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What we collect!
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General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : Serendity!

 

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Bobstamp
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23 Feb 2022
04:09:39pm
I purchased a postcard on-line because of its slogan cancellation: “FIRE IS THE ENEMY / OF FORESTS / PREVENT FIRES”:

Image Not Found.

As you can see, it was posted in Silver City, New Mexico, my hometown, in 1923. Silver City is near the southernmost boundary of the huge Gila National Forest, so people there were obviously concerned about the health of the forest. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, overgrazing and unregulated logging results in flooding that destroyed much of the downtown business district. Fire, too, was common.

The Hip Postcard listing for the postcard showed only the back, so I was surprised when, a couple of weeks later, I received a postcard showing “Old Main,” the first building of the New Mexico Normal School, a teachers’ college which was founded in Silver City in 1893. I had never seen that postcard, I thought, and wondered if a friend or perhaps another Stamporama member had sent it to me as a gift. I remember Old Main because I saw it almost every school day for some five years; my elementary school was a “laboratory school” for student teachers attending the college, which by then had been named New Mexico Western College. In 1957, Old Main was demolished to make room for a new library.

My puzzlement over why I had received the postcard changed to surprise when I turned the postcard over to see the back. It was, obviously, the postcard with the “PREVENT FIRES” slogan cancellation.

Image Not Found

The postcard goes into my collection for forest-fire-related stamps, postcards, and covers, a subject which has interested me ever since I was 19 and writing a feature story for the El Paso Times newspaper about fire-fighting efforts in Silver City. At that time, I considered fire fighters, especially smokejumpers and the pilots of tanker planes, to be true heroes.

The postcard is an interesting artifact that illustrates the changed attitude about forest fires. We have learned through hard experience that Smokey the Bear was out of step with science. The “obvious” need to fight forest fires, and the great success of the U.S. Forest Service in limiting the damage from forest fires, have turned out to have been not only unscientific, but downright dangerous: trees that were saved from fire continued to drop needles and leaves. Trees that were saved eventually died to add to a slowly growing layer of “duff” on the forest floor, a gradually deepening layers of dead needles and leaves, tree bark, ferns, wood, and fungus, a flammable mixture made even more flammable by drought and heat waves. Eventually, a spark from a downed electrical line, a smouldering cigarette butt, or a bolt of lighting will ignite a fire which soon becomes an nearly uncontrollable inferno.

I read recently that about one third of Americans now live in areas vulnerable to wildfire. That didn’t use to be the case, when people either lived in cities or on farms where the land has been cleared for agriculture. It was fear of another sort of conflagration — nuclear war — that caused this change: cities and their industrial bases made them obvious targets in the case of war between the nuclear powers, so many people decided they would be safer living away from cities, and forested areas became prime real estate simply because it was pleasant living there. I myself have fond memories of hiking in the Gila National Forest, where the most “distracting” sound was the unique moaning of wind through the ponderosa pines.

I recently read of a study in the Gila National Forest that showed that mature ponderosa pines depended on fire for survival. Their dense bark is nearly fireproof, at least against the slow-moving, relatively cool natural fires of prehistoric times that crept along the ground. Today, however, the deep duff on the forest floor is fuel for hot, fast-moving fires that rapidly become crown fires and can destroy thousands of acres in a matter of hours. In recent years, areas where I used to hike for hours, never seeing another person, have been utterly destroyed by huge fires. Not only trees die, but animals too, of course, but the worst damage is to the soil, which is sterilized by heat and may never again be able to support a healthy forest.

Bob

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amsd
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Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads

24 Feb 2022
09:34:18am

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re: Serendity!

love your stories, Bob.

just to add a little on fires and ancient trees like Ponderosa and Sequoia: they do depend on fire, and fires stay manageble when there are small fires. it's when they get huge that they threaten those big trees.


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Bobstamp
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24 Feb 2022
07:02:53pm
re: Serendity!

David said, "…it's when they get huge that they threaten those big trees." Agreed. And the threat seems to be almost entirely man-made. Most people seem, still, to be unaware of how critical the situation is. A book I read recently included a chapter about a big fire in Arizona. The threat was well understood, and the city even paid for the development of a team of "Hotshot" fire fighters to protect the city. But many of the citizens didn't want to be protected. In fact, they refused to let the Hotshots onto their property to clear brush and vulnerable trees. It was those properties that literally went up in smoke. The author told of walking through a threatened neighbourhood and talking to a couple of older people who wondered what was happening. He told them they should evacuate immediately. The next day, after the fire burned their community to the ground, he revisited that neighbourhood and saw the bodies of the same couple between what little remained of their house and their car. Later, the city council defunded the Hotshots, many — most — of whom had died in the fire.

Bob

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

24 Feb 2022
09:35:23pm
re: Serendity!

I'd never gave it that much thought, Bob, although I had read how prairie fires seem to promote new, healthy growth. and sort of laughed at the politician who said;
" ... when the trees get very dry, they can just explode. And ..... that there are dry leaves on the ground of the forest and .... they need to be swept up or taken out and .... you could prevent fires from being so bad if you cleaned the forests better. ..."

Your short essay is rather illuminating.

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
        

 

Author/Postings
Members Picture
Bobstamp

23 Feb 2022
04:09:39pm

I purchased a postcard on-line because of its slogan cancellation: “FIRE IS THE ENEMY / OF FORESTS / PREVENT FIRES”:

Image Not Found.

As you can see, it was posted in Silver City, New Mexico, my hometown, in 1923. Silver City is near the southernmost boundary of the huge Gila National Forest, so people there were obviously concerned about the health of the forest. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, overgrazing and unregulated logging results in flooding that destroyed much of the downtown business district. Fire, too, was common.

The Hip Postcard listing for the postcard showed only the back, so I was surprised when, a couple of weeks later, I received a postcard showing “Old Main,” the first building of the New Mexico Normal School, a teachers’ college which was founded in Silver City in 1893. I had never seen that postcard, I thought, and wondered if a friend or perhaps another Stamporama member had sent it to me as a gift. I remember Old Main because I saw it almost every school day for some five years; my elementary school was a “laboratory school” for student teachers attending the college, which by then had been named New Mexico Western College. In 1957, Old Main was demolished to make room for a new library.

My puzzlement over why I had received the postcard changed to surprise when I turned the postcard over to see the back. It was, obviously, the postcard with the “PREVENT FIRES” slogan cancellation.

Image Not Found

The postcard goes into my collection for forest-fire-related stamps, postcards, and covers, a subject which has interested me ever since I was 19 and writing a feature story for the El Paso Times newspaper about fire-fighting efforts in Silver City. At that time, I considered fire fighters, especially smokejumpers and the pilots of tanker planes, to be true heroes.

The postcard is an interesting artifact that illustrates the changed attitude about forest fires. We have learned through hard experience that Smokey the Bear was out of step with science. The “obvious” need to fight forest fires, and the great success of the U.S. Forest Service in limiting the damage from forest fires, have turned out to have been not only unscientific, but downright dangerous: trees that were saved from fire continued to drop needles and leaves. Trees that were saved eventually died to add to a slowly growing layer of “duff” on the forest floor, a gradually deepening layers of dead needles and leaves, tree bark, ferns, wood, and fungus, a flammable mixture made even more flammable by drought and heat waves. Eventually, a spark from a downed electrical line, a smouldering cigarette butt, or a bolt of lighting will ignite a fire which soon becomes an nearly uncontrollable inferno.

I read recently that about one third of Americans now live in areas vulnerable to wildfire. That didn’t use to be the case, when people either lived in cities or on farms where the land has been cleared for agriculture. It was fear of another sort of conflagration — nuclear war — that caused this change: cities and their industrial bases made them obvious targets in the case of war between the nuclear powers, so many people decided they would be safer living away from cities, and forested areas became prime real estate simply because it was pleasant living there. I myself have fond memories of hiking in the Gila National Forest, where the most “distracting” sound was the unique moaning of wind through the ponderosa pines.

I recently read of a study in the Gila National Forest that showed that mature ponderosa pines depended on fire for survival. Their dense bark is nearly fireproof, at least against the slow-moving, relatively cool natural fires of prehistoric times that crept along the ground. Today, however, the deep duff on the forest floor is fuel for hot, fast-moving fires that rapidly become crown fires and can destroy thousands of acres in a matter of hours. In recent years, areas where I used to hike for hours, never seeing another person, have been utterly destroyed by huge fires. Not only trees die, but animals too, of course, but the worst damage is to the soil, which is sterilized by heat and may never again be able to support a healthy forest.

Bob

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like this post.
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www.ephemeraltreasur ...
Members Picture
amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
24 Feb 2022
09:34:18am

Auctions

re: Serendity!

love your stories, Bob.

just to add a little on fires and ancient trees like Ponderosa and Sequoia: they do depend on fire, and fires stay manageble when there are small fires. it's when they get huge that they threaten those big trees.


Like
Login to Like
this post

"Save the USPS, buy stamps; save the hobby, use commemoratives"

juicyheads.com/link. ...
Members Picture
Bobstamp

24 Feb 2022
07:02:53pm

re: Serendity!

David said, "…it's when they get huge that they threaten those big trees." Agreed. And the threat seems to be almost entirely man-made. Most people seem, still, to be unaware of how critical the situation is. A book I read recently included a chapter about a big fire in Arizona. The threat was well understood, and the city even paid for the development of a team of "Hotshot" fire fighters to protect the city. But many of the citizens didn't want to be protected. In fact, they refused to let the Hotshots onto their property to clear brush and vulnerable trees. It was those properties that literally went up in smoke. The author told of walking through a threatened neighbourhood and talking to a couple of older people who wondered what was happening. He told them they should evacuate immediately. The next day, after the fire burned their community to the ground, he revisited that neighbourhood and saw the bodies of the same couple between what little remained of their house and their car. Later, the city council defunded the Hotshots, many — most — of whom had died in the fire.

Bob

Like
Login to Like
this post

www.ephemeraltreasur ...

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
24 Feb 2022
09:35:23pm

re: Serendity!

I'd never gave it that much thought, Bob, although I had read how prairie fires seem to promote new, healthy growth. and sort of laughed at the politician who said;
" ... when the trees get very dry, they can just explode. And ..... that there are dry leaves on the ground of the forest and .... they need to be swept up or taken out and .... you could prevent fires from being so bad if you cleaned the forests better. ..."

Your short essay is rather illuminating.

Like
Login to Like
this post

".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
        

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