The great treasures of the West are burning, and we're still tangled in decades-old arguments about thinning, logging and managing our forests.
Right now, the Telegraph fire is consuming large chunks of Mariposa County -- and continuing a California fire season that has seen nearly 13,000 firefighters called into action and more than 1 million acres burned.
You'd think that the experts would've figured out how to reduce fire danger by now. Instead we remain trapped in the paralyzing undergrowth of competing claims and agendas.
Anyone who had paid attention to the problem surely recognizes what occurs after every big wildfire. Fire-science experts say that overgrown forests must be thinned. Environmentalists say that thinning is really an excuse to engage in destructive logging. And then everybody heads to court.
Meanwhile, despite advances in firefighting tactics and technologies, the catastrophic wildfires rage on -- taking lives, destroying habitat and consuming billions of taxpayer dollars.
