SOS Forests

W.I.S.E. to Forsgren: Time for Public Dialog About USFS Fire Policies

Dear Mr. Forsgren,

Thank you for your email of Feb 5th. I have posted it in its entirety at SOS Forests [here].

Your email was in response to Mr. Glenn Bradley’s email of Feb. 3rd, posted [here]. Mr. Bradley is a retired USFS Forest Supervisor, as you know, and his concerns regarding the South Barker WFU Fire have been posted numerously at SOS Forests. Mr. Carl Pence, another retired USFS Forest Supervisor, has also weighed in on this topic, posted [here].

The Fires

Over the last three years SOS Forests has posted many, many essays and discussions about WFU (Wildland Fire Use). We have explored WFU fires that have blown up and caused extensive damage to heritage forests. These include:

• The Warm WFU Fire in 2006 [here, here, among many other posts]. The Warm WFU blew up to 58,640 acres and caused over $70 million in damages to old-growth spotted owl habitat on the Kaibab NF. Ancient home sites, soils, air, and watershed values were incinerated or severely damaged, along with rare old-growth ponderosa pine. The Warm Fire was designated and managed as a WFU in a prohibited zone in direct defiance of a legally binding Decision Notice issued by a federal judge and acknowledged in the Forest Plan EIS. In the aftermath the District Ranger was reassigned, and at angry public meetings USFS officials, including the Regional Forester, were excoriated, as I am sure you recall.

• The Clover WFU Fire in 2008 [here, among other posts]. The Clover WFU Fire began with a lightning strike May 31 that fizzled in a few acres. It could have been extinguished for a few thousand dollars. But because it was in a designated wilderness, the Inyo NF declared the Clover Fire a WFU (wildland fire used for alleged resource benefit). The Clover Fire was “monitored” until it blew up into a 15,000 acre wildfire that burned all the way to Hwy 395 and threatened homes in Kennedy Meadows. It eventually cost over $8 million to suppress. Homeowners dozens of miles from the ignition point were evacuated and then blamed.

• The Gunbarrel WFU Fire in 2008 [here]. The Gunbarrel WFU burned 67,141 acres and cost over $11 million to suppress. An estimated 420 residences, 11 commercial buildings, and 149 outbuildings were threatened and 7 buildings destroyed. The highway leading to Yellowstone Park was closed, and numerous residents were evacuated. During the fire USFS officials proudly declared that the MMA (Maximum Manageable Area, or desired incineration zone) was 417,000 acres (652 sq miles) and included public and private properties north and south of Highway 14.

• The South Barker WFU Fire in 2008 [here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here among other posts]. The South Barker WFU Fire burned 38,583 acres and cost over $7 million to suppress. It incinerated miles of riparian zones, stripped erodable hillsides of vegetation, and destroyed forest plantations that had been carefully tended for 50 years.

• The East Slide Rock Ridge WFU Fire in 2008 [here, here, here, here, and here, among other posts]. The ESRR WFU Fire burned 54,549 acres and cost over $9 million to suppress. The community of Murphy Hot Springs, ID, was threatened as well as numerous rural ranches and farms. Riparian zones adjacent to stream habitat for endangered bull trout were incinerated, the same riparian zones that have been the subject of controversy since the days of the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade. Recall that in 1998 the USFS illegally dumped tons of rock to blockade a county road and then sent Elko County a bill for $400,000 to pay for it.

We have discussed at SOS Forests other egregious Let It Burn fires that were not WFU’s per se but unfought fires managed under the policy of Appropriate Management Response (AMR). These include:

• The Payette and Boise NF AMR fires of 2007 [here among numerous posts] that incinerated 800,000 acres (1,250 sq miles) in central Idaho. The damages to forests, roads, local communities, and endangered salmon habitat were enormous and are still ongoing and accumulating.

• The Northern California AMR fires of 2008 [here and here, among numerous posts] that burned over 640,000 acres (1,000 sq miles). That’s just the NorCal federal fires west of Interstate-5 on the Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity, and Mendocino National Forests. Those fire were allowed to burn from June 21 to late October and cost over $400 million to “appropriately manage.” Twelve firefighters lost their lives on those fires.

The list goes on and on; the Biscuit, Zaca, Indians/Basin, Rodeo-Chedeski, Tripod, Tatoosh, B&B, Schoolhouse, Rattle, Middlefork, and dozens of other catastrophic megafires have been the direct result of inadequate land management, poor or non-existent initial attack, and/or deliberate withholding of suppression. No Touch - Let It Burn has been a policy prone to failure and generated disaster after disaster.

The Damages

The damages to the environment and the economy wrought by uncontrolled forest fires are well-known, predictable, and preventable. Fires cause serious deleterious impacts to:

• Flora
• Fauna
• Historic/cultural resources
• Water and watersheds
• Air and airsheds (including increased carbon emissions)
• Soils
• Hydrology
• Fisheries
• Wilderness and roadless areas
• Wild and scenic rivers
• Scenic quality
• Wetlands and floodplains
• Farmland, rangeland, and private property
• Homes, towns, and cities
• Energy resources
• Transportation networks
• Social resources
• Recreation opportunities and businesses
• Short-term and long-term productivity
• Civil rights and environmental justice
• Fire suppression budgets
• Land management budgets in general
• State and local budgets (including fire and emergency services)
• Public health and safety
• Forest and fire worker safety
• Local, regional, and nation economies

Wildfires are contained, controlled, and extinguished because the damages and losses associated with wildfires are extreme and catastrophic to the environment, economies, and society in general. Realistic and full consideration of the costs and losses due to wildfire have compelled public fire suppression expenditures in every civilization in history.

The dismissal and/or lack of consideration for wildfire costs and losses that characterizes WFU and AMR are the height (or depth) of irresponsibility.

The Lack of Due Process

WFU and AMR policies have been instituted without due process or public involvement. The Wildland Fire Leadership Council, the federal Advisory Committee charged with oversight of the National Forest Plan, has forced adoption of WFU and AMR without a single public hearing in secret meetings with international non-governmental organizations.

Dozens of National Forests have altered their Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMP’s) as ordered without a single public hearing, without any public notification, and in total disregard for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the The National Historical Preservation Act (NHPA), and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).

WFU and AMR constitute Federal actions of significant impact to federal lands (and as frequently occurs, to private lands as well). Those laws require public review and involvement. The legally mandated processes have not be followed; in fact, they have been deliberately subverted.

Abrogation of the law has resulted in deep discontent and disillusionment among the general public, flamed by the enormous wildfire costs and losses that have been suffered. The destruction of forests and watersheds, the choking smoke, the loss of lives, homes, and businesses, and the enormous economic and budgetary costs have not gone unnoticed.

Professional foresters such as myself, Mr. Bradley, Mr. Pence, and hundreds of others are particularly grieved and distraught over the wholesale destruction of the landscapes and ecosystems we have labored to protect, maintain, and sustain during our careers. Many of the most disaffected are former USFS professionals who have dedicated their lives to an agency that they once were proud of, and now are heartbroken over its apparent collapse.

The mission has been lost, or else seriously perverted. The destruction of our public, heritage forests is the outcome.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Like you, Mr. Forsgren, I am not satisfied by informal Internet discussions. The seriousness of the issues at hand and the complicity of a public bureaucracy as large as the USFS require more formal and comprehensive public examination of fire policies. That job cannot be left to in-house reviews and decision-making absent public involvement. Indeed, the forest fire crisis has arisen precisely because the public has been excluded from substantive discussion.

I suggest the USFS needs to convene a series of local and regional discussion forums where the disaffected public, including professional foresters such as myself, can air our grievances with USFS fire policies in an open and public way.

You need to listen to us. Your agency needs to hear the voices of the people most concerned and impacted by the policy directions and actions of the USFS. The dialog must be two-way, comprehensive, transparent, and open-ended.

The agency is losing the support of the rural public and your own professionals, active and retired. We see the problems quite clearly. We are not mollified by circumspect bureaucratic patronizing. The USFS has to reach out in a substantial and humble manner to your true base of support and listen to and heed our advice.

I wish to help you in that endeavor. I offer the services of the Western Institute for Study of the Environment in planning and implementing those discussion forums. I know the people and organizations you need to talk to.

But those forums cannot take place unless and until the agency desires the public dialog. You must recognize the untenable position the USFS has fallen into, and you must desire to rebuild the bridges to us. The level of expertise and caring outside the agency is enormous. It does you no good to ignore and repel the people who most wish for your success.

Please contact me for further exploration of an open and public dialog about USFS forest and fire policies.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mike Dubrasich, Exec Dir
Western institute for Study of the Environment