This letter is in response to Mr. Falk’s letter (though I think he would prefer to be called Dave). Your letter inspired me to respond.

I too am saddened and angry at the burnt mountains we look at every day. When the smoke cleared, my eyes blinked in disbelief at the site of Mount Silcox and the mountains below. There are now torched places with black spots everywhere that I’ve been told were caused by fire balls. Other visible trees are brown with scorched spots going down the side of the mountain, one not far from Highway 200, out by the mill. Not much if any vegetation left for animals.

I find it amazing that a fire that started up Throne Creek that was about 7 miles west of Thompson Falls grew from 2,200 acres to about 38,000 ending up at Thompson River, miles from town, and on the east side of town. All the mountains between Thorne Creek and Thompson River are black spotted with burnt trees in between the black spots. Dave who he called the “educated fellows,” makes me wonder if they (the educated fellows) ever came here, or did they make their decisions from a faraway strategy room. Was it to them just another fire with beetle kill trees and other dead and diseased trees that had to go anyway?

I feel sorry for the hard-working firefighters who risked their lives fighting a fire that many think was kept going for whatever reasons. There is a history of controlled burns that end up uncontrolled, but those fires were always up high, not close to towns like this fire. I'm not criticizing our local Forest Service workers who do wonderful work with land management and other tasks, but to the “educated fellows” is a burn just a burn regardless of the end results? I too shed a tear with you Dave, and your friend Earl, and yes you are right, many of us will be looking at those scorched mountains till the day we die!

Respectfully,

Shirley Hofland, Thompson Falls