“Keepers of the Flame,” the title of the Nov. 8,
2004, High Country News cover story, is a
religious allusion in harmony with the devotional tone of the
article. While professors from North Carolina and Washington are
granted a few lines to caution that not all forests are alike, no
one offers any criticism of the Forest Service fire policy for the
Gila.
The last 30 years have seen moments of cooperation
and moments of conflict between the Gila National Forest and the
public. Some of these conflicts have resulted in lawsuits in which
the courts agreed that the Forest Service acted improperly. I would
group the judgments against the Forest Service into three general
categories: failure to fulfill their mission requirements; failure
to prepare adequate action plans; and failure to properly implement
and execute the steps contained in their own action plans. Cutting
across all of these categories is the failure to communicate
honestly with the public. All of these problems are present in the
controversy over the Gila fire policy, yet none are acknowledged in
the article.
Paul Boucher, current fire staff officer for
the Gila, frames the conflict as one of science (favoring the
Forest Service fire policy) versus ignorance (opposing fire). I
know of no one opposing the policy who denies the role of fire in
Gila ecology. Public resistance to the burn activities springs from
frequent Forest Service failures to properly plan and execute its
policies.
Derek Roff
Albuquerque, New Mexico
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fire story left out the locals.
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