This year's forest fires, including the biggest in recorded New Mexico history, have a lot of people who have lost homes and other property steaming mad at the U.S. Forest Service. On Monday, the man who agency manages public lands and helps determine forest policies, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, talked with Eyewitness News 4 about their concerns. Though the U.S. Forest Service is under the Department of Agriculture, not the Department of Interior, Salazar directly addressed the concerns raised about forest and fire policy. Hundreds of victims of the Little Bear fire in southeast New Mexico crowded into a fire-ravaged park in Ruidoso Saturday with a bitter message for the Forest Service. "This is not a natural disaster," said one man. "It's a disaster that was allowed to happen." He spoke for many in the crowd who believe that the Forest Service's own management policies, especially when it comes to lightning-caused fires like the Little Bear, make the fires worse and make people and property a lower priority than trees. Salazar said that is not so...
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1 comment:
Why is Salazar of the Dept of the Interior carrying the water for the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture? The Dept of the Interior/Park Service is just as bad as the FS when it comes to fire fighting. Park rules really ham-string firefighting efforts. Just like the restrictions against bulldozers early in the High Park fire in Colorado. They had to relent when the fire jumped and swept up another 30+ homes late in the fire.
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