Rainbow family forest fire.....Chaos in the Winds

[Coldfinger]

Thought you all would get a good laugh out of this nonsense....

 

First the Sheriff's son committed suicide nearby (not a happy thing, he was a good dude, nice family--SO PLEASE NO RUDENESS. Like I've posted before there's a good chance friends and family might read any IDIOT remarks).

 

Then there was a riot.

 

And now the Forest service is evacuating the gathering (part of it that is) b/c somebody lit a fire (that forest is very damaged by beetle kill).

 

This is all going on near the trail head for the Cirque of the Towers.....

 

Good news link below.

 

http://www.pinedaleonline.com/#rainbowfire

Edited July 8, 2008 by Coldfinger

[geoff]

I remember the day the hippies came to my town, or at least close enough for us to drive down and take a look.

 

We arrived in the middle of the night. Not being actual hippies we couldn't leave until we got off work. I'll never forget driving for several hours to the middle of nowhere and being alarmed by the DEA, FBI, local cop encampment with horses, flood lights and generators and then equally alarmed 100 yards down the road by the hippie sticking his head in my window saying "welcome home brother" parking's on the left and the parties on the right.

 

 

[AlpineK]

Hippie or not, every good party needs a nice bonfire. Unfortunately a bonfire in the middle of a forest with pines suffering from mountain pine beetle isn't the smartest idea. Especially in dry hot summer weather.

[STP]

There's a proximate cause for the fire, sure, but according to Hari Heath the root cause for the tinderbox conditions rests within policy objectives.

 

Now, I'm not able to evaluate his position, just throwing it out there. Also, it segues nicely with the NW Forest Pass issue.

 

Excerpt:

 

In the words of Gifford Pinchot, who championed his cause and became the first chief of the Forest Service, “the fundamental idea of forestry is the perpetuation of forests by use.” He said the federal forest reserves were needed, “rather to help the small man making a living than to help the big man to make a profit.”

 

What began as a solution to the fraudulent schemes of the timber barons of a century ago now prevents many a small man from making a living, while disease and insects devour accessible timber. No longer helping the small man, the forest service now requires a “permit” to travel on many “wild” rivers and wilderness areas, or to park a vehicle near a cross country ski trail. By administrative edict, they have recently made it a crime for the public to drive on a majority of the forest road system.

 

Through a “test program” called the “Recreation Fee Demonstration Project” they are applying the thin edge of the wedge to turn public lands into a private business for bureaucrats. “Four federal public land agencies have been empowered to test various ways to provide increased benefits to visitors of public lands through recreation-use fees,” says the Forest Service brochure, “Our National Forests.”

 

Excerpt:

 

The Forest Service is congressionally constipated with contradictory mandates which have given the agency's holdings the less than affectionate title, “the land of no use.” The original battle cry of the Roosevelt-Pinchot forest policy was “the fundamental idea of forestry is the perpetuation of forests by use.” Why not adopt such a policy under state management? This wouldn't mean and end to our valued wilderness areas. Under an orderly transfer of ownership, the remote and pristine wonders of our state's natural heritage could become state wilderness areas. The state could adopt wilderness policies promoting recreational use and management by nature, while allowing scientific, common sense, active management of the more accessible and productive public resources.

 

Through the inaction of the current Forest Service, much of the already roaded public lands are being ravaged by disease and insect infestations. A tinderbox condition has developed from a century of fire suppression preventing nature's method of thinning the forest. In the absence of fire, failure to mechanically thin nature's abundance leaves our forests ripe for catastrophic fires, as forest diseases and insects generate the fuel.

 

--Source: The Big Lie: Federal ownership of public lands

 

Just last week, there was an MSNBC article concerning the Forest Service opening up land for subdivision development. Or, see here ( Closed-Door Deal Could Open Land In Montana

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Coldfinger]

Struck a nerve, did we?

 

Here's a topic: more inept Rainbows or Mounties?

[mattp]

Driving across the country by myself in about 1982, I picked up a hitch hiker somewhere in Idaho who was going to the Rainbow Gathering and I went to one of those gatherings for a day (I can't remember but I may not have stayed over night). I received the same greeting: "welcome home, brother..."

 

The only thing I really remember about it was there was a guy teaching a stonebuilding workshop who was pretty good at using a hammer to whack at rocks and split them into building shapes. I was impressed by stone ovens built from rocks and mud collected right there... that and that everybody there was friendly and the food was pretty good.

 

 

[Bug]

How was the koolaid?

[geoff]

Trippy

[Coldfinger]

They used it to put out the three new fires they started (we're now up to FIVE Rainbow Family forest fires).

[Coldfinger]

We're now up to NINE Rainbow Gathering fires!

 

Mounties and NOLSe's presumed responsible.....