New U.S. Order Eases ‘Let-Burn’ Policy, Regards Lightning Fires as Dangerous

Completing a major overhaul of its firefighting strategy after last summer’s devastating blaze at Yellowstone National Park, the Bush Administration on Thursday formally revised federal policy to restrict the number of natural fires that will be allowed to burn uncontested.

The change represents a significant modification of the federal government’s controversial let-burn policy, which had permitted fires ignited by lightning to burn unless they threatened property or public safety.

While affirming a commitment to natural fires, the revised policy requires federal officials to combat such blazes vigorously unless they can prove that the fires will not get out of hand and would have a beneficial environmental effect.

The revision marks a “fundamental shift” away from “a general presumption that all fires are good fires,” a senior Interior Department official said.

Now, the official said, all lightning-caused blazes in federal lands are initially to be regarded as potentially dangerous wildfires. Only if they later are deemed to meet a stringent set of conditions would they be permitted to burn.

The revised federal policy, unveiled by Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter, will permit natural fires to burn in national parks and forests for the first time since blazes raging out of control destroyed vast portions of Yellowstone last summer.

Last July, a government directive required that all lightning-caused blazes be suppressed, no matter what their size. That policy will generally guide federal officials through most of the summer, until individual fire management policies can be revised to meet the new federal standards.

Environmentalists, who had lobbied vigorously for a strategy that recognized the ecological benefits of fire, expressed some relief that the government had not abandoned the let-burn policy altogether.

Seen as Step Backwards

But they characterized the new policy as a step backwards. They voiced concern that cautious fire managers now will quell even the most minor lightning-sparked blazes out of fear of being disciplined by government superiors.

“Without a clear policy that supports the concept of fire,” said Barry Flamm, chief forester for the Wilderness Society, “managers will now take the easy way out and fight all fires.”

“It took a real struggle to persuade fire people and administrators to let fires burn,” Flamm said. “Now we have a presumption that fire is bad unless you can prove that it will do good things out there.”

Ecologists argue that wildfires clear away dead timber and overgrowth and are vital to the rejuvenation of forests by promoting the growth of plants and shrubs that animals depend on but that could not survive in the darkness of an aged forest.

However, the near-infernos that swept majestic Yellowstone last summer caused many to question whether the literal application of such a policy might endanger the nation’s most valuable natural resources. Some of the most destructive blazes in the park were triggered by man, not nature, and others were fought from the start.

Among the new guidelines apparently designed to minimize the number of natural fires that will be permitted to burn is a new directive requiring an on-site official to certify each day that a burning blaze remains within prescribed limits.

The change means that for the first time “there will be someone specifically held responsible” for decisions to let fires burn, Interior Department spokesman Steve Goldstein said.

Among the new criteria fire managers will be required to consider are the number of fires burning elsewhere in the country and the region and the potential impacts of fires on visitors to national parks and nearby communities.

The new policy also relaxes the Interior Department’s opposition to the phrase “let burn,” which federal officials have long described as an inaccurate characterization of its firefighting strategy.