Edward O. Wilson, Professor Emeritus at Harvard, in his piece "Bush's Forest Plan Worse Than Fire", labels this summer's savage fires "the ecologist's equivalent of a perfect storm". Says Professor Wilson:

The best way to avoid these catastrophic fires is by trimming undergrowth and clearing debris, combined with natural burns of the kind that have sustained healthy forests in past millennia. Those procedures, guided by science and surgically precise forestry, can return forests to near their equilibrium condition, in which only minimal further intervention would be needed.

On the other hand, the worst way to create healthy forests is to thin trees via increased logging, as proposed by the Bush administration.

Wilson goes on to say:

America's national forests are a public trust of incalculable value. They should be freed from commercial logging altogether. The time has come to free them from political partisanship and use their treasures to benefit all Americans, now and for generations to come.

No word from the good professor about the mismanagement of our forests. No word about the economic and ecologic devastation caused by these fires. Perhaps we need a surgically precise "perfect storm" in the Harvard area, eh professor?