Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The West is burning

Spring Mountains of Nevada


by John N. MacClean


The West is burning: Does anybody east of the Mississippi River care?
It takes an event like the Yellowstone Park fires of 1988, the fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado in 1994 that took 14 firefighter lives, or the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona that killed 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots on June 30 to focus the entire nation's attention on fire in the West.
Let's not lose this moment. What lessons should the nation take from the disaster in Arizona?
The loss of the 19 Hotshots is another example, and a horrible one, of how wildland fire has become more dangerous and destructive, and likely will get worse in the years ahead. Fire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer. States set new records each year for destruction of property and acreage burned. Many more homeowners and others are in harm's way. Federal agencies are drawing down fire prevention funds to pay for fire suppression, which means a worse problem in the future.
As historic wildfires raged the past several years, the U.S. Forest Service tilted its budget toward preparedness and suppression — the latter getting a 27 percent increase in the Obama administration's 2014 budget. Fuel-reduction programs have suffered, however, with funding being reduced in this category by 37 percent, to $201 million...
Fire is part of western living, a lurking threat in the collective psyche, like grizzly bears and mountain lions. Everybody has a relative or knows someone who fights fire. You don't drive far without seeing a Hotshot or Forest Service rig. The crew members look young and fit and awfully grown up.
Voices from the fire line tell us, again and again, "These are the most extreme fire conditions we've ever seen."


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