[pct-l] Fire Closures in General

[Andrea Dinsmore]

 That was very well said. That was the basis of my comments on Scott and Joe
continuing the trail through the closure. They are adults and know the risks
better than most of us. They also know their abilities. Apparently when the
Forest Service spoke to them they felt the same way and allowed them to
proceed.

PCT MOM


On 7/28/08, Lou Filliger <lfilliger at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I've read some of the posts here about the fire closures, specifically the
> ones through
> Plumas.
>
> I'm very upset about the closures.  I've been upset about it for 2 weeks
> now and the anger
> is not going away.    I was planning to hike through there and had to
> cancel.  Now, I
> realize full well that the people whose homes were endangered were a lot
> more
> inconvenienced by the fires than I was.  I also realize that the forest
> service may be
> acting "in my best interest" (in their opinion) by ordering the closures.
>
> I find both of those things to be irrelevant to the issue at hand.   I'm an
> adult, and the
> government is not my parent.  If I choose to accept the risk of hiking
> through a dangerous
> area I should be able to do so, as a free citizen of a supposedly free
> country.   I
> especially don't buy the argument that the trail needs to be closed so that
> "if a problem
> occurs, valuable resourses will have to be pulled away from the fires to
> come rescue me."
> I don't ask for rescue, I don't want rescue, and in fact, I would not
> accept rescue if it
> came.   If someone tries to rescue me without my having asked them, it's
> their
> responsibility, not mine (and part of a faulty department policy if you ask
> me.)  And my
> staying out of the closed area won't help bring back the houses of those
> unfortunate
> people who lost them.
>
> It's part of the adventure of going into the back country that, for one
> reason or another,
> you may not come out again.  Now the government has taken this right away
> from us as they
> will eventually take everything else.  Why not stand up and make a stand
> about it while we
> still have a chance to, before even our right to complain is taken away?
> It's only a
> matter of time - it will happen in our lifetimes if things keep going at
> the rate they are
> now.
>
> So, to me, the question of crossing a closure order is the wrong
> question.  I am a
> law-abiding citizen and would never cross a closure order.  The question is
> why haven't we
> put a stop to these arbitrary closures, or, more precisely, why don't we
> put a stop to it?
> I am not my brother's keeper, and vice versa.  I hope this message gets
> archived in its
> entirety; if everyone started speaking out like this the bureaucrats would
> finally be
> forced to do what they were hired to do, namely, allow us to use our
> nations' parks and
> wildernesses as we see fit, unfettered, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone
> else.
>
> Sincerely
> Lou Filliger
>
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