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HERITAGE BRIEF

A Wyoming Business Alliance/Wyoming Heritage Foundation Newsletter

August 2000                                                                             Volume 21, No. 2

Forest Fires and Forest Conditions

Background

The General Accounting office in April 1999 reported that 39 million acres of national forest lands in the Interior West were at high risk to catastrophic wildfires. By early spring of this year, weather forecasts and low winter snow pack indicated the potential for a very bad forest fire year.

The West now is experiencing the worst fire season since the massive fires of 1910. The reasons - - ongoing drought conditions, high temperatures, lightening and a build up of fuel (fallen trees and underbrush) - - are self evident.

Forest Chief Mike Dombeck said in a speech in Madison, Wisconsin on July 19th. the Forest Service priorities have moved toward protecting water, wildlife, fish habitat and providing recreation opportunities - - clearly the rationale behind the Administration’s 40 million acre roadless initiative on National forest lands.

Common sense tells you that logging is a fire management tool. Yet the Forest Service has continued to move away from timber harvesting. The worst fire season in a half a century now faces the West. It’s caused, in part, by national policies that have reduced timber sales on federal lands by 70%. There are some 70 forest fires in the West, which on August 9th alone burned 91,500 acres in 12 states and cost $13. l million.

Wyoming so far this year has not had the major forest fires that have plagued other Western states. But conditions are dry, many of our forests have excessive fuel build-up on the ground and most forests are old with dead trees standing

Of the 9.2 million acres of Forest Service land in Wyoming, 36% is wilderness. In the Yellowstone Region, there’s 11.8 million acres total and over 50% of this land is in inaccessible because of wilderness and roadless lands.

 

Detailed Information

Nationwide there are 191 million acres of forest lands. The twelve Western states have 161 million, or 84% of the total.

The wildfires this year have burned 4.3 million acres nationwide (3.5 million in the West), destroyed critical fish and wildlife habitat, burned homes and set the stage for flooding, erosion and sedimentation.... plus health problems for thousands of people.

The cost to date to fight these fires is about $500 million. If they continue at the current rate for another 45 days, an additional $675 million will be spent.

Fires in wilderness areas - - because they are roadless and allow no motorized vehicles - - are especially hard to fight. The Bitterroot National Forest has wilderness area with 24 fires on 22,000 acres.

The U. S. Forest Service has 64 firefighting teams. For the first time ever, all of these teams (20-25 people each, who can manage up to 2000 firefighters) are fighting fires. There are 25,000 civilian and military firefighters working to contain fires from Arizona to Montana.

Because resources to fight fires are stretched to the maximum, not all fires can be fought. And some, because of their size, rugged terrain and wind, can’t be retained no matter how many firefighters or air tankers are sent in.

According to an April 1999 GAO report, The Agency (Forest Service) Lacks a Cohesive Strategy@ Why? Because the Clinton Administration believes thinning forests to remove fuel buildup is counter to no road building, no logging and no motorized recreation (e.g., the 40 million acre roadless initiative announced last year).

The GAO has stated that 39 million acres of National Forest lands in the Interior West are at high risk to catastrophic wildfires. The Forest Service has identified an additional 24 million acres to be at high risk to insect and disease epidemics.

Timber harvests - - because of these policies - - are down 70% from a decade ago; The allowable timber sales from forest plans used to be 12 billion board feet; actual sales volume in recent years has averaged 3.5 billion. Timber sales in the Intermountain West have decreased from 385 million board feet in 1988 to 191 million board feet in 1999 - - a staggering 50% decline.

Timbering in forests accounts for maybe 2% of the land. Disease, infestation, and mortality rates are much higher. A 9 billion board feet harvest level may affect 600,000 acres - - nothing compared to the .4 million acres consumed by fire this year or the West’s 161 million acres of Forest Service lands.

The American public has increasingly resisted, and environmental groups have consistently opposed, logging in National Forests. As logging has been reduced, fuel accumulation has built up. Timber that used to be harvested for wood products is now burning.

National Forest diversity and ecological integrity has changed in the last 100 years. The savannas - -open meadows in the forests - - have been replaced by dense, over mature stands of trees, undergrowth and vegetation which invite fiery infernos, insect infestations, disease and decay. Shade tolerant Douglas firs have choked out hardy and fire resistant Ponderosa pine.

Many National Forest lands have become so thick with undergrowth that they are impassible for wildlife and people. Forest overgrowth has out paced harvesting on suitable lands by nearly 40%, according to U. S. Representative Bob Schaefer.

Forests thinned - - by way of logging and prescribed burns - - are healthy. The Hi Meadow fire southwest of Denver in mid-June was thwarted in some areas because of thinning practices. Crowning did not spread; the fire was limited to the ground; it did not kill all the trees.

Conclusion

The Chief of Forest Service has stated that the Forest Service’s goal is "intelligent consumption" of forest resources. In light millions of acres consumed by fires, and over $500 million to date to contain them, the Forest Chief and the Forest Service out of step with reality. Without question, things are out of hand.

U. S. Forest Service focus on water, wildlife and fish, as well as recreation has had a cumulative, contributing and negative effect - - overgrowth, diseased and aging forests, reduced logging and inaccessibility to fight fires because of wilderness and roadless areas. The Forest Service spends money - - hundreds of millions - - to fight fires but little to reduce fuel build-up.

The Forest Service is now completing a Cohesive Strategy. It calls for mechanical thinning and intentional fires over 15 years at a cost of $825 million. The BLM has a plan for 75 million acres in the Great Basin at a cost of $40 an acre.

The Congress needs to be supportive of prevention rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fight forest fires. The Congress must rescind, or scale back, the Administration’s 40 million roadless acre initiative to allow thinning and intentional fire strategies to work on these lands as well as other National Forest lands. It also must insist that the Forest Service increase logging as a complimentary tool to reduce fuel build-up.