FOREST FIRES & LOGGING PATTERNS - DEFINITIVE CORRELATION

FOREST FIRES & LOGGING PATTERNS – DEFINITIVE CORRELATION

How we cut down our forests determines the probability of forest fires & their scale? You can have your CAKE and eat it too only if you have a fool proof plan. It all boils down to having your forest for eternity and zero / minimum forest fires during summers specially. 

NO THOUGHT TO PLANS

Big companies buy up gigantic pieces of prime forests and then leave it up the small time forest Rangers & supervisors to cut down trees, haul them up into large trucks, & transport the cut logs to the point of sale/auction. The average level of intelligence yields average results.

THE AVERAGE PLAN

Start from one end which happens to be closest to the main road and proceed to the other end if luck is on your side. Unfortunately, you never get to see the other end of the forest. Three or four seasons, all goes well and then suddenly there is a forest fire which burns down the whole forest to the ground.  

Big companies do not loose much in this deal because they had the forest insured against such a predictable calamity. The big losers are the Insurance companies and the common public who had their homes in the vicinity of this forest.

Recently we experienced such a loss of the whole township in Alberta Canada. Every year we hear & see hundreds of forest fires in rich states of California & other cities.

INTELLIGENT MASTER PLAN FOR LOGGING PATTERN  

It is a common sense approach to logging patterns which makes the total scheme of devouring the forest last for a long time till it is completely finished. No loss plan/approach.

MULTI PRONG ATTACK

If I owned a forest whose dimensions were 10 km X 10 km square, then the logging pattern would be as follows. Five gangs of men & equipment would start cutting down trees on one side of the square and another set of five gangs of men and equipment operate on the adjacent side of square. Each gang would be positioned at a distance of ONE km from the other gang. Thus we would be covering Five km of forest on each side of the square.

As the two sets of gang’s approach inwards towards each other in straight WIDE ROWS, we will be dividing our forest into beautiful manageable grids of one km X one km.  In the very first season we would be achieving 25 grids of one km square, each separated from the other by at least 100-meter-wide alley / space / road. These very pathways / roads will allow us an easy access right into the interior of our forest for fire fighting equipment if needed in future and minimize the damage by containing the fire to one such square/grid. The 100-meter-wide space between two plots of forest trees will be our added advantage in case of fire in one plot, even with high winds blowing the hot cinders away.  

BORROWING FROM COAL MINING TECHNOLOGY.

I have worked in under ground and open cast coal mines and it is no shame to borrow some of their ideas for the benefit of our forests. Once the coal has been evacuated from an under ground mine, it is mandatory to fill up the gap left behind, with sand. This process is called SAND STOWING.  Water and sand are mixed together and pumped into the mine to achieve the end result. In the same way we can pump up sand & water on to the 100-meter-wide pathways in our forest grids to achieve a fire proof alley between two plots of trees to prevent the fire from spreading from one plot to the other in case of fire and high winds. If my forest is full of costly teak trees then the additional cost of sand covering is worth it. The return on investment is very attractive.  

Once the complete forest is divided up into 0ne hundred, neat smaller squares of one km X one km, then and then only we can take a sigh of relief. Now we go ahead with logging pattern of widening the existing pathways and gradually reducing the forest squares to 0.75 km X 0.75 km. This strategy ensures that our forest will last us for a long time with minimum chance of burning down.

FORESTS ON HILLY TERRAIN

Different strategy is needed for a hilly terrain forest. Trees tend to fall/roll down from a higher level towards the valley of the terrain. Here we have to make similar pathways, but this time, RADIALLY from top to bottom to achieve the no loss / minimum loss result.  

Rohit Khanna – Industrial Engineer