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Support Resilient Federal Forest Act

A better informed public should agree that pro-active, responsible fuel reduction programs

By Scott Bates

Anyone who has spent much time on the fire line knows that wildfires are easier to control where tree crown thinning projects with scheduled under burning or periodic fuels reduction in the forested areas surrounding populated areas have been completed prior to an approaching flame front. They are better known as shaded fuel breaks in the fire world and there are good online pictures of what they look like on Google. They are usually done on federal, state or private lands and accomplished by spacing or leaving a pre-determined basal area per acre.

With them, there is less chance of running crown fires and long distance (up to a mile and half) spotting of hot embers starting new fires by depositing hot embers near homes ahead of the fire front and jumping our fire lines. They help keep the fire on the ground where it is more controllable.

These type of fuels reduction projects usually generate jobs and help pay for themselves with the wood products they produce, too. There are grants available for private landowners to apply for to help pay for the cost of doing fuel reduction on their property. Firewise.com is a good source of information for homeowner wildfire defense, too.

My opinion doesn’t represent the political position of the National Incident Management Team I serve on, but I support Representative Ryan Zinke’s and co-sponsor Sen. Steve Daine’s Resilient Federal Forest Act of 2016. It incorporates collaborative, responsible fuels reduction and all of the public and stakeholders get an opportunity for input for fuel reduction plans for their local area. It is the only proposed forest bill that I have read that tries to limit litigation too. The system is still broken until these groups’ unnecessary lawsuits are limited and they are forced to sit down at the table as an equal partner with all the vested public interests in a collaborative effort where everyone is equally represented in a decision.

A better informed public should agree that pro-active, responsible fuel reduction programs with periodic controlled under burns or ground fuels manipulation of fuels by homeowners are a more realistic, more controllable, long term solution than blaming the wildfires on climate change or spending more than $1.2 billion on fire suppression like we did this summer and then do nothing.

Scott Bates
Whitefish