Future
A re-examination of forest fire prevention techniques was already in progress at the time of the Cerro Grande Fire and received added impetus from the damage the fire inflicted. The far larger Rodeo-Chediski fire in Arizona, as well as several other fires in the western United States in 2002, completed the process of bringing forest fires into political focus, leading to the establishment of the Healthy Forests Initiative in 2003. This initiative remains controversial, and its applicability to the relatively sparse forests of the Jemez Mountains that were consumed in the Cerro Grande Fire is unclear. It is certainly clear, however, that significant thinning of the coniferous forest of the Jemez has occurred in the years following Cerro Grande.
The local community has also taken many steps to prevent and protect against future wildfires. Steps include removing vegetation around buildings to increase defensible space; replacing roof and sheathing materials (e.g. cedar shakes) with less flammable materials; and continued thinning and reduction of fuels in unburned wooded areas in and around town, particularly in the canyons below populated mesas.
A new book on the Cerro Grande Fire was published in the summer of 2010. Inferno by Committee gives a detailed history of the fire and what went wrong. The book is written by a professional fire-fighter.
Read more about this topic: Cerro Grande Fire
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people’s children.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end.”
—Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
“Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)