Burnt forest is never pretty. Sometimes the control burns have to be
done in less than ideal conditions. If It's too hot and dry or windy
the fire burns too hot, not cool and controllable which just skims
away the dried litter on the forest floor and barely singes anything
else. But sometimes ideal conditions never present themselves and the
alternative, to leave the forest unburned and overburdened with fuel
in mid-summer, is just too dangerous.
I've seen and photographed the aftermath of fire that's caused total
destruction to all living matter, to a depth of above a foot. That's
to say, all life in the soil, plus the fire germinated seeds of
potential new life, was incinerated completely. Nothing was left, not
even a stump, and a whole crew of firefighters had also been lost.
Even the ash had been carried away by the convection of the fire,
leaving a bare, black wasteland. That's the sort of fire damage you
never want to see.
That's a nice calm and moody shot of the area you mentioned, and shows
that only the foliage was stripped away by the flames, it must have
been very dry and was removed quickly. Those bare trunks will recover
in months, and the forest was protected from loss. It's unlucky that
you didn't get that uninterrupted vista of green on your visit,
nevertheless you've made a good record of one part of the cycle of
life in the forest.
regards, Anthony
"Of what use is lens and light
to those who lack in mind and sight"
(Anon)
2009/9/29 <[email protected]>:
> One more PESO before I go to a GESO of my trip (since most were pretty
> ordinary shots -- I am out of practice not having done photography for eight
> months or more).
>
> This is probably the most interesting one I got on my trip.
>
> The Olympic National Forest (Washington) was beautiful, but so was the
> Willamette National Forest (Oregon). Until, that is, I got to a heavily
> burned
> out section around sunset. I know some believe fires are good for thinning
> out forests, well, most of this was not thinned out but completely burned.
>
> It was very sad.
>
> A day later, while I was in Medford, the whole Rogue River Valley filled
> with smoke from a big fire around the Crater Lake area. According to the
> Medford newspaper today (online) it is still very smoky and residents are
> advised to avoid breathing it. Oregon and California keep getting too little
> rain and keep being too dry...
>
> http://www.mapphotography.com/PAWS/pages/notice.htm
>
> Comments, welcome.
>
> Marnie aka Doe
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we
> created them. Albert Einstein
>
>
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