Officials: Maps should curb fire retardant damage

A massive new map collection should keep firefighting air tankers and the fire retardant they drop from hurting fish and other sensitive plants and animals, U.S. Forest Service officials said on Wednesday. "We have between 12,000 and 15,000 maps produced, with all the quads for all the national forests," said Glen Stein, who led the Forest Service environmental impact statement team studying ways to improve fire retardant use. The maps show streams and other water features, as well as ground spots where endangered or sensitive species live. Fire dispatchers and pilots should have the maps available to decide if they can drop retardant in a fire zone without poisoning fish or damaging ground habitat. n 2010, U.S. District Judge Don Molloy of Missoula ruled the Forest Service erred in a 2008 environmental assessment that found retardant had no significant impact on fish or aquatic life. He gave the agency until the end of 2011 to redo that study. Stein said without aerial retardant drops, ground firefighters might have to work farther from the fire perimeter, avoid direct contact with burn areas or even fall back to the closest natural barrier in their assault. That could result in fires getting bigger than they would without retardant drops, he said. The draft EIS also notes that fire retardant chemistry has improved, changing greatly in the last five or six years to be less toxic to wildlife. Stein said the report didn't propose further changes to the retardant formulation. Aerial retardant isn't used on 95 percent of fires on national forests. The new maps put nearly 30 percent of the Forest Service land into aerial buffer zones to protect waterways, and another 1 percent of sensitive ground. The buffer zones protect more than 300 plants and animals on the Endangered Species List and another 3,700 species considered sensitive to retardant effects...more