Ground Truth Blog
Fire Retardant Leaves Lasting Impacts on Waterways
During the 2020 fire season, retardant-laden slurry bombers were scrambled to attack a small fire in Alberta’s mountains. One payload of Phos-Chek fire retardant was delivered directly into North Racehorse Creek, turning the stream red. University of Alberta...
Secretaries Order Consolidation of Federal Firefighting
The Forest Service and other federal agencies missed the deadline of Sept. 10 to implement President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14308 mandating consolidation of federal firefighting into a single agency in the Department of Interior. A week later, the Secretaries...
Fire Management Team Implicated in ICE Raid
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials interfered with an active wildland firefighting campaign and arrested two men working to contain the Bear Gulch Fire in Washington. As reported by Reuters, the Aug. 27 raid resulted in two firefighters being detained at an...
A Tumultuous Nine Months at the Forest Service
Forest Service employees have endured a tumultuous nine months since Donald Trump returned to the White House. With promises to “shatter the Deep State” and downsize the federal workforce, the president appointed an Office of Management and Budget director who said...
Piñon-Juniper Forests
Piñon-juniper woodlands may not inspire the kind of awe that people experience among the redwoods of California or the old-growth Douglas-fir trees of the Pacific Northwest, but piñon-juniper forests are one of the most extensive ecosystems in western North America...
Monongahela National Forest
Located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, Monongahela National Forest encompasses 921,000 acres, with elevations ranging from just under 1,000 to 4,863 feet above sea level. The Forest includes much of the Potomac Highlands Region and major landform...
Intact Old-Growth Forests Show Climate Resilience
A recently published paper reveals old-growth resilience to climate shifts in the Amazon Basin. “Our results can be understood as a sign of the resilience of Amazonian forests, showing that any impacts of climate change on larger trees have been more than alleviated...
Morale Tanks as Firefighters Clean Toilets, Mow Lawns
Mass layoffs, deferred resignation offers, and other policies from a hostile administration eliminated record numbers of Forest Service employees earlier this year. Firefighters were supposedly exempt from these job cuts, but Forest Service firefighters, already...
Caddo Lake — Wetland of International Importance
Forests cover much of the American South, but the region does not have an abundance of national forests. However, Caddo Lake in northeastern Texas boasts impressive bald cypress forests in its shallow, mysterious waters and is recognized as a wetland of international...
Agencies Miss Deadline for Firefighting Consolidation
The Forest Service and other federal agencies have missed the deadline of Sept. 10, to implement President Donald J. Trump's Executive Order (EO) 14308 mandating consolidation of federal firefighting into a single agency in the Department of Interior. Citing “the...
Rescinding the Roadless Area Conservation Rule
During a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association in New Mexico, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that the Department of Agriculture is rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule. “This outdated administrative rule contradicts the will of Congress and...
Cheatgrass and Cattle
Regarded as “one of the most significant ecological crises facing land managers in the arid West,” invasive cheatgrass has increased fire frequency in the Great Basin from once every 30-70 years to every 3-10 years. As Aldo Leopold observes in A Sand County Almanac,...