USFS Issues Excuses for Mill Flat Fire
The Mill Flat Fire [here] ignited July 25 in the Dixie National Forest. Bevan Killpack, Pine Valley District Ranger and Rob MacWhorter, Forest Supervisor for the Dixie NF, decided the fire should be allowed to burn unchecked. One person was assigned to monitor the fire and a 29,000 acre “maximum manageable area” was designated. The Mill Flat Fire was declared a foofurb, a “fire used for resource benefit”, despite the fact that no benefits were elucidated, no EIS created, and no public involvement or hearings held.
As of August 22 the fire was 550 acres. Then a week later the wind came up, the fire blew up, and by August 31 the fire was 10,382 acres. The fire roared into New Harmony, Utah, forced the evacuation of 170 New Harmony residents, destroyed three homes and damaged eight buildings.
Some benefit, eh?
The residents of new Harmony were understandably miffed, and Gov. Gary Herbert grumbled about it [here]. Thye usual pro-holocausters, on the other hand, praised the fire and sneered at New Harmony residents:
“New Harmony is no longer New Harmony,” [long-time Utah wilderness activist Dick] Carter said of building homes in fire-prone areas. “It’s out of harmony and it’s been out of harmony a long time because we have failed to understand the consequences of growth and that’s the thing Governor Herbert and others will have to deal with.”
Then just yesterday the USFS offered a non-apology apology.
Forest Service misses ‘red flag’ assessment
A jump from 40 to 100 acres a day burned should have been a warning.
By Jason Bergreen, The Salt Lake Tribune, 10/25/2009 [here]
U.S. Forest Service administrator Bevan Killpack defends the choices made in fighting the Mill Flat fire in southern Utah this summer, but acknowledges that officials should have seen the fire growing quickly days before it reached New Harmony.
“We weren’t focusing on the acreage as much as where the fire was,” said Killpack, a Pine Valley District ranger who oversaw the benefit resource fire. “We were looking at 100 acres growing every day, but it was staying on the mountain.”
The resource benefit fire started small in July but began to consume 100 acres a day around Aug. 26, according to a fire behavior analyst who reviewed the forest service’s daily communications and papers in late September. The blaze was burning 40 acres or less a day prior to that, Killpack said.
“That should have told us something,” he said Thursday. “We should have realized 100 acres was substantial. That should have been a red flag and we missed it.”
So the “benefit resource fire” or “resource benefit fire” (the SLT used both in order to cover all the bases and really emphasize how wonderfully “beneficial” the Mill Flat Fire was) turned out to be a disaster that benefited no one and nothing, except to make pro-holocausters happy.
Nothing warms the hearts of anarchists, arsonists, and revolutionaries more than burning down small towns in the West, unless it’s burning down large cities and/or forests.
The USFS is sort of sorry about what happened, but their hands are tied. Let It Burn is a centrally inflicted policy emanating from Washington DC. The local officials were just following orders.
But Killpack said fire personnel had correctly monitored the resource benefit blaze by testing and measuring wind, temperatures, fuel moisture and other aspects of the blaze throughout July and August.
However, Killpack later admitted, “I was nervous with it the whole time.”
They made the best and most accurate decisions with the science they had available to them, he said.
Ah hah! It’s the fault of the “available science”. Evidently the USFS has been procuring their science from the dime store or picking it off DC garbage scows.
It’s a real hoot when the folks responsible, sitting in the ashes of the devastation they engendered, claim to be channeling “science”.
If there really was any science behind the decision to incinerate the Dixie NF and surrounding towns, then the USFS could have presented such when they issued the Environmental Impact Statement beforehand. However, the USFS did NOT prepare any EIS beforehand or afterward, nor request or present any “science” allegedly considered when the Let It Burn decision was made.
The purpose of the NEPA process is to bring into public review all the science considered before any action is taken that will have significant impact of the environment. But there has never been any NEPA process for “benefit resources fires”. There is no telling what was running through their minds. There is no transparency, no process, no public involvement in Let It Burn.
Western townsfolk are left to wonder how to deal with the USFS these days. Putting pro-holocausters in charge of forest fires has proven to be a very bad idea.
Question #1: Is it socially responsible to defer landscape stewardship to an outfit full of holocausters, knowing that their stated mission is to incinerate whole regions in catastrophic forest fires?
Question #2: Wouldn’t it be better to care for our forests, watersheds, landscapes, in a manner that does not result in inflicted disaster and destruction?
Question #3: Isn’t it about time the USFS is disbanded and dissolved and the National Forests returned to their rightful owners, the residents of the watersheds?
by Ned
by Squanto
Interesting. I guess one could view Katrina as a flood used for resource benefit purposes, too.
The FS is antagonizing and disaffecting their primary base of support: rural communities. It seems to be a choice the leadership made, to run roughshod over the only demographic that ever truly understood or appreciated the FS.
FS fires burning up forests, watersheds, and even private homes, outside and inside city limits, have become common occurrences. Those most impacted, rural residents, have lost the respect and trust they once felt for the Forest Service.
The leadership apparently doesn’t care, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for the FS to operate in rural communities. Their presence is resented, and for a host of good reasons.
I was just in New Harmony on my photo trip to Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. The town lies in the shadow of the Kolob Canyon part of Zion, between Cedar City and St. George. Many luxury vacation homes have been built in the general area and the fuels consist of relatively thick pinyon, juniper and brush, on the valley floor. The fire area was difficult to see, with lower fire intensities due to scabby fuels, in places. There is much more fuels in the town area, due to fire suppression.
A few years ago, they had a similar fire threaten town and it appears that nothing was learned from that one, which occurred in an easier place to get to. The terrain and micro-climate lends itself to fast moving frequent fires. People cherish their shade but seem to not make their property fire-safe.
With those realities, Let-Burn fires should be formally analyzed with public involvement. The Forest Service fears being accused of doing nothing and that is just what would happen if NEPA was commanded to be followed. At least, right now, they can tell a gullible public that they were indeed “doing something” about this slow-motion forest disaster.
by YPmule
The “new” base of support is the city folks with their motor homes and ATVs. Those willing to spend $20 a night to camp cheek to jowl in their “improved” camp grounds. The FS wants to turn our local roads into recreation trails, and when you ask about lack of access to firewood the FS won’t talk to you - they are on a mission to cater to recreationists.
Really appreciate Ned’s comments, you really hit the nail on the head! Ecosystem Management is vague enough to mean anything.
Thank you Larry for your “eyewitness” report of the conditions on the ground there.
Things could have been MUCH worse! A little change in the wind direction and the fire heads towards Cedar City, a much larger town and regional economic center.
The goal of “Ecosystem Management” is to return of forests to something no one has ever seen. A forest with no humans in it.
PS: New photos on my blog [here] from Bryce and Zion!
Great photos!!!!!
If Killpack was asked about the NEPA process the Dixie National Forest followed he would probably explain that it was covered in the Forest Plan. The Payette, Boise, and Sawtooth National Forests use the Forest Plan explaination for their WFU, AMR fires. If one were to read the Forest Plan you would find they are implementing Ecosystem Management.
Ecosystem Management is a handy term because no one really understands what it means and it is not measurable. Anything can be done as Ecosystem Management. Ecosystem Management seems to mean returning to “nature”. However, nature’s tools for management are essentually catastrophic. Fire, wind, floods, drought, insects, disease and climate change are nature’s tools. In nature disaster and destruction are not uncommon happenings. Sustainablity is not common in nature as there can be wide swings in vegetation and landscape. The USFS may eventually recognize this, however reluctantly.
When the Forest Service allows a fire start in July or August to burn the rest of the fire season they are truely using “nature’s tool”. But often with catastrophic results.