Christine Hoekenga writes that Neal Hitchcock says
that the Forest Service has to “borrow money from other programs to
cover emergency costs” (HCN, 11/12/07). That’s
not actually true. The 45 percent of budgeted fire suppression and
any “budget overruns” are, if you will, stolen from other programs.
They do not get repaid, thus starving the activities that were the
“traditional” purvey of this land management agency.
Fire
suppression (aka protecting trophy homes and residences placed and
maintained with little or no recognition of the fire regime that
they’re built in) is the tail wagging the dog. We’ve turned the
land-management agencies into de facto structure-fire departments.
Money is being spent to protect private homes with no regard to the
statutory duties of these federal agencies.
“Wildland
Fire Use” is the latest in a round of euphemisms used by the feds
to describe what was first established in 1972 as the “Let Burn”
policy. After the 1988 Yellowstone fires, the spin doctors came up
with “prescribed natural fire.” That turned into “Wildland Fire
Use” and is now being supplanted by the newest buzz phrase,
“Appropriate Management Response.” All of these are in response to
decades (back to at least the 1930s) of recognition that fire is
just another element of Western ecosystems. Although I personally
think we give ourselves way too much credit for “years of fire
suppression” as a major causal factor in the severity and size of
fires we’ve seen in the past decade, it’s clear that we screwed
things up with the recommitment to fire suppression after the 1934
fire season and the rise of Smokey Bear as the “war on fire”
avatar.
Given that fire has been present for a bazillion
years in vegetated lands, the kind of fire occurrence we’re seeing
is well within the range of variability. Climate cycles have
repeatedly led to conditions similar to what we’re seeing now –
it’s just a matter of lining up all of the ducks: drought, older
stands of forest ripe for the feasting of co-evolved pine beetles,
and the annual cycles of lightning and human ignitions. It’s in the
midst of this that we’re trying, like the “war on drugs,” to fight
an unwinnable fight to save clueless people from the decisions they
make on house siting and design, construction materials and the
management of adjacent flammable materials (firewood stacks and the
surrounding vegetation). But hey, we’re willing to watch the TV
coverage and wring our hands while spending billions to attempt
suppression and billions more to help folks rebuild in the same
settings.
Woody Hesselbarth
Fort Collins,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline ‘An unwinnable fight to save clueless people’.
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