Monday, January 1, 2024

Mt. Harkness Fire Lookout

This lookout sat at the top of Mt. Harkness in the southeast corner of Lassen Park.  Ed Abbey worked on his book Desert Solitaire while serving a summer at this lookout along with his second wife.  Sounds like a romantic and memorable way to spend a summer. 

It was built in 1930.  Nice government green interior.


But, the park service has a policy to "let it burn" when fire gets started on federal ground, and the Dixie Fire got it even thought the location looks very defensible.  If you're going to do that, why even have a lookout?  Well, now they don't.  You decide if that's a smart policy.

I know during that fire, the state boys at Cal Fire were very worried that federal policy would enable the fire to burn over the top of the park and down west toward Shingletown and Manton.  Fortunately, they caught it and it didn't.

11 comments:

  1. Govt. staff don't care about cost or waste. Particularly if it conflicts with their ideology. It's not their money. The people don't much care either, less than 1/2 pay any income tax now.

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    1. He said: "The people don't much care either..."
      Care about what?
      Smart people have figured out how to keep the criminals from stealing from us. You should too, you'd be less bitter. Hint: Get self employed. Yes you can, if you think you deserve to live better than you do now.

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  2. Replies
    1. Ahh, fat fingers…meant to say, I’m with WWW, only a moron bureaucrat would say let it burn…because it’s not their money. The rest of us would work like the devil to save an iconic structure. And that green paint is getting harder to come by.

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  3. Now we all know why there are so many forest fires burning wildly out of control year after year. It's because there is no longer any prevention system in place to save the forests. Yep, arsonists can set fires willy-nilly and no one notices until there is personal property damage. Thank you Federal Government!!
    irontomflint

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  4. The Central Planners in D.C. have created policy that uses fire as a 'management tool'. If a fire occurs in a remote area the planners will let it burn in the hope that it might burn itself out without human intervention. This is looked on by the planners and by the environmental community as 'natural'.

    Occasionally this policy hits a snag, pun intended, such as the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County, California in 2021. The Forest Service monitored a 25 acre lightning strike for two weeks without making any attempt to put it out. Then high winds blew it up to 21,000 acres overnight. The fire eventually burned 69,000 acres and crossed the state line into Nevada. Fire suppression costs totaled $8.7 million. The following winter, the town of Markleeville sustained major damage due to mudslides coming off the burn.

    All this happened because the brainiacs in charge think they're smarter than anyone else and bear no personable responsibility for their poor decision making about land two thousand miles away from their comfortable offices in the District of Corruption.

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    1. "bear no personable responsibility"

      That's it in a nutshell Elmo. Govt. people don't pay any taxes** and are never responsible. Govt. just pays for any mistakes with money seized from the productive people, and promotes the failed employee that caused it.

      ** for any govt. tax eater that tries to claim they pay taxes, point out that 100% of the gross on their paycheck was comprised of other people's money. 100%

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    2. Right. Fire em all. And give them NO benefits. I have no use for any of them. Criminals all.

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  5. Heat, Fuel, Oxygen or the U.S. Forest "Circus", take on away and the fire will go out.

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    Replies
    1. Fat fingers didn't notice, I missed the "e" on one.

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