Mark,

I think you repeat some of standard litany of the less informed tree
hugger types.

> The cause of catastrophic forest fires is NOT lack of logging.  The
true cause
> is 150 years of unnatural fire suppression to protect the economic
interests of
> the lumber industry.

FACT.   The motivation for 'unnatural fire suppression' does not come
from just the lumber industry.   Sometimes the opposite is true.
Many so-called greens and environmentalists are also the culprits
here.   Also government bureaucracy, job protection, and inertia gets
in the way.  Some foresters have to fight the tree huggers in order to
get permission to start controlled burns or to allow fires to burn.
The Yellowstone fires you refer to were on federal park lands and it
wasn't the lumber industry that was insisting on aggressive
suppression.

> Western forests have done quite nicely on their own for many
thousands of years
> since the end of the Ice Age.

FACT.   Western forests have been actively managed by man probably
since the end of the last ice age.  In may parts of the US, especially
in the Pacific states, the Native Americans actively managed their
forests with burn programs.   The historical record on this is clear.
The  stories and recollections of Indians and the accounts of early
white settlers agree that many, perhaps nearly all, the forests in
California, Oregon, and Washington were managed by intentional
burning.

My test for a hard core tree hugger to site the history as I did above
and see who goes ballistic.    I've read some of the accounts and
ethnographies from several sources so I can always embarrass the
incredulity of the un-informed with the record.

- Cortlandt