Claim: A lot of the problems with forest fires ... is because of bad policy (not to clear out the forests) that was put in place by environmentalists.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Rodeo–Chediski Fire
text: forests. The group, Sierra Club, responded by saying they have long supported the thinning of underbrush and small trees through controlled burns, not the logging of large trees. But this fire, among other devastating drought-year fires in the American West, helped propel new forest management laws, enacted by both the U.S. Congress and local authorities. Of these the most notable is the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003. Although these policies presented high-profile, short-term solutions, the ecological effects of these policies are hotly debated among forestry experts. The arsonist, who received a

title: Forest restoration
text: world, forest fires cover a heavy toll on forests. That can be because of provoked deforestation in order to substitute forests by crop areas, or in dry areas, because of wild fires occurring naturally or intentionally. A whole section of forest landscape restoration in linked to this particular problem, as in many cases, the net loss of ecosystem value is very high and can open the drop to an accelerated further degradation of the soil conditions through erosion and desertification. This indeed has dire consequences on both the quality of the habitats and their related fauna. Nevertheless, in some specific

title: 1997 Indonesian forest fires
text: suffered from air pollution. The 1997 Indonesian forest fires were caused by changing land use which made the tropical forest vulnerable to fire during a drought associated with that year's El Niño. Indonesian forests have historically been resistant to burning even during long dry seasons and despite the use of fire to clear land for swidden agriculture. The land use changes that led to the fires were a combination of industrial-scale logging, draining peatlands for conversion to oil palm and fast-growing tree plantations, and a massive government program to drain swamps and convert them to rice paddies. A total of

title: Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
text: TRPA regulations that purportedly caused problems that led to the loss of hundreds of structures. Contrary to the allegations of staff misconduct and detrimental agency policies, the U.S. Forest Service fire investigations in the Angora fire Investigations confirmed that most of the structures caught fire from "firebrands"—pieces of burning wood—carried in the smoke column either from neighboring structures or from nearby burning vegetation. The investigations found that some homes had highly flammable wooden shake roofs and inadequate fire clearance around the structures. In many cases, winter fire wood and kindling supplies were piled too close to homes. The study did

title: Yellowstone National Park
text: Fire monitors also regulate fire through educational services to the public and have been known to temporarily ban campfires from campgrounds during periods of high fire danger. The common notion in early United States land management policies was that all forest fires were bad. Fire was seen as a purely destructive force and there was little understanding that it was an integral part of the ecosystem. Consequently, until the 1970s, when a better understanding of wildfire was developed, all fires were suppressed. This led to an increase in dead and dying forests, which would later provide the fuel load for

title: 2016 Uttarakhand forest fires
text: comes in the way of removing pine trees in the areas where they are invading. Apart from accidental fires, a number of causes and motivations for setting fires have been noted which include encroachment on forest lands and concealing illegal timber extraction. Fires are also set by honey and sal seed collectors, to scare away wild animals, or to improve grass growth. Fires destroy biodiversity directly and have more indirect long-term impacts including the encouragement of fire and pioneer species. It has been suggested that the dark carbon dust emitted by the fires deposited on Himalayan glaciers could hasten their

title: Wildfire suppression
text: Smoke from fires is an irritant and a pollutant. Attempts to thin out the fuel load may be met with opposition due to the desirability of forested areas. Wildland goals may be further resisted because of endangered species protections and habitat preservation. The ecological benefit of fire is often overridden by the economic benefits of protecting structures and lives. Additionally, federal policies that cover wildland areas usually differ from local and state policies that govern urban lands. In North America, the belief that fire suppression has substantially reduced the average annual area burned is widely held by resource managers and

title: Wildfire
text: However, prevention policies must consider the role that humans play in wildfires, since, for example, 95% of forest fires in Europe are related to human involvement. Sources of human-caused fire may include arson, accidental ignition, or the uncontrolled use of fire in land-clearing and agriculture such as the slash-and-burn farming in Southeast Asia. In 1937, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a nationwide fire prevention campaign, highlighting the role of human carelessness in forest fires. Later posters of the program featured Uncle Sam, characters from the Disney movie "Bambi", and the official mascot of the U.S. Forest Service, Smokey Bear.

title: Fire ecology
text: this particular mechanism, forest fire management can be helpful by creating rich soil, killing competitors, and allowing seeds to be released. Fire policy in the United States involves the federal government, individual state governments, tribal governments, interest groups, and the general public. The new federal outlook on fire policy parallels advances in ecology and is moving towards the view that many ecosystems depend on disturbance for their diversity and for the proper maintenance of their natural processes. Although human safety is still the number one priority in fire management, new US government objectives include a long-term view of ecosystems. The

title: Camp Fire (2018)
text: as the cause of recent wildfires in the state, including the Camp Fire and the concurrent Woolsey Fire in Southern California. In a tweet, he threatened to end federal assistance unless "gross mismanagement of the forests" is remedied. Trump elaborated on his claims in an interview with Chris Wallace and during his trip to Paradise, stating that "you've got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest — very important" and that "[Finland] spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem." Finland's president Sauli Niinistö

title: Glacier National Park (U.S.)
text: forests and parks. As a better understanding of fire ecology developed after the 1960s, forest fires were understood to be a natural part of the ecosystem. The earlier policies of suppression resulted in the accumulation of dead and decaying trees and plants, which would normally have been reduced had fires been allowed to burn. Many species of plants and animals actually need wildfires to help replenish the soil with nutrients and to open up areas that allow grasses and smaller plants to thrive. Glacier National Park has a fire management plan which ensures that human-caused fires are generally suppressed. In

title: Healthy Forests Initiative
text: Furthermore, forest fires occur naturally and are critical to the long-term survival of many forests, since many trees will only grow once they detect that a fire has occurred since this gives them access to sunlight. Some opponents also criticize the blanket prescription of thinnings to forests where low intensity fires did not historically play a pivotal role . Furthermore, some saplings only grow after forest fires have cleared away older and dead trees; if humans intervene by preventing natural forest fires from occurring for too long, the forest will eventually die and grow back very slowly. In 2004, the

title: Fire
text: to landscape management is its use to clear land for agriculture. Slash-and-burn agriculture is still common across much of tropical Africa, Asia and South America. "For small farmers, it is a convenient way to clear overgrown areas and release nutrients from standing vegetation back into the soil," said Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez, an ecologist at the Earth Institute’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. However this useful strategy is also problematic. Growing population, fragmentation of forests and warming climate are making the earth's surface more prone to ever-larger escaped fires. These harm ecosystems and human infrastructure, cause health problems, and send up

title: Healthy Forests Initiative
text: fighting major wildfires caused by years of neglect have become entirely too expensive for USFS budgetary expenses. American Insurance companies have raised the issue of structural destruction caused by super forest fires is exceeding 2 billion dollars a year. From a historical standpoint looking to the Sierra Nevada Mountains prior to the inception of the Forest Service the forests were burned every year by the ranchers who ran livestock in these regions. Consequently the amount of fuel left on the forest floor was minor, resulting in low intensity fires. The fires were typically lit during the first storms of the

title: Environmentalism
text: fires with alternatives (such as installing gas fires), or for those who preferred, to burn coke instead (a byproduct of town gas production) which produces minimal smoke. 'Smoke control areas' were introduced in some towns and cities where only smokeless fuels could be burnt and power stations were relocated away from cities. The act formed an important impetus to modern environmentalism, and caused a rethinking of the dangers of environmental degradation to people's quality of life. The late 19th century also saw the passage of the first wildlife conservation laws. The zoologist Alfred Newton published a series of investigations into

title: 2009 Greek forest fires
text: environment. In the secondary and tertiary burnt areas there are, however, insufficient logs of the right size for creating barriers to run-off erosion. Mr Antonis Angelopoulos, a geologist and vice-president of the Geotechnical Chamber of Greece, Eastern Mainland Greece section, agrees that some of the interventions into the environment have been excessive. For example, in Agia Varvara, the permanent cement structures that have been made were probably unnecessary, because the area has already got at least two old, stone dams, which could have been recycled. However, on the gulley of Agiou Stefanou, the anti-runoff work has been positive, because dams

title: Ryan Zinke
text: wildfires, and that the wildfires had "nothing to do with climate change". Fire scientists and forestry experts reject that, attributing the increasingly destructive wildfires to heat and drought caused by climate change. Later that month, Zinke acknowledged that climate change did play a part in the wildfires. Zinke also stated that preventing removal of dead trees has increased the amount of flammable material and hurt timber salvaging. In October 2018, FOIA requests revealed that Zinke's calendar, which was supposed to cover the Secretary of the Interior's activities, contained glaring omissions. Zinke met with lobbyists and business executives on a number

title: Sawtooth National Forest
text: always the case. The 1987 forest plan did not recognize fire as an ecosystem process or as a tool for ecosystem management; this was rectified in the 2012 forest plan. Previous firefighting efforts, which emphasized quickly extinguishing all fires, caused dead and dying trees to accumulate well in excess of the level found when fires are allowed to burn out naturally. Historically speaking, fires became more common in parts of the SNRA after the development of lodgepole pine forests, which occurred prior to 1450 AD. Between 1989 and 1998 there were on average 50 fires per year, with 58 percent

title: Boreal forest of Canada
text: can argue that fire suppression actually creates a positive feed back loop, where ever more expensive fire suppression generates the conditions for ever larger fires. The negative effects of fire suppression are still under study, and not fully measured, but they need to be considered when making decisions about the future health of boreal forests. Because parts of the boreal forest region are found in nearly every province and territory in Canada, there has not been much in the way of coordinated planning to develop the region. Prime Minister Diefenbaker talked of his "northern vision" but little was done to

title: 2017 California wildfires
text: by wildfires which wipe out vegetation that naturally removes carbon from the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change. In addition to the tremendous economic loss and danger to human lives, wildfires also play a huge part in significantly worsening air quality in both local and downwind regions, causing more long-term human health problems. Emissions from wildfires transported or nearby urban areas can be a sporadic but significant contribution to urban air pollution. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency's National Emission Inventory reported that 27% of carbon monoxide and 17% of fine particulate matter (below 2.5μm) emissions throughout the Western states was due