Legal Tactics of Environmental Groups Fuel Washington Wildfires
August 2002
"Today's Fire Danger: HIGH!"
For anyone traveling through forestland in the western United States, the familiar Smokey Bear fire danger sign is a common sight. During July and August it is rare to see medium or low fire danger conditions. This summer, like summers past, wildfires are raging across Washington and neighboring states. Lives are threatened, public resources are strained and people's homes and valuable timber are going up in smoke.
Here in Washington, the Deer Point fire near Lake Chelan has forced families to evacuate part of the lakeshore. In Oregon, fire threatens several small towns in the southwest part of the state, compelling more evacuations and costing millions of dollars in emergency fire fighting efforts. In all, more than 550,000 acres of Washington and Oregon forestland have burned this summer. Since 1994, more than 925,000 acres of forest have burned in Washington, devastating an area about the size of Olympic National Park.
If it seems like the fire danger in federal and state managed forests is getting worse, you're right. Since 1994, wildfires across the nation have claimed 148 lives and cost the federal government more than $4 billion. Forest fires burn for several reasons, but perhaps the most troublesome cause of the rising fire danger is the use of obstructionist tactics by certain environmental groups. These extremist groups seem intent on returning the West to the days before the early settlers -- before roads, telephones, electricity and, if possible, people.
Over the years, reduced logging and ardent fire suppression increased forest density dramatically. In response, the Forest Service recently initiated a program to carefully manage fire danger by removing diseased trees and reducing flammable undergrowth. But in the last eighteen months, 48 percent of Forest Service tree-thinning programs were appealed in court, mostly by zealous environmental groups trying to stop all logging on federal lands. Taxpayers shoulder the burden for this agenda in the form of higher government costs and increased risk to life and property. By blocking forest management projects, radical environmentalists leave forests clogged with ailing trees and underbrush that are the perfect fuel for forest fires.
Forest management has proved itself time and again by preventing the spread of forest fires through productive timberland. This year, when the 137,000-acre Hayman fire in Colorado reached the properly-managed Manitou Experimental Forest, it burned only dry grass and low ground cover, leaving the large, thick-barked ponderosa pines unharmed. In June, a large wildfire broke out near Flagstaff, Arizona. It raced towards a neighborhood of homes and schools, but was slowed and fully contained when it reached the surrounding managed forest.
In July, an intense fire consumed entire trees in seconds in a fuel-clogged forest near Medford, Oregon. But when the fire reached an area that had been thinned by the Bureau of Land Management, the fire slowed and was quickly brought under control by fire fighters.
Radical environmentalists' efforts against forest management can have devastating consequences. In the early 1990's they fought the thinning of a stand of trees in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona because it was home to a nest of endangered goshawks. In 1996, an uncontrollable wildfire sent the trees and the nest up in flames.
On Central Oregon's Cache Mountain, the Forest Service planned to thin an overgrown timber stand. Radical environmental groups blocked the project in court. Last month, a lightning strike sparked a fire that rushed through the area, burning 4,200 acres and two homes near the town of Sisters.
Today we are faced with a choice, we can manage the environment to protect forests, wildlife, water quality and people, or we can continue to suffer the devastating ecological, economic and personal loss caused by fires on our public lands. Public lands are a resource for all to enjoy. With sound forestry practices and commonsense policies, state and federal officials can effectively manage our forests and prevent further destruction.