Despite Republican denials Richard Spring is good fire

If livestock grazing is the key to preventing wildfires why is ranch country still suffering from near daily high even extreme grassland fire danger indices? Because Republicans are evil. 

Just a hundred and fifty years ago bison, wapiti, bighorn sheep, pronghorns and deer cleared the grasses driving eastern Montana's fire years. If grasses remained in the fall tribes burned the rest. 

So, one solution to forest management woes is to move the US Forest Service from the US Department of Agriculture into Interior where American Indian nations could more easily assume additional responsibilities for stewardship on public land and have the resources to apply cultural fire to their own holdings.

In 2012 the fast-moving Ash Creek Fire burned bridges on US212 near Ashland and Lame Deer, Montana while another blaze nearby on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, the Coal Seam Fire spread to some 700 acres.

In 2017 wildland fires on private ranch land in southeastern Montana dwarfed those on public ground in the western part of the state. The Sartin Draw Fire near Broadus and the Battle Complex near Birney burned at least 100,000 and 185,000 acres respectively, decades of invasive grasses and poor stewardship to blame.

Last year the nearly 50,000 acre Huff Fire burned through the white supremacist town of Jordan, known as the home of the Montana Freemen. The Bobcat fire near Roundup in Musselshell County was over 41 square miles in size. 

Today, southeastern Montana is ablaze again because it’s overrun with dry invasive cheatgrass but as a Republican stronghold it avoids criticism from Republicans.

The [Richard Spring Fire] is burning primarily in short grass beneath a ponderosa pine overstory. Areas of sage brush and juniper are common in the fire area as well. Light flashy fuels are the main fuel source available. [Inciweb]

Learn more at the Helena Independent Record.

Check the 1880 census map of forest fires (not grass) for how much fire the Northeast had (darker color, higher % burned). Most was associated with logging and landclearing. The last regional outbreak was 1908, and then the 1947 Maine fires. pic.twitter.com/8OkBfNHeBP

— Stephen Pyne (@StephenJPyne) August 11, 2021

We are pushing $200 million dollars in suppression costs on #DixieFire, and we'll easily spend a billion by the time we clean up the damage.
A BILLION spent and all we'll have to show for it is a burned up watershed. How many acres could we treat/restore with that money?

— Zeke Lunder (@wildland_zko) August 11, 2021