WFLC Cohesive Strategy Field Forums
The newly reconstituted Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) has decided to open up their deliberations to a wider audience.
Background:
The WFLC is an intergovernmental committee of Federal, State, Tribal, County and Municipal government officials convened by the Secretaries of the Department of Interior, Agriculture and Homeland Security, that is dedicated to coordinated implementation of wildland fire policies, goals and management activities. The Council provides strategic oversight to ensure policy coordination, accountability and effective implementation of Federal wildland fire management policy and related long-term strategies to address wildfire suppression, assistance to communities, hazardous fuels reduction, habitat restoration and rehabilitation of the Nation’s forests and rangelands.
In the past the WFLC has been secretive and exclusionary. The policies they have promulgated have had a significant effect on the environment, both public and private lands, yet the WFLC has not complied with various environmental laws such as NEPA and the ESA.
But those defects have been brought to public attention (by SOS Forests), and now the WFLC is making an attempt to rectify the situation — to some extent.
First, the WFLC is undertaking a Cohesive Strategy process “to develop a strategy to more effectively address America’s wildland fire challenges.”
U.S. To Develop More Effective Wildfire Strategy
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, GovMonitor, 21st April 2010 [here]
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today announced the formation of a federal partnership with state, regional, local and tribal leaders to develop a strategy to more effectively address America’s wildland fire challenges.
“At a meeting of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council in Washington, D.C., local officials joined governors, representatives of tribal governments and the departments of Agriculture, Interior, and Homeland Security to establish a blueprint for a “Cohesive Wildfire Management Strategy.”
“The Council provides the right framework for a strong national strategy to address the growing threats of wildfire,” said Secretary Salazar. “The Council’s partnerships are key to the establishment of a national, intergovernmental wildfire policy that will ensure the safety of our firefighters and the citizens they protect as we confront longer and more intense fire seasons in more regions of the country.”
“There are no easy solutions to the challenges of wildland fire,” said Secretary Vilsack. “But a cohesive wildfire management strategy will provide the best blueprint to ensure community safety and the restoration of ecosystems that will, in the long run, benefit all Americans, especially those who live in rural areas.”
“Developing a comprehensive national strategy to prepare for and protect against wildfires that threaten the safety of Americans is an important part of our efforts to build a culture of resiliency in communities across the country,” said Secretary Napolitano.
At the Council meeting, federal, state, local and tribal government representatives agreed to develop a comprehensive landscape-scale analysis of all wildlands, based on the best available science, and a strategic blueprint of policy and program alternatives for the wildland fire community. The strategy will analyze three key components: landscape restoration, fire-adapted communities, and response to wildfire.
The Cohesive Wildfire Management Strategy will address America’s increasing wildland fire challenges. Currently, millions of acres of public lands across the country are at risk of large wildfires due to overcrowded stands of trees, insect infestations, and invasions of non-native species. …
As part of that process the WFLC will be conducting “field forums” to “to enhance collaboration and the raise the visibility of the strategy formulation process.” For an update (April 14) on that process see [here]. For an initial schedule see [here].
Attendance at the field forums is by invitation only. Yours truly has not received an invitation but I’m working on it. If I don’t receive one, I might go to one anyway, stand outside on the sidewalk, and pass out screeds. Or not — I haven’t come to any final decision on that.
Secondly, the WFLC has intimated that they might “establish a ‘public portal’ on the website to solicit and receive input for the Cohesive Strategy Oversight Committee and accommodate those interested but unable to attend the scheduled field forums.”
That particular accommodation has not been made yet, but if it happens, we will be the first to flood their new site with input. I will let you know so you, too, can participate in the process. Your forests, watersheds, and communities are in the line of fire, so to speak, and so you should avail yourself of the opportunity make your voice heard.
I am certainly going to do so. The fate of our forests should not be placed in the hands of non-foresters with a Let It Burn agenda who operate in noncompliance with the law. We have tried that style of forest management, and it has failed catastrophically.
“Cohesion” means sticking together tightly. Basically, the “Cohesive Strategy” is the fire community circling their wagons. Their “us against the world” mindset is typical of fanatical cults. They are going to Burn Baby Burn no matter what others think or do.
The fire community has divorced themselves from the rest of society in general and from forestry in particular. The goal of forestry is to provide a balance of multiple resources and resource values. The goal of the fire community is fire. They have no concern whatsoever for any resource — other than to burn it up.
We foresters have seen this kind of fanaticism before. Thirty years ago wildlifers decided that certain species of wildlife were the ONLY resource worth consideration. All other resources were secondary to spotted owls, or elk, or wolves, or what have you. That kind of tunnel vision has been exceedingly destructive to forests and ironically, to those select wildlife species, too.
The wilderness nuts are fanatical about de-humanizing the landscape. They feel all humanity is a stain and a virus that must be eliminated. Their’s is a quasi-religious fanaticism with roots in Nazism and other fascist human-hating philosophies. And it has resulted in megafire catastrophes that have turned putative “wilderness” into scorched earth wastelands.
Forests are complex phenomena with multiple resource values. Forest management must be comprehensive and holistic, not “cohesive”. Fire is one consideration, but not the only one — fire is not even a resource.
The fire community is isolating itself. They have become an elitist special interest with a self-serving agenda. As such, they have removed themselves from the Big Picture. The concept they pursue is secret, sequestered meetings with select individuals who will reinforce their separateness and isolation. They think that by excluding all contrary voices they will gain power — specifically the power to destroy.
It’s scary. Fascism has done so much harm, generated so much tragedy. But the fanatics of fire can’t or won’t see themselves for what they are, and they are hellbent on a course of destruction.
What they need is a good slap upside their collective heads. Somebody has to rein them in before they kill us all. I don’t know how that will ever happen, but I think it will happen someday. People in general are not fond of fanatical fascists, and we will eventually lock the crazies up. They can cohere to each other in prison.
Plucked from a Wildfire Today entry on Facebook:
The Flame Act of 2009 requires the Forest Service and Department of Interior to submit to Congress a report that contains a cohesive wildfire management strategy consistent with recommendations in recent General Accountability Office (GAO) reports regarding management strategies. Following its formal approval by the Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of Interior by October 2010, the Cohesive Wildfire Management Strategy is to be revised at least once during each five year period to address any changes with respect to landscape, vegetation, climate, and weather conditions.
According to the legislation the Cohesive Strategy is required to provide for the identification of the most cost effective means for allocating fire management budget resources. This includes the reinvestment in non-fire programs by the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture, employing the appropriate management response to wildfire, assessing the level of risk to communities, allocation of hazardous fuels reduction funds based on the priority of hazardous fuels reduction projects, and assessing the impacts of climate change on the frequency and impact of wildfire.
In addition, the Congressional requirements hold that the strategy meet GAO standards for addressing cost effectiveness of suppression and mitigation, the efficiency of treatments for fuels and Fire Adapted Communities and establishment of meaningful performance measures.
Is this in lieu of actually complying with NEPA?
by YPmule
The only “resource benefits” we have found is that it is cheaper and quicker for the FS to let the forests burn than to manage them (Rx burns.) The concept of “multiple use” of our public lands is now down to which type of recreation special interest groups want.
Make a road that locals used for firewood, berry picking and hunting into an exclusive trail for motorcycle clubs. Close access off for camping and antler hunting and open it up to pilots. Close off access to everyone except for a few nature hikers to enjoy a weekend or two each summer…
Actually, it ISN’T cheaper or quicker, in my neck of the woods. The windows for getting prescribed fires done seems to get smaller and smaller every year. Add to that, the growing number of “no-burn days” imposed unfairly upon the Forest Service by the State of California and you have maybe 2-3 weeks to get these tiny “postage-stamp” burns completed. Also, the burns have to be done during the time of year when their temps either aren’t onboard yet, or have run out of temporary appointment hours for the year.
Using those timeframes, they’ll never get all the acres treated that need it before the accomplished burns need another burning. Add to that, the public’s extreme dislike of smoke and fire close to their homes in the WUI.
While I am trying very hard to keep things “civil”, over there in the “Wildfire Today” Facebook group, I’m sure they are getting tired of seeing my skepticism and questioning of their profession. I’ve carefully stayed away from talking about corruption but, if it looks like a stumpf**ker, and walks like a stumpf**ker, it’s a stumpf**ker!
by YPmule
Larry - that is what I meant. Its cheaper for the FS to let a wildfire do their Rx work for them. You are right, they do have a pretty short window to burn. However letting a WFU burn “does the job” for them - and uses a different budget. Unfortunately, WFU burns everything.
How can they call this “cohesive”, when their Let-Burn program has suffered soooooo many catastrophic failures??
We need to pin them down on just what those “resource benefits” are. Here’s an idea. Why not establish “prescriptions” to their Let-Burn fires? For example, if fuel moistures are below an established level, then fires MUST be suppressed. We need more control over “natural ignitions” that occur when fuels are dry. We also would need daily monitoring of those fuel moistures. Sadly, they will fight tooth and nail against any regulation or oversight of their activities, arrogantly claiming that “only they can Let-Burn forest fires”. I think they might be “channeling” Smokey’s evil twin Firey.