[pct-l] why close the burn areas?

[Bill Hay]

Land management agencies close trails after a burn because of liability.  As
discussed in the earlier emails, fires create unsafe conditions for all who
enter the area until crews fell the hazard trees.  Trained crews know how to
identify these hazards and can cut those trees that endanger hikers.  The
government also insures them in case of accidents.

If the land management agency allows hikers on a trail through a burnt area
prior to mitigating the hazards, those hikers can sue and potentially win a
large settlement (not a good way to spend our tax dollars).  So agencies
close the burned area until they can get crews or contractors into the area
to cut the hazard trees.
Bill Hay
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Len Glassner <len5742 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Junaid Dawud <jdawud at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >My biggest concern was falling trees, not rangers
> > (since one had basically said that if he was me, he'd go through).
>
> This is the the part that bothers me.  The skepticism about closure
> reasons combined with lots of anecdotes about 'flexible' enforcement
> seems to lead to widespread contempt for closures.  Someday some
> random hiker will get caught hiking through a closure and get hit with
> a big fine, just because the ranger was having a bad day, or whatever.
>  That will be majorly unfair, but how can anyone dispute that what
> they were doing was illegal?  Either a place is closed, and anyone
> caught entering gets fined, or don't close.
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