So, the massive wildfires this year are the fault of the environmentalists, who have impeded the cutting down of those darned flammable trees. What about the builders, who constructed those houses? It makes as much sense to blame them. A careful examination of the facts is called for to identify actual risk factors involved, rather than jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions.
A recent assessment of the Rodeo-Chediski fire in Arizona, conducted by the Pacific Biodiversity Institute, revealed some telling facts. First, these fires did not start in forests that had been protected by environmentalists, but on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation, which has been logged for many years by the timber industry. This logging has concentrated on the removal of large, commercially valuable (but more fire-resistant) ponderosa pine trees.
There are more than 2,100 miles of logging roads in the fire area. According to federal data, nearly 90 percent of all wildfires in the past 10 years were started by people, usually on or near a road.
The conservation community is justifiably concerned about the potential political reaction to the recent catastrophic fires. The U.S. Forest Service has a history of misusing funds appropriated under the National Fire Plan to promote commercial logging – which removes the large, economically valuable and fire-resistant timber – rather than protecting homes and communities from fires by removing small trees and brush. This was documented in an April 2002 report by the John Muir project, which revealed that 83 percent of all USFS projects in the Sierra Nevada funded by NFP brush reduction funds are actually commercial timber sales.
In addition, the government’s own USDA Office of Inspector General released a report last November which showed that the USFS inappropriately used NFP funds intended for fire restoration to conduct commercial timber sales. The report concluded, “commercial timber sales do not meet the criteria for forest restoration.”
To the contrary, logging operations leave behind debris that becomes tinder dry in open clear cuts. They cause changes in forest composition and microclimate that favor fires. Chainsaws and other logging equipment generate sparks and start fires. The Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Report, issued in 1996 by the federal government, found that “timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate and fuel accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity.”
Let’s hope that Congress and the forest service will use it and other facts to guide their response to this year’s wildfires, rather than using the fires as an excuse to acquiesce yet again to the special interests of the timber industry.
Lake Stevens
Pilchuck Audubon Society
Forest Practices Committee Chair
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