In the late summer of 2003, a wildfire started, ostensibly by lightning strike, at Slim's Camp, on the north end of the Meadow Creek Trail, in the campground that is accessible by the Selway Road, right before it turns up to go to Elk City.

With overzealous fire-suppression activity being the operative standard for the USFS, a series of incompetent incident commanders made a series of bad decisions with regards to attempting to put this fire out. What they ended up doing was trashing, but not completely wrecking, one of the most beautiful places on the planet-- the old-growth cedar grove along lower Meadow Creek.

From what discerning eyes can tell, an incident commander sent a group of young firefighters, armed with chainsaws, to lop off a row of old-growth cedars mostly above the trail that led into the wilderness. Nothing of value was served by this action-- the fire burned very lightly in the grove. Instead, whoever actually cut those trees down was put in pretty severe peril-- the slope was extremely steep, and cedars, once they catch fire, can explode.

The far better solution would have been to let the fire burn naturally. Where it did, almost no damage was done. Where the irresponsible vandalism/logging was perpetrated, much harm was done.

I am still trying to get to the bottom of the whole incident, and understand the intent of some of the actions. I have quite a bit of experience looking at fire sites, and simply cannot pull a rational string of decision-making events out of the evidence on the ground. It all simply looks like vandalism and incompetence.