Fire and Fuels

Chetco Bar Fire salvage – agreement?

by

“The U.S. Forest Service is planning on salvage logging later this year in about 8 percent of its acres burned in last year’s 191,197-acre Chetco Bar fire in Curry County, a move timber advocates welcomed and one conservation group called “something we can live with.””

George Sexton, conservation director for the Ashland-based Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, said a sound plan to get sellable timber from the fire would be to continue focusing on commercial logging of hazard trees as well as previously logged plantations within the study area.

The forest also should add fuels-reduction timber sales immediately around communities to ensure public safety in these areas eyed for salvage, Sexton said.

“I could see that as a project that sails through pretty quickly and gets out a decent amount of volume,” Sexton said. “That’s about the best they can do and I think it will produce a fair amount of volume.

The Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association said:  “Getting some rather than not getting any out,” “That is what we’re hoping for.”

Idaho Collaboration: “Lawsuits and appeals are no longer what hold up timber projects. The problem instead is money”

by

A) A few excerpts from an 12/27/17 article describing a situation where local collaboration has, to date, prevailed over legal suits to stop the Pioneer Fire Salvage Plan. The battle isn’t over but the prospects look good.

1) “Loggers are racing wood-boring insects and decay to salvage as much timber as they can from the 190,000 acres that burned across the Boise National Forest in last year’s Pioneer Fire, before the wood loses its worth.

The U.S. Forest Service planned to harvest 70 million board feet of timber from about 7 percent of the area burned in the massive wildfire. But insects, fungi and rot have deteriorated the standing trees so much that it will be lucky if it can get 50 million to 60 million board feet”

2) “Under the banner of the Boise Forest Coalition, these groups helped the Forest Service write a restoration plan that will use the proceeds from the salvage logging to pay for a variety of projects. On the list are efforts to protect and restore water quality in the South Fork Payette River and area streams; limit erosion; and reopen trails, roads and campgrounds.

This approach put loggers and conservation groups like the Idaho Conservation League on the same side as they helped the cash-strapped agency write up a plan that would meet environmental laws. So when other environmental groups like Wildlands Defense, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystems Council sued to halt the project, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill allowed the logging to continue, noting in November the coalition’s approval of the project.

“We all want to see a healthy forest and clean water and appreciate that the court agreed that the project should move forward,” said Alan Ward, chairman of the Boise County Commission and a member of the coalition.”

3) “Statewide, four timber projects endorsed by collaborative groups over the past two years have later been challenged in court, and all four held up. Fuels treatment in Idaho rose from 53,000 acres in 2016 to 79,000 acres in 2017.

Part of the reason for success has been the use of “Good Neighbor” authority by the state of Idaho. Using a state fund, state foresters prepare timber sales after the Forest Service completes environmental reviews. This has increased how many projects can be offered even as federal staffs become smaller.”

B) A few excerpts from the background story from May 6, 2017

1) “Even before fall snow put the fire out last year, Peterson and John Kidd, his counterpart in the Lowman District, were overseeing rehabilitation projects to prevent landslides, mud flows and severe erosion. Such events can take out the roads that are major recreation arteries into the places Treasure Valley residents go to camp, collect mushrooms, hike, hunt, fish or ride off-road vehicles.”

2) ““It also gives us the ability to have some funding for the reforestation and other things, like culvert replacement,” said Kidd. “If we didn’t do this salvage right away, we would probably be dealing with this for the next 20 years. (Restoration) takes manpower and that takes funding, which we might not have down the road.””

3) “Many of the trees to be harvested are near roads and trails and are considered a hazard to the traveling and recreating public. If not cut now, those hazards might last 10 years.

Morris Huffman, a forest consultant who served on the Boise Forest Coalition, said uncut burned trees could fall and close corridors like Clear Creek Road for years. Clear Creek provides access to Bear Valley Creek, one of the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River popular with campers, hunters and anglers.”

4) “In addition to logging and tree planting, the projects include decommissioning and removing unneeded roads; thinning overgrown forests; trail work; spraying to control noxious weeds; road maintenance; and water quality-improvement projects such as culverts and water bars.”

5) “Not everyone is eager to see such aggressive action following the fire. There is ecological value in leaving the forest alone after a burn. The Northwest forest ecosystem evolved in fire, and bird species like black-backed woodpeckers, for example, rely heavily on snag trees left standing after a burn.

Jeff Juel, an environmental consultant from Missoula, Mont., who works for environmental groups that oppose salvage sales, argues that the less done after a fire, the more resilient the area is to future disturbances. He opposes the agency’s emergency declarations justified by the need to sell timber to help the local mill and workers. He wants a full environmental review instead of the shortened one the Forest Service is doing.

Jonathan Oppenheimer, government relations director for the Idaho Conservation League, agrees with Juel on the overall benefits of allowing natural renewal following a fire. But he’s a member of the Boise Forest Coalition and worked closely with partners like Roberts and the Forest Service to “make sure that those high-quality and sensitive resources are protected.””

Prescribed fire in wilderness

by

The Ten Cent Community Wildfire Protection Plan led to a fuel treatment proposal on the Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests that included prescribed burning in the North Fork John Day Wilderness Area.  Objections included alleged violations of the Wilderness Act.  The objection decision included the following description of the process and requirements to conduct prescribed burning in wilderness.

The first two conditions that must be met are that “use of prescribed fire or other fuel treatment
measures outside of wilderness is not sufficient to achieve fire management objectives within
wilderness”. FSM 2324.22. A Minimum Requirements Decision Guide (MRDG) was prepared that determined that use of prescribed fire or other fuel treatment measures outside wilderness would not be sufficient. FEIS at 404. The second condition that must be met is that “an interdisciplinary team of resource specialists has evaluated and recommended the proposed use of prescribed fire”. FSM 2324.22. The proposal was developed by a team of interdisciplinary specialists. FEIS at 3. The third condition that must be met is that “the interested public has been involved appropriately in the decision”. FSM 2324.22. The public was provided opportunity to comment on the proposed action and draft EIS. Draft ROD at 8-9. The final condition that must be met is that “Lightning-caused fires cannot be allowed to burn because they will pose serious threats to life and/or property within wilderness or to life, property, or natural resources outside of wilderness”. FSM 2324.22. The MRDG documents the current situation in which natural ignitions in wilderness are suppressed to protect life, property, or natural resources outside of wilderness, including adjacent private residences and communities. FEIS at 403. The final condition to be met is that there must be objectives, standards, and guidelines for the use of prescribed fire specific to the wilderness area in a forest plan, interim wilderness management plan, or fire management area plan. FSM 2324.22. The North Fork John Day Wilderness Action Plan specifies that vegetative changes resulting from prescribed fire would not be considered unacceptable changes in forest cover or visual/scenic quality. LRMP at B-2, FEIS at 215.

Finally, policy specifies that manager-ignited fire should not be used where lightning-caused fire can achieve wilderness fire management objectives. FSM 2324.22. The history of fire suppression in the North Fork John Day Wilderness and resulting fuel loading have led to the current situation in which lightning-caused fires are not likely to achieve the second wilderness fire management objective (“Reduce, to an acceptable level, the risks and consequences of wildfire within wilderness or escaping from wilderness.” FSM 2324.21). FEIS at 403. Currently, these risks and consequences within wilderness include the likelihood that “when a fire does occur, it will be of high severity consuming most vegetation and soil cover” and “could potentially remove cover for big game, produce an influx of sediment into anadromous fish spawning habitat, and increase water temperatures due to loss of shade” as well as limit opportunities for primitive recreation. FEIS at 215, 403, 406 and 436.

The decision was then modified to eliminate the wilderness burning, and the rationale was “once areas outside the wilderness are treated, agency administrators may select to manage natural ignitions differently (e.g. confine and contain strategy) inside the North Fork John Day Wilderness to further meet the project purpose and need and improving the naturalness component of wilderness character.”  The bottom line is that a “minimum requirements” analysis could allow intentional burning of a wilderness area without violating the Wilderness Act, but the objection process overruled those findings in this case and found that it was not necessary.  Given that suppression is allowed in wilderness areas, I don’t automatically see a problem with using prescribed fire to offset that (so I guess I’m not a wilderness purist).  (And someone might even say that logging could be good for wilderness.)

A Few Wildfire and Climate Syntheses

by

Here are links to a few wildfire and climate syntheses.

(1) This one is by Cliff Maas, a University of Washington meteorologist, and describes the southern California weather and climate models specifically and in detail. It’s interesting because there is no forest, forestry, nor forest industry getting in the way of dealing with fire. Here are his conclusions:

Those that are claiming the global warming is having an impact are doing so either out of ignorance or their wish to use coastal wildfires for their own purposes. For politicians, claiming that the big wildfires are the result of global warming provides a convenient excuse not to address the real problems:
*Irresponsible development of homes and buildings in natural areas that had a long history of wildfires.
*Many decades of fire suppression that have left some areas vulnerable to catastrophic fires.
*Lack of planning or maintenance of electrical infrastructure, making ignition of fires more probable when strong winds blow.
*Lack of attention to emergency management, or to providing sufficient fire fighting resources
*Poor building codes, improper building materials (wood shake roofs), and lack of protective space around homes/buildings.
And to be extremely cynical, some politicians on the left see the fires as a convenient partisan tool.

Wildfires are not a global warming issue, but a sustainable and resilience issue that our society, on both sides of the political spectrum, must deal with.

I would add that some politicians on the right in other parts of the country also use as a convenient partisan tool ;).

The below two pieces are not related to Southern Calfornia coastal fires specifically.

(2) This one is a round-up of literature by Larry Kummer, editor of a blog called Fabius Maximus. I think it’s interesting because he looks at a variety of literature that we have touched on, but not all at once, and his background is in finance and climate. It’s very long, but covers much the same ground as we do in our discussions but from a different, more climate-y angle.

In (3) this 2016 paper, “Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world”, the authors take a world wide view of wildfire and why it is an issue. I think it’s interesting because there is no general increase in wildfires across the world- that still doesn’t mean that locally it can’t be a problem.

Please feel free to quote and give your ideas about any of these papers or posts in the comments. Bill Gabbert has a comprehensive round-up of all the possible other reasons for increased fire acreage here.

My question is “does anyone have ideas for how our “living with fire” responses would change if it were 60% climate (on the high side) or 20% climate (on the low side).” compared to all the other reasons that fire is a problem. Does proportion of the problem created by climate actually affect what options might be chosen to live with fire? In what way? My point being that maybe all the research funds on attribution (which we will never know for sure, despite all the computing power that exists) might be more profitably used to work on improving fire models. What if we could decide “we will never know this for sure” and moved on?

Why We Disagree About Fuel Treatments IX: Whatever Happened to Stewardship and Fireshed Assessment?

by

Gil’s post from Friday here reminded me that we had left “Why We Disagree” just before we got deep into the nitty-gritty of the problems associated with increasing prescribed fire. We had a science-based, public-involved, GAO-supported approach (posted here) that was looking good in the Sierra. This post is long, but should serve as a jumping off point for “what kind of alignment would be necessary, internally and externally to the FS, to get prescribed fire back on the landscape (and possibly increase opportunities for WFU at the same time)?

Looking around on the internet, I found a presentation by Don Yasuda, a wildlife biologist in the Region 5 Regional Office, given to a Fish and Wildlife Service Dry Forest Workshop. It is pretty self-explanatory and here is a link to his presentation. Here is a link to the entire workshop presentations (thanks, Oregon FWS!). The workshop was in 2009, but I am not sure that the situation has changed substantially.
Here is his slide about why it didn’t work..
I don’t think that any of these will surprise anyone here.

I was intrigued by his slide below in which he goes deeper exploring some systemic issues:

Here’s an explanation of these points:

. Safe, Cheap and Easy refers to how we were deciding where to plan projects. Safe meant typically avoiding any areas of controversy, like areas with high controversy wildlife. Easier to drop them than analyze for treatment of them. Cheap similarly meant avoiding places that required a lot of NEPA planning dollars to go to several years of survey or analysis before we could make a decision. Easy was the culmination of the other two plus continue to do what we’ve done in the past and not venture into trying too many “new” things that might suddenly not be “safe” or “cheap”.

· Waste disposal problem referred to the fact that the majority of the work we needed to prioritize was removal of small and medium sized trees and small and medium fuels that accumulated from past land management and mostly from decades of fire suppression. There was little economic value to these “biomass” materials but there was value in the medium sized sawlogs that also needed to be removed to reduce fire risk and move forests towards more resilient desired conditions. So the problem was there was more material to be removed than there was capacity to utilize. So the idea of “ramping up” work to remove even more of it would just create a bigger disposal problem to solve.

· The concept of Boutique forestry centered around recognizing that we may be doing good work in the projects we do implement but it is in really small and localized locations and not making a difference at the landscape scales that our primary threats (high severity wildfires and landscape scale insect outbreaks) operate.

· The bullet on economics reflects the reluctance to have an open and honest discussion about the cost and opportunities of doing the magnitude of work we are trying to do. The reality is that the congressionally appropriated budget to do this work only goes so far and cannot possibly cover the amount of work we know needs to happen. But, even though there is economic value in sawlogs because they produce a consumer product and with new (at the time) opportunities like stewardship contracting, we were reluctant to talk about leveraging appropriated funds with the value of saleable products that we need to remove anyway to pay for more small diameter material that is the primary driver of the thinning and restoration work. We wanted to highlight that there is a concern that we might remove more or larger sawlogs (a return to intensive, short-rotation harvesting) just to treat more acres of fuels that cost money. We noted that it was a legitimate discussion to have openly to dispel the interest or intent to return to intensive harvesting, but in an evaluation of alternatives we could discuss the tradeoffs of different levels and intensities of restoration. We emphasized that if ecological restoration was the primary purpose of a project then we should never be removing trees purely for the economic value alone, but also shouldn’t be shy to discuss trees we want to remove for restoration having value that enabled us to treat a lot more acres at landscape scales that we couldn’t have afforded to in any other way.

· The last bullet about triage was to bring home that whether we like it or not, we’re at the point of needing to decide how we are going to focus our limited time and resources to tackle this overwhelming problem of difficult choices. We could continue to spend all of our energy on Safe, Cheap and Easy, but that’s like focusing all of your energy on the “green tagged” patients. Similarly the waste disposal problem is largely outside of the agency’s hands because it requires other regulatory and economic and social mechanisms to all line up and it won’t be quick to come on line so focusing just on that is like focusing on the “black tagged” patients because it won’t help anyone in the immediate crisis now. We talked about those things (biomass utilization opportunities) being like preventative medicine, best address before the patient is sick and to reduce the numbers getting sick in the future. So it’s important, but not what you focus on in the middle of an emergency.

This is one person’s opinion.. but from someone who is a expert and was involved. Do these observations ring true for others involved in this effort (I know there are Californians among our blogging community)? What about other parts of the country?

In Search of Common Ground II – It Takes Two: Forest Management and Social Management

by

Here are two current articles that get some things wrong but if we ignore those items and focus on the big picture that they present rather than on the details, I believe that we will find that we have more in common than we thought.

Between the two articles we see the full picture for PRIORITIZED actions to begin the long battle ahead to recover from national ashtrays, lost lives, lost homes and infrastructure, significantly decreased health of both humans and forests. It is a two pronged battle that includes both sound forest management and social management.

A) Using Forests to Fight Climate Change – California takes a small step in the right direction.

“The state’s proposed Forest Carbon Plan aims to double efforts to thin out young trees and clear brush in parts of the forest, including by controlled burning. This temporarily lowers carbon-carrying capacity. But the remaining trees draw a greater share of the available moisture, so they grow and thrive, restoring the forest’s capacity to pull carbon from the air. Healthy trees are also better able to fend off bark beetles. The landscape is rendered less combustible. Even in the event of a fire, fewer trees are consumed.

The need for such planning is increasingly urgent. Already, since 2010, drought and beetles have killed more than 100 million trees in California, most of them in 2016 alone, and wildfires have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres.

California’s plan envisions treating 35,000 acres of forest a year by 2020, and 60,000 by 2030 — financed from the proceeds of the state’s emissions-permit auctions. That’s only a small share of the total acreage that could benefit, an estimated half a million acres in all, so it will be important to prioritize areas at greatest risk of fire or drought.

The strategy also aims to ensure that carbon in woody material removed from the forests is locked away in the form of solid lumber, burned as biofuel in vehicles that would otherwise run on fossil fuels, or used in compost or animal feed.”

B) Why are California’s homes burning? It isn’t natural disaster it’s bad planning

This Op-ed by Richard Halsey (director of the California Chaparral Institute who sometimes posts on NCFP) is well written and, though I would disagree on some statements in his post, I present those that I do agree on in an attempt to show that there are specific components that are middle ground that we all should be able to agree on and focus on rather than focusing on what won’t work. Once we change our emphasis, hostility between opposing sides should decrease and progress should increase.

“Large, high-intensity wildfires are an inevitable and natural part of life in California. The destruction of our communities is not. But many of the political leaders we elect and planning agencies we depend upon to create safe communities have failed us. They have allowed developers to build in harm’s way, and left firefighters holding the bag. ”

“others blame firefighters for creating dense stands of chaparral in fire suppression efforts—when that’s the only way chaparral naturally grows, dense and impenetrable.”

“”we need to recognize that fire disasters aren’t natural, they’re social. And they require social solutions.”” (quote from University of Colorado geographer Gregory Simon)
–> Pay attention to the statement “fire disasters aren’t natural, they’re social”. My first reaction was “not true” but in the context of the Op Ed, I think that the author is making an appropriate distinction between the words “Catastrophic” and “Disaster” by reserving “Disaster” for those situations where the catastrophe falls mainly on humans.

“We also need to examine the best practices of other fire-prone regions. Communities in Australia often install external, under-eave/rooftop sprinklers, which have proven quite effective in protecting structures during wildfires. (Australians understand that wet homes do not ignite.) Such systems should be standard in all new developments in high fire hazard zones. It is likely they would have protected many of the homes consumed in Ventura’s Thomas fire this week.”

“As we do with earthquakes and floods, our goal should be to reduce the damage when wildfires arrive, not pretend we can prevent them from happening at all. That mindset starts at the planning department, not the fire station.”

C) Relevant Prior Posts with included references:

1) Finding Common Ground
IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND
Frustration: Will It Lead to Change?

2) Wildfire
Fuels management can be a big help in dealing with wildfires
Air Pollution from Wildfires compared to that from Prescribed burns
Inside the Firestorm
The Impact of Sound Forest Management Practices on Wildfire Smoke and Human Health
Humans sparked 84 percent of US wildfires, increased fire season over two decades
More on Wildfire and Sound Forest Management
Scientific Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity
Articles of Interest on Fire
The Role of Sound Forest Management in Reducing Wildfire Risk
15 Minute TED Talk: “Forest Service ecologist proposes ways to help curb rising ‘Era of Megafires’”

Federal liability for fires it starts

by

This topic has come up a few times, and the Missoulian did a little legal research on it for us, but I think it’s incomplete.  In short, federal agencies are protected by sovereign immunity against claims of damages, and its employees are protected when performing their official duties – even if negligent.  What this article doesn’t make very clear is that the government has consented to be sued for negligence through the Federal Tort Claims Act:  “Under the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671-2680 , individuals who are injured or whose property is damaged by the wrongful or negligent act of a federal employee acting within his or her official duties may file a claim with the government for reimbursement for that injury or damage.”

In the Davis Fire example, the article says the court found that “the United States was immune from the litigation.”  But then it seems to address the question of negligence:  “In the government’s review of the Davis fire, it found that Forest Service officials had adequate training, followed proper protocols and ignited the fire within the prescription parameters of the burn plan.”  (I couldn’t find the actual opinion.)  So, while this story makes the FS look pretty bad, on another set of facts that show negligence, private landowners should be able to recover damages.

One Pilot’s Eye View of Aerial Firefighting

by

Lt. Col. Luke Thompson, shown at the controls of a C-130 transport plane, retired Saturday after 32 years in the Air Force. At the end he was one of the region’s most experienced military aviators with more than 9,600 hours in the cockpit. (AIR FORCE PHOTO)

We’ve heard from a number of folks on suppression tactics and the use of fire retardant. Here’s another voice.. from a pilot, Lt. Col. Luke Thompson, from an article on his retirement here in the Colorado Springs Gazette).

He learned about fire in Covelo, too. After his freshman year at San Jose State, he went to the fire station off Highway 162 between Keith’s Market and the Hidden Oaks Gift Shop and signed on for a summer battling wildland blazes across Northern California.

“It can definitely be the hardest work in the world,” he said.

“I don’t know anything more grueling.”

After one sweaty summer on a fire engine crew and cutting fire lines by hand with a hoelike tool called a Pulaski, Thompson knew there had to be a better way. It’s a realization that he still finds striking as one of the military’s most experienced aerial firefighters.

“I know how much work it is to carve 100 yards of fire line, which we pass over in a fraction of a second,” Thompson said.

and

He’s more animated when he talks about the 302nd’s most challenging mission: using the C-130 to drop as much as 28,000 pounds of retardant to check the progress of wildfires.

It’s something Thompson has done more than 100 times.

“That’s not that many,” he says.

It is something he loves.

“It’s rewarding,” he said. “It is in the public eye.”

He’s fought fire in every Western state. It’s a mission that takes the C-130 right to the edge of its capabilities: flying a plane with a heavy load at low speed and low altitude through air roiled by rising heat from wind-whipped flames.

Thompson said it’s not that scary.

“You focus on the job,” he said.

He’s flown against fires high in the wildlands and in Colorado Springs.

He’s legendary for keeping his cool while flying, but he’s not completely unemotional when fires rage.

“The hardest for me is when they are ripping through houses,” Thompson said.

Flying against fire is work that requires a gentle touch at the controls and a keen eye.

“You can see when you are coming up on a fire how aggressive it is,” he said. “It can be very daunting.”

The whole C-130 crew acts as one machine during the drops.

The pilot must fly a perfect course, the crew chief must keep the four turbines in harmony.

The crew in back must release the load of orange fire-stopping stuff right on time.

Fighting blazes on slopes is the toughest.

“Our challenge is keeping it slow enough,” he said.

Thompson says a firefighting flight is something that draws on everything he’s learned.

He remembers when the wing was called to battle close to home in 2012 and 2013 as the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires sent clouds of sooty smoke across the Pikes Peak region.

“When its in view of the base, there’s motivation,” he said.

Call to Action on Wildfire Funding Fixes- TNC Action Center Makes it Easy

by

Caveat: I have not been following the ins and outs of what’s currently in the bills, but The Nature Conservancy has this as a draft letter to Senators and Representatives.. on their site here. It makes it easy to contact them and you can even tweet more or less automatically!

Fix the wildfire funding problem
As wildfires grow hotter and larger, Congress must lead the way to preserve our national parks and forests, along with our homes, from disaster.

That’s why I am asking you to support a comprehensive wildfire funding fix like the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act (H.R. 2862 and S. 1842) or section 102 of S. 1571 in the Senate. These proposals are supported by broad, bipartisan organizations, including conservation, timber, tribal, recreation, sportsmen and employer groups.

A comprehensive fire fix would change how the federal government budgets for wildfire suppression, bringing the process in line with the way other disasters are funded. A comprehensive solution includes: 1) addressing the continued erosion of agency budgets that results from increasing suppression costs; 2) accessing disaster funding for extraordinarily costly fires; and 3) significantly reducing the need to “borrow” from non-suppression budget accounts and programs.

You have an opportunity to act now by including this solution in an upcoming disaster relief package. I’m asking you to support that effort.

Protecting American homes, lands, and wildlife from catastrophic fires grows more important with every passing fire season. Please fix the wildfire funding problem before the next major fire strikes!

My question to those who keep up with this.. is this one of the controversial bills? It was hard to tell from a brief glance.

Bipartisan Solutions for Wildfire Funding and Comprehensive Reporting

by

I’m always interested in how stories about “things we know about” are covered in the press- especially what we might call the “coastal press”.

I noticed in our Saturday Colorado Springs Gazette that there was an article “How Congress’formula for wildfires makes them worse” here
attributed to Evan Halper of “the Tribune Washington Bureau” but I think he works for the LA Times from DC. I was particularly interested because he said:

“Partisan feuds over climate change, clear-cutting and bedrock federal environmental policies are undermining efforts to confront the rapidly swelling fire money dilemma.” As we shall see below, this may be only half the real story.

But Congress can’t seem to figure out how, amid feuding about the science and economics of wildfires. Many Republicans are demanding that any solution involve intensifying the amount of logging on public land, allowing clear-cuts as large as 10- or 15-square miles in federal forests, and weakening the National Environmental Protection Act, the 1969 landmark law that drives much of federal conservation policy.

The rollbacks are nonstarters for Democrats, who brandish research findings that climate change is a major driver of the intensifying fires, not too little commercial logging. California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris last week sent Trump a letter as fires raged in Northern California imploring him to support fixing the Forest Service money problem in a stand-alone measure, and then deal with the broader disputes over forestry management separately.

Does anyone know where the “10-15 square mile clearcut” came from? It seems kind of silly as the efforts we have been talking about are more along the lines of thinning and shaded fuel breaks. But I’m sure legislation that I think of as silly is possible. Is anyone familiar enough with the legislation to weigh in on this?

Democrats and environmentalists say the House measure that McClintock and other Republicans favor to fix the Forest Service funding problem is less about fighting fires than creating a big giveaway for logging interests. “We don’t think completely eliminating environmental safeguards will solve the problem or make us safer,” said Megan Birzell, national forests campaign manager at the Wilderness Society. “We don’t need 10,000-acre clear cuts in the back country to solve this.”

So a person writing for the LA Times from DC has framed this as about “logging” versus suppression. As we have seen over the summer, it’s much more complicated than that especially since national policies affect areas that want fuel treatments but don’t have active forest product (“logging”) industries. Apparently (at least some) folks in the Senate agree with me.

The Halper piece was published in the Gazette here on October 21. While I was catching up, I saw Steve’s link in a comment here to an E&E News on Cantwell et al.’s Senate bill. Halper’s LA Times article was dated October 18. Can we infer that there are two efforts.. one in the House that has gotten bogged down in partisanship and one in the Senate that (apparently) hasn’t and has people working across the aisle? The real news is the bill that has a chance of going somewhere. IMHO. Kudos to E&E News for telling us that story.