JUST BURN IT
A year after the Storm
King fire in Glenwood Springs, Colo., claimed the lives of l4
firefighters, the Clinton administration announced that it wants to
fight fire with fire. The administration’s new policy, which
advocates the use of more controlled and prescribed burning,
results from reviews of federal firefighting efforts that began
after the Yellowstone burns of 1988. “The only way to break this
vicious cycle is to put controlled fire back onto the land,” writes
Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt in the summer issue of American
Forests. Environmentalists welcomed the policy, while timber
industry representatives say reintroducing fire to unthinned
forests would be a mistake. “Right now, fire would be a disaster in
most areas,” says Doug Crandall, assistant vice president of the
National Forest Products Association. “You would end up with fire
much hotter than you wanted.” For Babbitt, economics is the issue:
“We either pay now with some inconvenience, or we will surely pay a
higher price later with larger, smokier, uncontrollable wildfires.”
Babbitt’s article and the general report laid the groundwork for
what BLM officials say will be implemented policy next year. For a
copy of the report, Federal Wildland Fire Policy and Program
Review, contact Pat Moore at the BLM’s National Office of Fire and
Aviation,
208/387-5150.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Just burn it.
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