[pct-l] Burning Deserts

[mardav@xxxxxxxxxxx (Marion Davison)]

This thread reminds me of a weekend hike we attempted in Ventana wilderness about
5 years ago.  It was an outright disaster.  The area had a climax fire about
twenty years before that killed all the trees, but left most of them standing.
Since they provided no shade, the chapparal grew up thick everywhere, closing in
on the trails and making it impossible to go cross country.  Then, every winter,
the weather brings down more dead trees across the trail, making giant pick up
stick barricades that hikers could negotiate, but llamas find nearly impossible.
We got tons of practice going over and under the through these barriers.  We find
out just how high they can jump, how low they can crawl, and how to make them do
it.  Boy were we glad to leave that place!
llamalady

CMountainDave@aol.com wrote:

> I always wondered why the chaparral consisted of plants that are so
> flammable. They are probably as flammable as kerosene. Why I wondered would a
> plant evolve to be flammable in a hot and dry climate where the risk of fire
> is so great. One would think they would evolve to be flame retardant, much as
> the bark of a Jeffery pine.
>   Then one day I was walking through a landscape mixed with the usual chap
> plants and 2 to 5 year old pine trees and it dawned on me. They are flammable
> on purpose. They want to burn because it kills all the plants that would
> eventually crowd and shade them out. Fire doesn't kill the chap stuff's roots
> and they grow back. The pine trees take much longer to reestablish, and by
> then its time for another fire.
>  The real question is: How do these plants know that fire is their friend? Oh
> I know, the evolutionists say it was random natural selection. But it sure as
> hell seems like a thought out strategy to me. To become so flammable in a
> near desert environment by chance? Logic says no way. Just as likely to not
> be flammable
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