At 02:11 PM 5/19/2002 -0700, you wrote:

>In both cases it could be a long time before the areas were the same as they
>were before the fire.  That is not to say they will be ugly or barren, but
>they will be different. Depending on what kind of vegetation burned,

We used to run into this when I was fighting fire.  Environmentalists would 
be pissed that trees burnt during a fire, even lightning started fires, and 
would say how that part of land was ruined forever.  Nothing could be 
further from the truth.  Normally within a year grass would be growning and 
the deer and elk would have a new food source.  Within just a couple years 
saplings would be growing.  The thing that most people forget about nature 
is that everything is a cycle.  When you get right down to it, there is no 
such thing as virgin timber.


>At the next AZ Geocaching Get-together (that I can get to!), I'll try to
>remember to bring my fire pack and some typical hand tools (seems like there
>is quite a bit of interest on this list).  As I type this, we have a 10%

I still have my pulaski. :-)


Scott
Team My Blue Heaven
www.myblueheaven.com/geocache