Sacred Fire Case Study

Words: 588
Pages: 3

Questions
1. If prescribed fires are limited by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, will the United States have more or less air pollution? Do you agree that wildfires are natural and prescribed fires are caused by humans? Prescribed fires are under the clean air act will have less air pollution then a wildfire.However, acording to this article on page 40"prescribed fires are less violent and more restricted in area, they should generate less smoke, but because they burn cooler and smolder more, they may actually produce twice as much smoke per hectare as wildfires " Wildfires are natural where prescribed fires are caused by humans trying to burn the underbrush so when a wild fire does take place it does not burn out of control.
2. Industrial forests in the area, that have been actively thinned and managed, do not have the same level of mortality or catasmphic fires. Does this prove that
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Elk were not found in the Boise National Forest area in presettlement times, but have been introduced. People enjoy seeing them and think of them as part of the forest. Should the forest be managed in such a way to perpetuate the elk population or should it be managed so as to return it to presettlement conditions? Is the latter a realistic goal?
If the elk can survive in the Boise national Forest they should continue with this trend because there are only so many elk in the United States as it is. Elk is a beneficial resource for hunters and other predators which did change the and original ecosystemecosystem recovered and evolved.
4. In some western habitats, large, catastrophic fires occurred every several hundred years for the past tens of thousands of years. After each one, the ecosystem recovered and evolved. In light of this, is the term 'catastrophic" appropriate? If so, from what point of view are such fires catastrophic? If not, why is the term inappropriate? How does the use of such terrns as "catastrophic" affect environmental