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center.



"This definitely was a
best-case scenario," Baysinger added. "There are just not enough tankers
that any one area can just say, 'Well, we want to keep them all for
ourselves.'"

Never happen

Piece of shit judge outa montana caved in.

Stupid fucking hippies...

So I've got a solution.  We put out the fires by dropping treehuggers on them.  It's a win-win right?

Um.......doesn't FIRE jeopardize fish plants and habitat.

Yeah, that is what surf fishermen thought on the Outer Banks. Due to the envios and a activist judge the best fishing is closed off for months due to a damn bird. It has really hurt the area financially. I used to go down there twice a year but now just in the fall when the restrictions are lifted.....for now. Never say never.

Fire is natural.  Fire is Mother Earth adjusting Her world naturally, unlike Evil Man and his wanton destruction.









 

You can't make this stuff up...

meh... let the trees burn

then the mudslides will choke out the fish

Said it before & will repeat myself again: there's a persistent liberal undercurrent going on in Montana.

Recall that Baucus was perhaps the original player that got HC bill on the table.

100 years ago the average hight of a wildfire was about ten feet and the trees were so big with thick bark that fires weren't that big a deal.

Then we started fighting those fires...

That's retardant.

Lot of yupies moving into MT and making it go to shit.
Could see the difference last trip down plus what family has seen in the last 20yrs.

And of course, say you're doing it for the children.

Do woods, da woods da woods are on fire!

We don't need no retardant, let the M-in F-er burn!

 

 

Someone should be taking names and when one of these hippie's house catches fire the FD should do NOTHING as fighting the fire would harm nature.  

What are you going to put the fire out with?  Veal?

Yeah,, because the acidic ashes, mudslides,  and debris choking the streams is a much better alternative. UNFREAKINGBELIEVABLE.

Yep.  The worst thing the fire service ever did was create Smoky the Bear.  Forests that have burning for thousands of years suddenly became "harmful to wildlife".  It's like the people in New Orleans who whined and complained when the city flooded.  It's freaking below sea level!!!  Sooner or later, nature always wins.

The one consolation I have is that nature would probably eat the tree huggers first.

I did not see the name of the judge.  But it would not surprise me if it was Donald Molloy the same pos federal judge that stopped the wolf hunt here.   Maybe its time we start rethinking the way judges are appointed and limit their tenure.  
They hold an incredible amount of influence over our lives.

The fighting of forest fires heavy came about during the Great Depression to employ people.
We have gone way overboard for to many yrs on fighting forest fires.

Thers going to some big ones coming soon with all the fuel that has built up.

This is exactly why forest fires are so big.  Remember Yellowstone?  All of the thatch that would normally burn off built up for years until finally you had a fire storm.  

Also, consider this.  Adaptation takes thousands of years, especially for plants.  There are conifers that only release their seeds when burnt.  This alone is a good basis that wildfires are a good thing.

yummy

Oh yeah i remember Yellowstone.
Had to stay indoors a lot and could not go help out at the ranch when fires came.
Still amazes me how natives knew fire was good for the land and new comers just had to fight the fires all the time.
Just have to learn to listen to Mother Nature.

Same hippies that.


1. File lawsuits to prevent controlled burns


2. File lawsuits to prevent homeowners from clearing defensible space around their property.


3. File lawsuits to prevent mechanical thinning of brush in canyons and other wildlands.


4. File lawsuits to prevent homeowners in burn areas from rebuilding after a fire





All of the above happened here and were large contributing factors to the large loss of homes (and lives) in fires that swept through here in 97, 03 and 07.





Ironically, one of the fires burned through a large swath of undeveloped land that the hippies were fighting to save from development. The fires wiped out everything. As soon as the fires were put out, construction started.





Then again, the pseudo intellectual hippie morons want all of us (except them) concentrated in urban areas so that 90% of the land in the country can be put under federal government control and returned to a wild state.

 

Obama's next stimulus plan.

Ok we can just drop hippies on the fire till it goes out.

My god, the smell...