The Summit Daily’s coverage of the July 7 Wellington Fire was totally disheartening.

Once again, the paper robot-like parroted the spin strategy of the Forest Service and others who have it in for our forests, trying to credit clearcutting for “saving us” from fires, as they have been continuously with the Buffalo Mountain Fire. But, as with that fire, this one again started in the clear-cut “buffer zone.” Such a public relations campaign is a little like a Disservice employee starting a fire (one of the most destructive in Colorado history) so she could be a hero putting it out. 

Responsible reporting would need to at least take a peek at the other side of the coin, namely that while clear-cuts provide good staging areas for firefighters, they are also highly likely places for fires to start. It takes a lot to get a standing tree–dead or alive–to catch fire, but the grasses and weeds that grow in after a clear-cut, together with the clear-cut slash, probably make the most easily flammable fuel mixture imaginable. 

Think a little about the commonality of all the most destructive recent fires: the Marshall Fire here in Colorado, the Maui fire, the Texas Panhandle fires. All were extremely fast-moving grass fires fanned by extreme winds, something we can expect a lot more of with climate change. Scientific literature on the dangers of grass fires is growing rapidly, though perhaps not as fast as doubly flammable invasive grasses such as cheatgrass are invading clear-cuts. Every Summit public official, indeed every Summit resident, should read a recent letter from 21 Colorado conservation groups urging public officials to work with scientists regarding the wisdom of “wildfire fuel reduction,” logging: Eco-IntegrityAlliance.org/2024/02/09/colorado-letter/.