United Front Against Wildfires

As a devastating fire season nears an end, the Clinton administration and six governors, most of them from Western states, have reached a remarkable agreement to prevent future summers of firestorm. The deal is notable in that Rocky Mountain governors and senators have been at war with the administration’s resource policies since Bill Clinton took office; in recent weeks, some of those officials claimed that administration policies directly contributed to the scores of blazes that burned 6.7 million acres this year, most of it federal forest land. It also is notable that the two sides agreed to ignore the controversial subjects of logging and road building as a means of guarding forests from wildfires.

The federal plan agreed to by the governors of Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, Idaho and Oregon emphasizes prevention by clearing underbrush and expanding the practice of controlled burns. Key decisions will be made at the local level by federal, state and local officials working together.

The plan requires congressional approval of a $2.8-billion appropriation, including this summer’s firefighting costs. Significantly, the states will get about $700 million to develop individual fire prevention plans. The six governors may have to put pressure on their home-state members of Congress to make sure the money is approved.

It’s significant that the governors--five of them Republicans--avoided blame and accusations. The severity of the fire season is the result of many factors, some of which go back scores of years and have nothing to do with current policies. But the administration was embarrassed and put on the defensive early in the season when a “controlled” burn set by National Park Service officials in New Mexico went out of control and swept into the city of Los Alamos and the federal nuclear laboratory there.

The real lesson of the summer is not the massive acreage burned, most of it in remote mountain areas, but that increasing development in and near forests throughout the West puts more homes, businesses and people at risk. New federal money should help in doing what California did long ago--adopt tough zoning laws and property owner fire-prevention rules and develop local capability to quickly douse fires that threaten such areas.