Are We Ready for 12-15 Million Per Year? The Chief Speaks in Boise

From the Idaho Statesman here.

If you think fires have gotten big in the past few years, hold on.

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said Friday that the blazes will only get bigger and that the cost of fighting them could nearly double. But the agency that manages 193 million acres of national forest — including 20 million in Idaho — plans to increase timber sales by 20 percent in the next two years as part of a restoration effort to make communities safer and watersheds more resilient.

Wildfires have burned in excess of 8 million acres six times since 2004, a dramatic increase over the yearly totals seen in the past five decades. But Tidwell told the City Club of Boise that as many as 12 million to 15 million acres will burn annually now because of warming temperatures and drier years.

This comes even as state, tribal and federal agencies put out 98 percent of all the fires that start, Tidwell said. Firefighters jump on those blazes as aggressively as they can, he said.

“It’s that 2 percent that become very large very quickly,” Tidwell said.

Today’s fires are often so ferocious that managers won’t risk putting crews in their path. The thousands of homes that have been built in and on the edges of the national forests have forced managers to shift resources and prompted firefighters to protect communities and lives.

“It has drastically changed the way we fight those fires,” said Tidwell, a forester who grew up in Boise.

Also

Federal budget cuts will make money more scarce, but communities are increasingly taking responsibility, he said. Flagstaff, Ariz., passed a $10 million bond to do forest restoration on private and federal land there.

Experiences in Idaho this year show that fuel-reduction works. On the 340,000-acre Mustang Complex Fire north of Salmon, a logging project in Hughes Creek helped firefighters turn the blaze away from U.S. 93, a critical economic corridor.

“There is no question our restoration work can make a difference,” Tidwell said.

Questions from the audience suggested that many believe the agency is still hindered by lawsuits aimed at stopping timber and salvage sales. But Tidwell said lawsuits are less of a problem today because of collaborative efforts such as the Clearwater Basin Collaborative in north-central Idaho.

1 thought on “Are We Ready for 12-15 Million Per Year? The Chief Speaks in Boise”

  1. What is particularly interesting is the childish exchanges in the comments thread. The finger-pointing and name-calling is indicative of people consciously not sticking to specific issues. Let’s hope we don’t descend to such depths.

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