Dear Editor,

It is interesting that concerns abound about lightening storms stretching fire resources, and on the other hand, we do all we can to make it hard to control fire.

For over 40 years, regulatiors, enviros, politicians, media, inexperienced, and uninformed using theorized 'Protectionist' and “Humans can't improve on Mother Nature” thinking has been allowed to run things. Needed roads are eliminated, 'New Forestry' ideas create and add dead and dying materials to already heavy fuel loads, and active management that makes fire control easier is resisted.

Has the elimination of 415 road miles on the Redwood National Park using $1,200,000 taxpayer dollars for questionable gains and increased soil distrubance been a good thing? Or, has this park been set-up to burn like the 2003 Canoe Humboldt State Park Weott and Sinkyone Kings Range Wilderness fires that kept going and going and going, largely due to lack of access and inability to fight fire?

Do you believe Northern California's dead and dying on the top of South Fork Mountain, across Six Rivers National Forest, and in Idaho and Montana is the way to go? Why is a green, healthy, adequately-roaded and accessable to recreation, fire control, and management forest no longer the goal?

Time to stop blaming past human excesses for current fire fuel loads and destroyed rural communities. Time for some weak-kneed professionals to tell some truths. Those running the show did it, there is a better way.

Charles L. Ciancio

Cutten