US Forest Fires Unsustainable

US forest fires occur every year from lightning strikes on federal land. The government owns about half of the forest land in the US. The other half is owned by 10 million US families who plant and harvest trees to sell to lumber companies and 1 million lumber companies. A 50 year old oak tree is worth $200 based on a value of $866 per thousand board-feet of lumber. 

Private tree farmers protect their forests from fire using controlled burns of underbrush. They maintain water supplies and fire extinguishers to quickly contain fires that may occur on their land.

Most of these privately owned tree farms are less than 100 acres and are easy to control. These private tree farmers own about 423 million acres of forest land in the US.

The agencies who are responsible for government owned forests claim that forest fires are caused by campfires and human negligence, but the real cause is more likely to be lightning strikes on unmaintained government land.

The US federal government needs to get out of the forest business and turn federal lands and national parks back to the states.  The States need to sell most of the forest land to private tree farmers to stop the annual forest fire festivals we now endure.

Farm land values in 2018 are about $3000 per acre in most states. A 100 acre farm should cost $300,000 for land plus the value of harvestable trees and existing buildings. $400,000 might be the sale price.

If you need to plant trees 10 feet apart, you can plant 436 oak trees per acre or 43,600 oak trees on a 100 acre tree farm. If it takes 50 years to grow an oak tree to harvest, you may be able to harvest 100 trees a year and at $200 per tree, earn $20,000 per year. If you can develop other revenue sources to cover your other living expenses you could do this.

If states will eventually be able to sell tree farms, they will likely need to sell these at lower prices per acre, because they will not be able to manage these forests either and potential buyers will be wary of forest fires until all of this land is private.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader