I just returned from 4 days in the Loon Creek drainage in the Frank Church Wilderness. Since 2004, 3 large fires have burned through most of the Loon Creek drainage. However, I saw terrain that was more prone to another large fire than the drainage was 4 years ago.

The primary tree species is Douglas Fir. Many were killed by the fire, but did not have their crowns burn, many more are injured and dying. There is terrific growth of new vegetation, that when dry will spread fire readily. I witnessed lush growth of cheat grass and medusa head along the 13 miles of trail I walked. These are great-burning species that were not common in the drainage pre-fire.

Folks, Loon Creek and the rest of the Idaho Wilderness is going to keep on burning.

So why is this bad? The huge fires in Idaho produce plenty of carbon dioxide and help speed global warming. The other pollutants from those fires certainly are detrimental to the health of humans and the smoke chases free-spending tourists away.

Loon Creek now blows out and runs black for several days every summer thunderstorm: which is not good for the eggs of endangered salmon and bulltrout in the entire downstream area.

Fires in the decomposed granite of the Salmon river drainage can lead to giant mudslides like the ones that keep blocking the Middle Fork Salmon, or in the 1960's (caused by clear-cutting) nearly destroyed the South Fork Salmon fish habitat and salmon run.

Uncontrolled fires can also lead to mudslides and blowouts that take out roads and cause yet more expenses for government.

I support far more money being spent on early detection and suppression of all wild fires.

Is your final article on the subject going to another "Rah Rah Fires" or are your writers going to take a fair look at the other side of the matter?

The "let it burn" policy following decades of fire suppression do not create healthy forests. Mega fires in drought years destroy our natural resources. I think zoning laws should require firewise building and landscaping in the wildland urban interface. But home owners are not the ones to blame for the unhealthy state our forests are in.

Is a false notion. Most of the area around Yellow Pine burned last summer. Believe it or not there are more fires burning there this summer. Granted they aren't nearly as devastating as the 2007 fires were (and still are) but they are still there burning up what little vegetation came back after 2007 and putting more smoke and polution into the air.

You can't go from years of forest management to nothing and expect the forest to just take care of itself. Its like deciding to let your lawn go back to sagebrush without doing anything to help it along.

Like it or not the forest needs us now. Yes, we created this through years of management, but what was really so bad about that? Idaho is (or was) green and beautiful as a result of that management.

Now its becoming just a burnt out husk.