Friday, January 09, 2015

Editorial: Federal firefighting strategy should not downgrade private property


...If there’s a fire on the range, what should be saved first? The federal government sets priorities when fires break out and when deciding where to spend money on fire prevention. The priority has been to protect human life first, then private property and then to consider environmental impacts and public lands.

That order makes sense, but it could be changing. Private property could get moved to the bottom.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell issued an order Tuesday for federal land managers to develop a science-based strategy for preventing rangeland fires. It’s driven in part by concern for the sage grouse and what its listing as an endangered species could mean. Millions of acres in Oregon are considered sage grouse habitat, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says 21 percent of the habitat is on private property. 

The details of the new fire strategy have not been spelled out. But Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze recently suggested putting the protection of rangeland resources ahead of property. Protecting human life would stay at the top.

“If we were to flip the bottom two, it would change a lot, and it would be hard,” Kornze said at a meeting on rangeland fire in November in Boise, Idaho, according to The Associated Press. “It would be hard to explain that to some of our urban and mixed-landscape firefighting partners.” 

He’s right in a way. Discounting the protection of private property is hard to explain.  



Appreciate the paper's position on private property, but on their concern for an explanation, here tis:

This is the Obama administration, so no one should be surprised that private property would be on the bottom of their list. In this particular case it also fits in with just what they want:  

° official policy becomes no or very limited protection of private property, causing
° fire insurance rates to go through the roof, resulting in
° fewer people moving to the wild land interface (their real goal, humans not welcome)

Then all the little birdies will sing and little furry things will flutter about until...the next fire comes along and turns them into crispy critters.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not surprising at all, coming from the same agency that surrounded the Bundy family with snipers just because they entered a non-First Amendment zone