Bush Fire Plan Strikes a Spark

President Bush?s Healthy Forest initiative has two major components. First, it would entice timber companies to clear out brush, smaller trees and dead wood, in exchange for permission to cut commercially valuable trees. Second, it would limit the public?s ability to appeal national forest timber sales. Last week, President Bush urged an Oregon crowd to understand the common sense of his plan.

1:31 we need to thin. We need to make our forests healthy by using some common sense. We need to understand, if you let kindling build up and there is a lightning strike, there is going to be a big fire, that?s what you have to understand.

According to the Administration, already more than 5.9 million acres of public and private land have already burned this year. That?s larger than the state of New Hampshire. But while the president is using this year?s round of fires as kindling for his plan, John Deemas? with American Lands Alliance, believes the real agenda is buried.

1:37 what we see Bush doing is trying to undo environmental regs that have worked beautifully for over 30 years, to get back into the woods to cut again.

Deemas believes the White House wants to facilitate timber sales, not thin forests. He points to a USA Today report that found that after two years, and six billion dllars, the National Fire Plan did little to protect threatened communities.

To Jasen Stock of New Hampshire Timberland Owner?s Association, environmental regulations are part of the reason why western national forests burn so easily. Stock says the Forest Service can?t affectively control for fires. Current rules, he says, allow groups or individuals to derail Forest Service Management Plans.

2:05 what is happening is these rules overlap and created this regulatory morass that forest managers must contend with to do any type of project in the forest. B/c of this morass there are conflicting rules and requirements?also these rules have set a stage where litigation are very easy tools used by anyone opposing a project?an individual can use litigation and appeal to shut down a project.

Some of those derailed projects include logging or thinning ostensibly for the health of the forests. The result is that forests can become unnaturally dense and more susceptible to wildfire.

But American Lands Alliance John Deemas says limiting the public?s involvement may reduce fire damage, but it won?t reduce fire damage while protecting the forest.

4:59 ? We have a plan that we will put before Congress, that would allocate 10 billion over next five year, to deal with fire issue. Majority of it will be spent in and around communities, we feel that is a way to protect people?s homes. Lets do brush clearing, fire proof homes, instruct people how to do that, and let?s not be cutting deep in the woods, miles from people?s homes, as an excuse to get in there and cut big timber.

Tom Wagner, the forest supervisor of the White Mountain National Forest says he hasn?t been given any details on what the president?s proposal would mean for the Whites. But he does know that thinning a forest means tradeoffs.

8:07 ? If we have heavy dense force growing adjacent next to subdivision, we make a decision not to do anything with those forests, we have made a decision that when fires happen they are going to be more costly, there are going to be some homes lost and we are going to increase the risk associated with fighting that fire. It?s time, for people to understand the tradeoffs, and stay away from the rhetoric.

Charlie Neebling of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is just glad the president has made wildfires a page 1 issue. He says it makes sense to trim forests in some areas. For example, cleaning up after the ice storm of ?98 reduced possible wildfire fuels. But Neebling says other parts of the forest should be left alone. In the end, Neebling sees a need for compromise in the forests and at the negotiating table.

:42 ? what I would hope as an alternative, is the environmental community, some organizations from which, have as their goal ending timber harvesting on national forests, would realize that that isn?t the wisest policy. That we need in ceratin places, active management to get a handle on this fire situation. And maybe relax some of their deeply held principles, and work together with people to try to make progress on it.

For NHPR News, I?m DG.