Plan to Curb Forest Fires Wins Support

Thirteen senators, all but one from the West, announced their support Thursday for a plan to reduce the risk of catastrophic forest fires on federal land by cleaning out underbrush, thinning trees and--if necessary--building roads to provide emergency vehicles with access to remote forest regions.

The senators--12 Republicans plus Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California--identified 23 million acres of federal land constituting a “vast, dry tinderbox” that could ignite at the careless drop of a match. The 23 million acres are scattered among the 50 states but concentrated in a few. California has 7 million acres under federal control.

“We have to move quickly,” Feinstein said. “Otherwise we risk losing the majesty of the West.”

But the plan is anathema to environmentalists, who warn of logging companies spoiling the beauty of the nation’s forests by stripping out their finest trees.

“All of a sudden they’re going to go to 23 million acres and ignore environmental laws and clear [growth] out,” said Sean Cosgrove, the Sierra Club’s national forest planning specialist. Instead, he said, the public must come to recognize fire as a natural way that forests are renewed.

Chad Hanson, executive director of the John Muir Project, predicted that the logging companies hired to reduce the risk of fire would clear out not only the underbrush but also the tall, healthy trees that they can sell for a good profit.

“These senators are the timber industry’s best friends in Congress

The program endorsed by the senators would get underway next year and last 18 months. It is patterned on an amendment attached by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) to a bill appropriating anti-terrorism funds for the current fiscal year.

Daschle’s amendment authorizes a forest management program in Black Hills National Forest without resort to a typically lengthy judicial review and appeals process.

The 13 senators said they were looking for one of the regular annual spending bills for the next fiscal year to which they could attach their more far-reaching proposal.

Currently, a “fire suppression” policy that environmental groups, business and the government all dislike is in place, a remnant from the early 1900s. Fire suppression focuses on putting out blazes once they light, but it does nothing to alleviate the conditions that can breed catastrophic fires.

More than 4.2 million acres of prime forested land nationwide have burned this year, the most ever. The charred land would leave a 2 1/3-mile-wide strip of land from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles. An additional 1 million acres are expected to burn this month. Just Wednesday, 85,000 acres burned.

The U.S. Forest Service has exhausted its $700,000 budget to fight the fires and has raided the piggy banks of other previously approved projects--including several fire management programs--and delayed them to fund the additional firefighting.

The 12 GOP senators are Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Larry E. Craig of Idaho, Conrad R. Burns of Montana, Frank H. Murkowski of Alaska, Craig Thomas and Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, Michael D. Crapo of Idaho and John Ensign of Nevada.