I understand the need to close forests with active burns, and as resources get stretched thinner when it’s deeper into fire season it makes sense as to why they want to close all the forests.
That said, it seems like the FS also makes no effort to perform risk mitigation, nor a true risk analysis other than spouting off the same crap: “there’s a drought, it’s hot, and there’s lots of fuel”. We know, you say that every year, but what have you done about it? Their solution to everything is to deny access. There’s no shortage of locked gates and closed roads around me (the Los Padres) that have remained that way for years and years.
This past year has been especially infuriating. The A Zone lost almost the entire general season to mass forest closures when there wasn’t an active fire within a 100 mile radius of the majority of the South section forests. There was no attempt to even slightly extend the season, nor refund tags even though the revenue on A Zone tags alone was roughly $920,000 last year. They just took the money and ran.
Not to mention, two weeks before the general season last year we lost access to a wilderness area so they could put in bridges to support steelhead trout habitat (I’m all for the conservation, but I also know full well that riverbed sits dry 8-9 months of the year). To do so, they closed off the roads over 5 miles out from the actual construction sites, which is absurd considering the bridges were being constructed near where the road terminates anyway. Then when they finally reopened it this spring, I couldn’t believe they’d closed off such a large section of road for nearly 9 months, and not one single pothole was filled.
I don’t know if we can classify this whole thing as a management issue, or simply mismanagement.
