I’ve been noticing a tendency for federal agencies to become more vague and abstract about what exactly they’re doing, with many agencies seemingly having identical programs, or overlap (or run against each other). At the other end of the spectrum, we need to ask “what is the work that needs to be done that doesn’t have anyone stepping up to do it?” When I read Steve Ellis’s op-ed about the Arrested Burn Boss case, I wonder how many Forest Service folks are assigned the role of peacemakers. And if the Forest Service doesn’t have that role because they are involved in a dispute, what is the role of local institutions in peacemaking? I’m thinking here of Steve’s previous piece in which members of a religious group did the work of protecting a community from flooding. I would bet that many folks in religious institutions have excellent dispute resolution skills, and are acknowledged community leaders, but there are plenty of others who are community leaders of various kinds. Perhaps this is an opportunity for them to exercise their skills for the well-being of all.
Here’s Steve’s op-ed. It ran in newspapers in Pendleton, Baker City and LaGrande this AM:
Destructive wildfires have resulted in the devastating loss of communities, loss of life, impacts on human health, untold damage to our watersheds, and the pumping of massive amounts of climate-changing carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. Conditions are such that large fires are becoming difficult, if not impossible to suppress.
People who live in rural parts of Oregon are especially aware of this and the pressing need for effective landscape fuel treatments that include thinning, fuels reduction and prescribed fire. Practitioners, the research community, and most members of Congress have recognized the need for management activities.
We are the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, and our experience has been that this is best achieved by the agency, communities, landowners, Tribes, state forestry organizations, and various partners working cooperatively together. The good news is trust has been on the upswing and more of these partnerships are having success around the country.
Building the trust that enables prescribed and managed fire where there is not already a strong foundation of trust will be a challenge for the U.S. Forest Service. However, even with the best intentions, damage may sometimes occur to neighboring properties that was clearly not part of the plan.
Using fire to help forests become healthier and more resilient is a delicate balancing act. The intent is to work collaboratively in increasing “good” or beneficial fire and decreasing “bad” fire. Prescribed burning on National Forest System lands is designed to also protect neighbors’ homes, property and livestock from intense and destructive wildfires.
Regrettably, putting fire on the landscape, no matter how well meaning, does have its risks. Several of us had experiences during our careers where a well-intended prescribed fire went beyond the planned burn area.
I recall one instance in Idaho where the fire progressed onto some private land and burned approximately 10 acres of a rural mix of forest and rangeland property. We worked with the landowner, paid for replacing the fence and some other costs, and ended up with a very good working partnership. The landowner did not call the sheriff and ask that federal fire personnel be arrested.
Beneficial fire has been missing from many western landscapes for decades with profound impacts on forest health and resilience. Restoring fire’s role in the forest is critical. We all jointly need to properly use fire on the landscape. Along the way, unplanned events will no doubt occur, even with the best of plans and safety measures in place.
When accidents do happen, impacted landowners should be appropriately compensated. At the end of the day, if ultimately fire is to be managed well, cooler heads must prevail. Arresting an agency employee while he is performing his duties for the agency is not a productive path to building partnerships, and only exacerbates bad feelings and mistrust.
We look forward to Grant County and the Forest Service working to build cooperative relationships and stakeholder success to proactively manage forests and rangeland landscapes at risk of large destructive wildfires, regardless of ownership. Success makes for better media headlines.
Steve Ellis, former supervisor of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, is chairman of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees.
“…Using fire to help forests become healthier and more resilient is a delicate balancing act.”
For NOW, especially in the west, it’s far too delicate. Landscapes are simply not receptive enough. So, for NOW, the concept of “managed” or “beneficial” fire should not be deployed. See revision 17.5 of A Call to Action.
While I am no longer a member of the NAFSR, it seems as if the piece by Mr. Ellis is more closely aligned with the “Call” than I thought, in terms of fire being a forest maintenance tool. That’s good! Accordingly, perhaps NAFSR would like to help influence the USDA Forest Service annual Letter of Intent for Wildfire for 2024 to be much clearer and more helpful than the 2023 version.
Very respectfully,
I’ve previously posted my personal experiences (aka conspiracy theories) of what it’s like to be a neighboring landowner to the USFS. Subsequent to the New Mexico prescribed fire debacle but prior to the burn boss arrest, I met with former Malheur forest supervisor Trulock to discuss cooperation across boundaries, particularly with regards to fire, planned and unplanned. I wrote the following editorial after (1/9/23) the arrest.
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As the smoke clears around Sheriff McKinley’s arrest of a local Forest Service employee on reckless burning charges, perhaps we can recognize the entire incident as an alarm that something is horribly broken in the federal-private neighbor relationship. Regardless of which side of the fence a fire starts- or is started–if protocols and agreements to protect the other side aren’t in place and fully understood by everyone beforehand, then the system is failing.
Neither federal nor private landowners are going away anytime soon, which means we’ll continue to share many miles of a common “boundary”. It’s also certain that controlled burning and wildfire are here to stay. Before we dismiss this as just another event in the long running feud between landowners and government, maybe we should recognize the choice immediately before us—of either throwing more fuel on our respective hard-line positions of supporting “our guy” while fighting a zero-sum game or setting aside the posturing and accusations, even momentarily, dropping the recriminations in favor of a conversation that might produce a positive, mutual benefit outcome. The latter requires humility and an honest attempt to understand the foundations for our different perspectives while the former potentially leads to a dangerous reality that the next incident becomes violent. At that point, will it really matter which side has the most power or the loudest voice?
The Malheur Forest and County landowners have been neighbors for over 100 years. How is it then that a fairly regular event that, from all outward appearances, probably should have been avoided through upfront communication and coordination, wound up as headline news clear back to the east coast? Is it really necessary that the response to something as predictable as a fire moving across an arbitrary boundary must result in costly, punitive measures and hostilities rather than serving as an example of the effectiveness of working together?
Ironically, not long before this mishap, Malheur Forest Supervisor Trulock and I discussed some matters of mutual interest and concern and the possibility of increased cooperation where we share land boundaries. If this latest incident stops future discussions, we have failed our community. For my part, I will be inviting he and his staff to meet with the Grant County Farm Bureau board to see if there’s a place from where we can move forward.
All neighbors have routine disagreements. Most are tempered by some level of mutual understanding, if not respect and cooperation. Some are borne from conflict. Maybe this time, we don’t need to let things get worse before we make them better.
Shaun W Robertson, President
Grant County Farm Bureau
In my file notes on this issue, I have around two pages of bullet points outlining aspects of this arrest that I not only find especially intriguing but also particularly illustrative of what I perceive to be a much larger social dysfunction that places certain classes of people at disadvantages, intentionally and otherwise, for ideological, political, commercial or other purposes. Unfortunately, the dishonesty or at least inherent bias (including the oppressor/oppressed–good guy/bad guy decision dichotomy) that I see plaguing most all forms of social discourse was immediately injected here and will likely impair if not outright block any meaningful and credible exploration of the really important elements of this incident.
Sadly, I think the ultimate outcome of the arrest and eventual implications of what the entire fiasco represents, is pretty predictable.