by Kern Ridlington

According to wildlife experts in Wyoming, aspen stands provide habitat for more than 200 species of wildlife.

They are troubled as Wyoming has lost more than 60 percent of its historic aspen acreage. Aspen needs harvesting or fires to remove older trees and reproduce.

In Minnesota, maintaining aspen has not been a problem as harvesting has enabled aspen to reproduce.

On the Chippewa and Superior national forests, reduced harvesting of aspen seems to be the goal to reduce the amount of aspen acreage and is also the goal of the Sierra Club.

In 2001 the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club filed suit against the Forest Service demanding a halt to logging in the lake states as it encourages the growth of aspen by clear cutting.

In Arizona, there is also concern that aspen is not reproducing and elk are over browsing the few aspen sprouts that do occur.

Charges dropped

In 2000, I wrote about the Thirty Mile Fire on the Okanogan National Forest in the state of Washington where three young college firefighters and one veteran firefighter, a father of a 7- year old daughter and 4- year old son were killed.

There was a nine hour delay in deciding if a helicopter should be used to drop water from a river that contained three endangered fish species.

Critics claimed that a water drop in the morning would have stopped the fire.

It wasn't until 2007, almost seven years after the fire, that charges of manslaughter were made by the Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General against Ellreese Daniels, crew boss of the Thirty Mile Fire.

This year, 11 of the felony charges were dropped. Daniels still could be sentenced for two false statement charges which could result in a one year prison sentence and a large fine.

He is still an employee of the Forest Service in a non firefighting capacity.

Almost 36 percent of Forest Service employees said that they would be less willing to accept assignments to fight wild fires because of the Daniels case which includes threats of jail terms for mistakes in judgment. (Ref: The Forestry Source)

Ridlington, a member of the Society of American Foresters for 30 years, was IRRRC Forester in Aitkin County for 22 years and district forester in Park Rapids for seven years.