Feds consider regional challenges in fire planning + Update on Gila

Federal officials on Thursday released the latest iteration of their national wildfire management strategy as they deal with limited resources and an active fire season that already has blackened hundreds of square miles in states from New Mexico to Michigan. The U.S Department of Agriculture and the Interior Department have been working for more than a year to develop the strategy. The latest phase covers assessments done for the West, the Northeast and the Southeast that identify population trends, climate changes and different priorities that will help with the creation of action plans due next spring. With the increase in larger, more catastrophic wildfires over the past decade, USDA Under Secretary Harris Sherman told The Associated Press in a phone interview Thursday that setting priorities will be key. "It's not going away," Sherman said of the threat of wildfire. "We're going to have to be more comprehensive and smarter in how we deal with these issues in the future." He noted the need for government agencies to be proactive in their efforts to protect not only property but vital resources such as watersheds that provide drinking water...more

Wow! The gov't must be "more comprehensive", "smarter" and "proactive" on this. Doesn't that make you feel safe and secure? Actually this is standard, gov't-issue bullshit. Comprehensive and Proactive are right out of the liberal handbook, and since when did the feds get Smarter about anything.  The Urban Brand is on the land.

The same AP story had this update on the Gila:

Development of the strategy comes as firefighters grapple with overgrown forests and another consecutive year of dry, windy conditions. Currently, they are battling 20 large fires across the country. They range from a few hundred acres in South Dakota to more than 263,500 acres in New Mexico. The New Mexico blaze has finally stalled at about 412 square miles in the Gila National Forest after burning for weeks. Nearly 1,000 firefighters continue to patrol the lines and watch for flare-ups on the fire, the largest in the state's recorded history. A dozen cabins were destroyed by the lightning-sparked fire, and surrounding communities are concerned about flooding that could result from summer rains washing ash, soil and charred debris down steep, denuded mountainsides. In northern New Mexico, crews were making progress against a pair of fires burning in the Santa Fe National Forest. The blazes were threatening no communities, but they sent up plumes of smoke that sparked memories of last year's record-setting season. Firefighters were wrapping up a 227-acre wildfire in northern Colorado on Thursday, while extreme weather caused problems for crews trying to corral a 6,000-acre blaze in Wyoming's Medicine Bow National Forest.