This May, the House Resources Committee is considering legislation by Rep. Scott McInnis (R-CO) that promotes hasty, aggressive and ill-considered logging of Western forests in the name of fire prevention. The legislation shares essential features with President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative. Its adoption would be a bonanza for the timber industry, a major loss of accountability for federal agencies and a severe setback for public forestlands.

The bill's supporters seek to exploit understandable fear of fire to repeal essential forest protections, including statutorily guaranteed public appeal rights and the heart of environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The bill also seriously interferes with federal courts. It hands over to agencies determinations that have long been at the core of our judicial system. It orders federal officials to report judges to Congress if they choose to protect forests from logging for more than 45 days while deciding challenges to logging projects.

No one disagrees that fire poses a serious threat to many Western communities. Real, proven protection for forest communities, however, has been abandoned, lost in political posturing over proposals like the McInnis bill. This NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) backgrounder puts the debate back on a factual basis, summarizing the best available science and analysis on Western wildfires and woodland community protection.

Why the West burns: Even Smoky the Bear can't prevent forest fires -- in fact, now he's making them worse

Fire is an inevitable part of all Western forests. Human action may change the timing or intensity of forest fires, but when the requisite conditions exist, they burn. Many forests normally burned -- and still burn -- infrequently and at high or mixed intensity. Others, principally dry pine forests on flat, south-facing or westerly slopes at low- to mid-elevations, naturally burned frequently and lightly. Human management miscalculations and excesses have changed this pattern in many dry pine sites. The major culprits have been logging, livestock grazing and fire suppression.¹

When it initially started suppressing fires, the U.S. Forest Service faced opposition from woodland residents -- and even timber companies -- who saw frequent, low intensity fires as beneficial.² By 1930, it had become apparent to Forest Service officials that when fires were artificially extinguished, flammable material built up in the woods and subsequent fires were hotter and more difficult to control.³ But fire fighting was rapidly becoming institutionalized at federal agencies, and by 1935 the Forest Service had adopted a "10 a.m. policy" that aimed to suppress all forest fires by mid-morning on the day after they started.⁴ The popular face of this policy was Smoky the Bear, the Forest Service cartoon character who warned the public, "Only you can prevent forest fires." Wildland fires (in rangelands as well as forests) that burned 140 million acres annually in pre-industrial days, dropped to 30 million acres a year in the 1930s and to between 2 and 5 million by the 1960s.⁵ In the 1990s, however, as fuels continued to build up and suppression became ever more difficult, this trend began to reverse, with wildfires burning 8 million federal acres in 2000.⁶

Today, we face two distinct challenges in responding to wildfire risks: 1) Fire threatens homes and communities in an increasing percent of the West, as people move to the forest; and 2) away from structures, many dry pine stands are at risk from abnormally hot fires owing to an extensive build-up of woody material, including small trees, brush and litter on the forest floor. While great uncertainty surrounds how and whether human intervention can alleviate this latter problem, we know quite well how to safeguard homes and communities. Immediate action is needed to do this now, to safeguard people and homes and also to allow better, less crisis-driven decision making about when to suppress future fires and when to let them burn. But instead of taking steps to solve the problem, the administration and members of Congress are poised to make another catastrophic mistake.

Firewise: Protecting homes and communities

Loss of homes and threats to communities from wildfire is a serious problem that can and must be dealt with in a serious, results-oriented, and non-politicized fashion. Job #1 must be to protect homes and communities.

Forest Service research has found that the most effective way to protect homes is to focus on the houses themselves and their immediate surroundings.⁷ Two simple measures give homes considerable wildfire survivability: installing fire resistant roofing and clearing flammable vegetation from the immediate vicinity. (For more information about protecting homes from wildfires, visit the Firewise website.)⁸ Homeowners need immediate help with information, technical support and financial assistance to protect their homes and communities. Unfortunately, federal funds for these activities have not kept up with the demand or need. The government should be doing more.

Investigations by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General have found no evidence that the Forest Service has been allocating National Fire Plan funds as Congress has directed -- to the highest risk communities and ecosystems.⁹ According to the Forest Service, in Fiscal Year 2002 only 39 percent of thinning acreage was planned in wildland-urban areas. In Fiscal Year 2003, the agency plans to raise the number to only 55 percent. The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management should devote maximum resources to treatments in the immediate vicinity of homes and communities. This includes financial assistance to help homeowners and communities act directly to protect themselves.

Thinning the backcountry: Code for taxpayer funded corporate subsidies

Rather than concentrating its energies on helping homeowners in need, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress and the timber industry are trying to capitalize on the fear of fire. They are proposing to restore forests by thinning commercially valuable trees. Unfortunately, "thinning," when such trees are involved, is a codeword for commercial exploitation that is subsidized by taxpayers.

According to a 1999 GAO report, "Most of the trees that need to be removed to reduce accumulated fuels are small in diameter and have little or no commercial value."¹⁰ But the timber industry and its allies continue to push for logging of large, commercially valuable trees in remote areas in the name of fire suppression. Forest Service officials admit they tend to "(1) focus on areas with high-value commercial timber rather than on areas with high fire hazards or (2) include more large, commercially valuable trees in a timber sale than are necessary to reduce the accumulated fuels."¹¹

Thinning the backcountry: A recipe for more catastrophic fires

The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are poised to commit another catastrophic mistake by expanding mechanical thinning of commercially valuable trees, which can actually increase fire risk. While thinning of small trees and brush may reduce fire risk, how to do so in a way that maintains forest health while reliably achieving wildfire goals remains highly speculative:

• A recent federal interagency report on wildland fire conceded that "information on the relative effectiveness and consequences of different fuel treatment methods is being developed but is not yet available."¹²



• Researchers for the federal government's Joint Fire Science Program pointed out last year that "[t]he lack of empirical assessment of fuel treatment performance has become conspicuous."¹³

• According to Forest Service research, "…timber harvest can sometimes elevate fire hazard by increasing dead-ground fuel, removing larger fire-resistant trees, and leaving an understory of ladder fuels."¹⁴



• A 2000 report of the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to the president warned that "the National Research Council found that logging and clearcutting can cause rapid regeneration of shrubs and trees that can create highly flammable fuel conditions within a few years of cutting."¹⁵



• A group of prominent fire ecologists wrote the president last fall that "removal of small diameter material is most likely to have a net remedial effect … [a]nd their removal is not so likely to increase future fire intensity, for example from increased insulation and/or the drying effects of wind."¹⁶



• Thinning remote areas often results in road construction, which increases the likelihood of manmade fires.¹⁷

One needs look no further than summer 2002's Rodeo/Chediski fire in Arizona to see that logged areas are vulnerable. The blaze spread throughout a landscape that had been logged and which has a road density among the highest in the nation. Another example: In a photo op to dramatize the announcement of his Healthy Forests Initiative, President Bush stood on the site of last year's Squires Fire in Oregon. Ironically, the fire actually illustrates the opposite of the president's intent. Photographic evidence and firsthand accounts show that in numerous places thinned areas burned more intensely than other parts of the landscape that were not logged.¹⁸

Fanning the Flames of Politics: The folly of politicizing wildfires

In its effort to politicize and exploit fire worries, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress and statehouses have tried to scapegoat environmental laws and conservationists, claiming that appeals and litigation have blocked efforts to protect communities. For example, as a fire last summer burned near the Giant Sequoia National Monument in central California, claims were made that environmentalist appeals were to blame. But according to the local Forest Supervisor, not a single Forest Service hazardous fuels reduction project within the burn area had been blocked by conservation groups in the past six years.¹⁹

Conservationists strongly support the kinds of risk reduction activities right around structures that are proven by Forest Service research to safeguard homes and communities. Nearly all appeals occur when the government tries to advance the most controversial projects, those involving logging of larger trees in sensitive areas or in violation of environmental laws.

In July 2002, the Forest Service rushed through a new report, called "Factors Affecting Timely Mechanical Fuel Treatment Decisions." It was presented as an analysis of 326 "decisions made in fiscal year 2001 and 2002 for mechanical treatments of hazardous fuel." It concluded that "approximately half of the mechanical fuel treatment decisions that were subject to appeal were appealed in fiscal year 2001 and 2002." But independent researchers at Northern Arizona University have concluded that the report was flawed because of the incomplete and selective use of data. They have constructed a database of Forest Service appeals, which is now being analyzed.²⁰ In a preliminary report, one of the researchers concluded that:

"members of Congress and the administration … demoniz[ed] environmental groups through the use of rhetoric, synecdoches, and the repetition of unconfirmed data."²¹

Legal Loopholes: An end-run around NEPA

The Healthy Forests Initiative and McInnis bill would set the worst kind of precedent by interfering with our bedrock environmental laws and the independent judicial review that is a cornerstone of American democracy. Efforts to waive laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are particularly egregious because they often involve the lands most in need of protection. NEPA was intended to resolve controversy and balance competing public needs by increasing public input and access to the best available scientific information about risky and uncertain government activities.

For more information:

Related NRDC Pages
Gridlock on the National Forests
The National Fire Plan

Notes

1. U.S. Forest Service. "Protecting People and Sustaining Resources in Fire-Adapted Ecosystems: A Cohesive Strategy," page 22, October 13, 2000. For a synthesis of scientific research into the contribution of grazing to increased fire hazards, see Belsky, A.J. and D. Blumenthal. "Effects of Livestock Grazing on stand Dynamics and Soils in Upland Forests of the Interior West," 1999, in Conservation Biology 11:315-327.

2. Benedict, M.A. [Supervisor of the Sierra National Forest], "Twenty-one years of Fire Protection in the National Forests of California," 1930, in Journal of Forestry 28: 707-710.

3. Ibid.

4. U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, et al, "Review and Update of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy," page 1, January 2001.

5. Ibid, p.6.

6. U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, et al, "Restoring Fire-Adapted Ecosystems on Federal Lands: A Cohesive Fuel Treatment Strategy," page 44, April, 2002.

7. Cohen, Jack D. "Reducing the Wildland Fire Threat to Homes: Where and How Much?" USDA Forest Service, General Technical Report PSW-GTR-173. 1999.

8. The key zone for removing vegetation to prevent structures from igniting is 150-200 feet. See Cohen, Jack, "Reducing the Wildland Fire Threat to Homes: Where and How Much?" 1999 in U.S. Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-173; U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, et al, supra note vi, page 48. Treating a wider buffer of a quarter mile (or up to 500 meters for extreme slopes and tree heights) around woodland towns will create a zone where fire fighters can protect community open space and infrastructure. See http://www.sw-center.org/swcbd/Programs/fire/wui1.pdf.

9. General Accounting Office. "Severe Wildland Fires: Leadership and Accountability Needed to Reduce Risks to Communities and Resources." GAO-02-259. January, 2002; and USDA Office of Inspector General. "Forest Service: National Fire Plan Implementation." Western Region Audit Report. Report No. 08601-26-SF. November 2001.

10. General Accounting Office. "Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats." GAO/RCED-99-65. Page 44. April 1999.

11. Ibid, p.43.

12. U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, et al, "Review and Update of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy," page 13, January 2001.

13. Omi, P. & E Martinson. "Effect of Fuels Treatment on Wildfire Severity," submitted to the Joint Fire Science Program Governing Board, March 25, 2002 and available online at http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/frws/research/westfire/FinalReport.pdf.

14. U.S. Forest Service. "Roadless Area Conservation: Final Environmental Impact Statement -- Fuel Management and Fire Suppression Specialist's Report," page 18. November 2000.

15. Babbitt, B. and D. Glickman, "Managing the Impact of Wildfires on Communities and the Environment: A Report to the President In Response to the Wildfires of 2000," page 12, September 8, 2000.

16. Christensen, N., et al., "Letter to President Bush of 9/24/02" [copy available from NRDC]

17. U.S. Forest Service. "Roadless Area Conservation: Final Environmental Impact Statement -- Fuel Management and Fire Suppression Specialist's Report," Table 4, November 2000.

18. Photos and B-roll available from NRDC.

19. New York Times, "Fire Prompts New Debate on Managing Sequoias," July 26, 2002.

20. The Wilderness Society, "Forest Service Continues to Blow Smoke," July 11, 2002.

21. Vaughn, J. "Show me the Data! Wildfires, Healthy Forests and Forest Service Administrative Appeals," Paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association. Denver, CO, March 27, 2003.