FOREST FIRES

June 27, 2002
US fires spark row on forestry policy
By Oliver Poole

As thousands flee forest fires across America a bitter political row has broken out over who is responsible. In Arizona, Colorado and Alaska, where hundreds of properties have been destroyed, people are criticising Washington - in particular the previous administration of Bill Clinton - for introducing a series of environmental laws that they say have helped fuel the fires. Under pressure from environmentalists, Mr Clinton banned the controlled burning of woodlands to clear away deadwood on the basis that the practice, which had helped to control outbreaks for more than 50 years, upset the ecosystem.

Environmental groups have responded by accusing the Bush administration of trying to make political capital from the tragedy and using it as an excuse to enable more logging of the nation's forests. They say the cause of the fires is far simpler: a seven-year drought that has left forests tinder-dry. They argue that the limiting of logging has helped fire prevention, as bigger trees take longer to burn and so delay a fire's advance.

In Washington, political infighting has broken out over the issue. The Department of Agriculture has asked the Forest Service to provide a detailed report on how many appeals and lawsuits lodged by environmentalists have blocked or delayed wildfire prevention policies. But the Sierra Club, an environmental group which works in the White Mountains area of Arizona, said it was unfair to portray them as responsible for blocking efforts to thin forests. A spokesman said this was not the time to be looking for scapegoats.

In Arizona, where more than 340,000 acres of land has been destroyed in the past week by two fires that still threaten to destroy the evacuated town of Show Low, the governor, Jane Hull, has specifically blamed poor forest management for the ferocity of the fires. In Eager, a small town 30 miles from Show Low, where hundreds of evacuees are living in tents, schools or community centres, people say they had given warning for years that the policy of leaving nature to nature would have disastrous consequences. Deborah Brimhall, who believes her home in the forest outside the town has already been burnt, said: "I hope that those people involved in Eastern politics can come and see what their policies did.

New Scientist
June 25, 2002
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992451
"Poor" fire policy major contributor to US wildfires
NewScientist.com news service

Heavy commercial logging, insufficient brush clearance and a policy of suppressing smaller wildfires are behind the devastating blazes raging in six states across the US, says forest fire experts. And, they say, the problem will get worse. Eighteen large forest fires are burning in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming. They are consuming well over twice the average acreage for this time of year. Already, nearly 930,000 hectares have been burned in this year's fire season and officials say 29 million hectares, about 40% of all Forest Service land, are at risk of severe fires in coming years.

The blaze in Arizona, which is currently 80 kilometres across, is the biggest in the state's history. It has already burnt more than 1,500 square kilometres of forest and could spread to more than half a million acres and burn for several weeks, Forest Service officials say. President Bush is expected to visit some of the 25,000 Arizona people evacuated from their threatened homes on Tuesday.

"Fire has always been a natural part of these ecosystems but over the last century we have been suppressing fires and so allowing highly flammable underbrush and small trees to over-populate the forests. We need a thoughtful, science-based strategy to counter this," Mike Dombeck, professor of Global Environment Wildlife at the University of Wisconsin and former head of the US Forest Service, told New Scientist. "The recent increase in the number and severity of forest fires is directly attributable to the fact that we have not carried out enough controlled fires and have not been adequately 'thinning' the forest, by cutting down brush and small trees."

Commercial logging "Commercial logging of large, fire-resistant trees is exacerbating the problem, because it encourages growth of underbrush, making fires much hotter, more intense and faster spreading," Dombeck adds. The increase in logging, and the reduction in forest thinning and the setting controlled fires to burn off easily flammable brush are creating ever more ideal conditions for devastating wildfires in the US, experts say.

Controlled fires and forest thinning are controversial techniques. They are used to a limited extent in the US, and in other at-risk countries, such as Australia. These practices must now be stepped up, Dombeck says. But on Sunday, the head of the US Forest Service said the Bush administration has no plans to change fire policy.

Very destructive Controlled fires and forest thinning are opposed by some environmental organizations, though other groups are in favour. Ed Brunsen, fire education director at The Nature Conservancy, based in Virginia, US, says: "Some organisations feel there should be no tree removal whatsoever and that controlled fires are a bad thing, especially since some have got out of control and caused severe damage. But there is a big difference between commercial logging and brush clearance, which can be a very important landscape management tool.

"These fires are going to burn anyway whether controlled or uncontrolled and at the moment they are having a very negative and destructive impact on the forest itself, because of their intensity and frequency - rather than the positive ecological effect that a controlled fire can have," Brunsen told New Scientist.

Exceptionally dry weather this year has also contributed to the fires. "Given that it's only June, we could have an exceedingly challenging year ahead," Dombeck said.

This story is from NewScientist.com's news service - for more exclusive news and expert analysis every week subscribe to New Scientist print edition.

June 25, 2002
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&519&e=17&u=/ap/20020625/ ap_on_re_us/wildfire_nightmare_2
Wildfire Nightmare Won't End Soon
By PAULINE ARRILLAGA, Associated Press Writer

PAYSON, Ariz. - ... For the experts, this season is the culmination of years of warnings about forests thick with brush and other debris, about the dangers of building more and more homes farther into the woods, and about what can happen when drought is thrown into the mix. ... "It wasn't a fear that it could materialize, but a certainty," Paula Harvey of Show Low, Ariz., said from an evacuation shelter this week. "We just hoped it would be somewhere else." ...

The Arizona Republic
June 24, 2002
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0624fire-policy24.html
Forestry policy is hampered by politics
By Mary Jo Pitzl

The fires ravaging northeast Arizona are incinerating the world's largest contiguous area of ponderosa pine, Gov. Jane Hull said Sunday. But it didn't have to be this way. That's because for the past century, the United States has let its forests grow thick with underbrush, creating lush, rustic landscapes that, with the right conditions, can turn into potent tinderboxes. But turning that policy around has ignited a firestorm of its own, pitting politicians against environmentalists and forest dwellers against forest managers.

As the "Rodeo-Chediski" fire roared through Arizona's high country, governors from Western states meeting in Phoenix this week launched a broadside against environmentalists, who the governors and others say have opposed controlled burns that would reduce fire-prone undergrowth. U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., joined the chorus, saying that environmentalists have pressured Congress not to spend money on the burns. In an interview Sunday with KTAR-AM (620), he said the Forest Service spends 40% of its annual budget defending itself against environmental groups. Hull criticized the lawsuits and layers of administrative process that she said have prevented more aggressive efforts to clear the nation's forests of dense underbrush. "We've got to clean up these forests," Hull said. "Mother Nature is telling us to do so."

Spreading the message is one thing; practicing it can be quite another. For example, forest officials said prescribed burns in the northern part of Hop Canyon, southwest of Show Low, could have slowed the growth of the Rodeo fire. But political wrangling prevented the burns because residents north of Hop Canyon did not want smoke and ashes coming into their area, said Chaden Palmer, a Forest Service spokesman.

Research done at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree Ring Research shows that ponderosa pines can withstand frequent, low-intensity fires. Researchers have found 300-year-old ponderosa pines with a history of 15 to 20 low-intensity fires throughout their life span. The trees survived, leaving "fire scars" on their tree rings. All that changed a century ago, said Tom Swetnam, the lab's director. "You get to 1890 and 1900, and no more fire scars after that point," Swetnam said. Swetnam and others attribute that to a policy of putting out all fires.

Small fires clean out forest underbrush without harming the taller trees. But when the forest floor gets cluttered with vegetation, it creates a tinder pile that allows fires to climb to unnatural heights, burning the green parts of trees and fueling forest fires. National policy on fire suppression began to shift after the "Yellowstone" fire in 1988, and with greater vigor after the Los Alamos, N.M., fires two years ago. "It's going to take us decades to get out of the problem," Swetnam said. "Fire - nature - is not going to wait for us."

Swetnam said humans also should contemplate some of the larger causes of the flaming forests. Drought is the wild card that has compounded this summer's fires and may prolong reforestation. And the forecast is for more extreme drought years, an outlook that many have linked to global warming.

On Sunday, the Western Governors' Association pledged to lobby Congress for money, manpower and programs to prevent devastating wildfires such as those now burning in Arizona, Colorado and other Western states. They unveiled a plan for reducing wildland fire risks that was two years in the making. It calls for a range of actions to reduce wildfire risk, including volunteer actions on the part of people who live near forests, prescribed burns and logging to thin out the stands.

Montana Gov. Judy Martz crossed swords with Sierra Club officials about the role of timber logging. Martz defended the practice as necessary to reduce fire risk in the backcountry. But Rob Smith, Southwest representative of the Sierra Club, said because it's hard to predict where in the thousands of acres of backcountry a fire may occur, it's wiser to spend money and manpower where man meets forest. "Thinning needs to occur near communities, not in the backcountry," Smith said.

Where some see devastation, others see promise. Charles Babbitt, an attorney and member of the Maricopa County Audubon Society, said he doubts that even "perfect forest management" could have prevented the Rodeo-Chediski fires because drought conditions are so extreme. "Fires don't destroy the forest, they will change it," he said. "We have to take a little longer view of things. It will take decades."

June 24, 2002
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&519&e=9&u=/ap/20020624/a p_on_re_us/wildfires_thinning_2
West Forest Management Criticized
By ALISA BLACKWOOD, Associated Press Writer

EAGAR, Ariz. (AP) - Fires ripping through eastern Arizona are fueling a growing debate over the best way to manage the nation's forests. "Mother Nature is saying to Arizona right now, saying to the West that we've got to clean up these forests," Gov. Jane Hull said as she toured the fires that have forced thousands of people to flee their homes.

As the young fire season grows worse each day, government's land-management practices and environmentalists who sued to block logging efforts are being blamed for the onrushing flames. For decades, the government's policy was to knock down forest fires as quickly as possible. As a result, a 2000 report by the General Accounting Office found that, on average, forests had four times the number of trees as they did when fire was allowed to run its course. Last year, the Forest Service said forest conditions "increase the probability of large, intense fires beyond any scale yet witnessed."

But there is a bitter dispute over how to address the problem. Environmental groups claim that hacking down trees to lessen the chance of huge, destructive wildfires only helps logging companies, not forests. Over the weekend, Hull and others said that argument has led to the charred landscape that used to be pine trees in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. "The policies that are coming from the East Coast, that are coming from the environmentalists, that say we don't need to log, we don't need to thin our forests are absolutely ridiculous," said Hull, a Republican. "Nobody on the East Coast knows how to manage these fires and I for one have had it."

Show Low resident Marc Ridenour, who was forced to leave his home because of the fires, is angry at environmental groups. "They helped set the stage for this," he said. "Spotted owl huggers were the grand architects of this catastrophe."

In the last two years, the government has spent $796 million to reduce hazardous fuel levels on federal land, but the GAO was unable to determine how effectively the money was used. Craig Gehrke, a forest expert with the Wilderness Society, said it is naive to think that cutting down trees will solve the fire problems. "They're kidding themselves if they think they can control all the forces in the forest," he said. "In drought years, forests are going to burn." He said taking out small trees leaves flammable material on the forest floor and can make it more prone to fire. The best solution, he said, is setting targeted fires during the early spring and late fall months to clear out excessive growth. Because of severe drought conditions throughout the southwest, forest managers say they were unable to use prescribed burns as much as they would have liked.

Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said humans can manage forests by cutting trees to thin the woods, then allowing fire to do its job. That could take 10 years to achieve, but without it more devastating blazes are bound to follow. "We're going to continue to see this until we start actively managing the forests, cleaning them up and getting fire back into the ecosystem," he said. "We've got to get people to stop arguing about who's right and start doing what's right."

For Jim Cundiff, 52, who was waiting to find out if flames had wiped out his Linden home, it may be too late. "There's a fairly well meaning, but totally ignorant group of people in this community who think you can manage the environment in a hands-off manner, but these people don't live out here," he said. "Don't come up here in designer clothes and an SUV and tell me you love the woods. There's no more trees to hug."

Christian Science Monitor
June 26, 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0626/p10s02-comv.html
The Monitor's View Little Fires to End Big Fires

The fires that have already blackened millions of acres in the West this year should finally heat up efforts to avoid such threatening blazes in the future. The long-term solution is to reverse decades of fire-suppression policies that have contributed to the buildup of brush, fallen wood, and other fuel in the forests. As that task is undertaken, fires in many instances can be treated as a natural phenomenon that aids the cleanup process.

For now, however, bureaucratic inertia to clearing out forest fuel must be overcome. That also means overcoming stiff opposition to federal approval for carefully selected logging to help clear out the woods. The rapid pace and size of this year's fires, while due in large measure to the weather, ought to push aside obstacles to more effective fire management. (So far, the fires of 2000 still hold the record.)

The US Forest Service says its steps to make Western timberland less flammable are often blocked by lawsuits from environmental groups. The environmentalists' main concern is that the Forest Service's "restoration logging" projects, part of its forest-thinning effort, not intrude into the relatively few remaining areas of large, old-growth trees. That concern is valid, but so are plans to allow commercial loggers in to take younger trees that are clogging many forests. That has to be part of the long-term picture, since public agencies need all the help they can get in thinning overgrown forests. The loggers, for their part, need to do a better job of clearing away refuse, or slash, left by their operations.

The careful use of controlled fires is another crucial element. This strategy, too, faces opposition, particularly from property owners who remember the set blazes that got out of control, such as the Los Alamos fire in 2000. With proper preparation, resources, and funding, however, controlled burns can help remove excess fuel.

Perhaps the most prickly issue is the spread of human habitation into fire-prone areas. More communities would do well to follow the lead of some California towns that have suffered recurrent wildfires. Residents are responsible for clearing brush on their land and making sure trees are not too close to dwellings. Building codes specify fire-resistant materials.

Reducing the fire threat will require more cooperation, and less tendency to resort to the extremes of either large-scale commercial use of the forests or no human intervention in them at all. The extremes can be avoided if everyone remembers they have an interest in protecting this invaluable resource.

The Sacramento Bee
June 26, 2002
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/3351581p-4378883c.html Editorial:
Fight fire with fire
Don't douse all the sparks

Fires burning out of control over huge swaths of the West have rekindled an old debate about when to suppress a fire and when to let it burn. And they are a reminder of how fire prevention gets complicated when people move into the forest.

Periodic small fires perform a crucial control function in the West by burning away underbrush and small trees that can fuel runaway firestorms. Fire also helps promote the spread of nutrients necessary for a healthy forest. Thus, a strategy that stresses fire suppression above all else increases the risk of the kind of catastrophic conflagrations that have already swept across Arizona and Colorado this summer and threaten other states.

But acting on that knowledge becomes more difficult when forested areas are increasingly dotted by vacation and retirement homes built far from urban areas, and subdivisions get built along the periphery of wildlands. When homes are in the path of small wilderness fires, authorities are reluctant to let them burn. In the long run, though, suppressing such beneficial fires increases the risk to homes.

A sensible Forest Service policy of controlled burns was dealt a blow in 1988 when a natural fire was left to burn and consumed half the acreage of Yellowstone National Park. In 2000, a controlled burn set by the Forest Service broke loose and burned hundreds of homes in New Mexico. Mistakes aside, controlled burns still make sense. Fire experts point to Yellowstone as a prime example. It came back greener and healthier.

Homeowners who build in wilderness areas, like those in floodplains, must be made to understand the risk they assume when they move into such areas. Higher insurance premiums that reflect the real risk would help achieve that. So would more stringent building codes.

In the hills above Malibu, where 350 homes burned in 1993, codes now require that new homes be built using only fire retardant building materials. New homes also must have sprinkler systems. Homeowners are required to clear brush from their property and keep grass near houses mowed to 3 inches. Those who fail to keep up are fined.

Fire risks can never be eliminated, but a sensible strategy of prevention that stresses controlled burns and homeowner responsibility can make wilderness environments and the houses built in them safer.