Obviously, there are people out there that don’t know what is considered a “forest rake.”

If you fall into this category and thought when the president was speaking about “raking the forest” he was talking about the rake you get at Lowes or Home Depot for 15 bucks, then please have someone that knows how to operate a computer go online. Ask them to go onto a search engine such as Bing — don’t worry, they know what a search engine is; it has nothing to do with an internal combustible engine. If you are not sure what that is, ask them to show you a picture of that too.

Anyway, have them search the term “forest rake bulldozer,” often referred to as a “forest rake.” They can show you a picture of what one looks like. When you see the photo, you will see a large machine with a blade that has forks on the bottom of it.

The purpose of the forest rake is to take out the undergrowth and knock over old dead trees, this in turn limits the fuel that a wildfire has to burn. This concludes the “don’t know what it means, but I will assume because I am too lazy to look it up” lesson for today.

Steve Wilson

Silt