What Is Causing Massive Wildfires In the U.S. West: The Environment —Or Environmentalism?

Paul Gallagher, editor of Executive Intelligence Review, interviews Kris Stewart of the Ninety-Six Ranch:

Kris Stewart: The Martin Fire started in the early hours of July 5, 2018 up Martin Creek in Paradise Valley, Nevada. The ignition was linked to fireworks. While our ranch posted a $10,000 reward within 3 days, and other individuals as well as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Humboldt County followed suit, no suspects were ever identified or arrested. Had the fire been called in early, it is very likely that it could have been extinguished by our local volunteer fire department; however, no call was made and by the time firefighters responded, the fire had taken hold, due to extreme levels of dangerous fuels— excessive vegetation—on the rangeland. When daylight came, the fire had already taken over 25,000 acres and went on to take between 430,000 and 460,000 acres. Vegetative fuel levels on the rangeland taken by the Martin Fire had been allowed to reach levels of 1,000% of normal, by the BLM’s own estimates. Further, even the usable forage was at record levels, and this was after the ranches with permits had finished the grazing they were allowed.

In the specific case of our range, we completed monitoring our use two weeks prior to the ignition of the fire, and our records indicate that we had used just 18-20% of allowed forage [in the allowed time], and that overall fuel levels exceeded 1,000% of normal levels. We had requested additional time to graze off these fuels but were denied. We moved our cattle on the schedule dictated by our permit. The Martin Fire took more than 64,000 acres of our 73,000-acre grazing permit as well as over 6,300 acres of our private ranch lands.

The Ninety-Six Ranch is Nevada’s oldest ranch. We . . . have grazed our cattle on these same rangelands for 155 years. Our use predates federal land management agencies’ involvement by many decades. The USFS [United States Forest Service] became involved in lands more than 5,000 feet above sea level in 1906, and the BLM [came in] with the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934. Our grazing levels and use schedules were not cut or altered by that act—showing that our use, moderated by weather and conditions, was in keeping with best practices and good stewardship standards. This use and these standards continued through both world wars and into the 1960s.

Then, the modern environmental movement began to inform range management studies and policy, and environmental lawsuits caused a shift in grazing policies. Once considered engaged partners, ranchers were viewed as the enemy, as environmental radicals began to portray any human-guided use on the range as negative, and as a negative impact on the plant communities and wildlife.

Our records indicate that in the 154 years preceding the Martin Fire, our lands have never burned like this. This is due to diligent and careful management. But today, we graze at levels less than 30% of historic levels. By the BLM’s own admission, fuel levels on our permits were allowed to grow to from 200% to 1,000% of normal. We and many other permittees have discussed and warned of the impending fire danger with the agency’s personnel for decades, but no changes have been allowed to our amount of use or seasons of use.

Each year more of the West burns. Federal land managers have allowed land management to become political and a bureaucratic nightmare, rather than a common- sense, science-based exercise.

EIR: What did the Martin Fire do to your ranching operation?

Stewart: Our operations have been devastated by the Martin Fire. We are left with over a half-million acres of charred black ground, scattered with burned-up animals. A cheatgrass monoculture will quickly establish itself on the range...MORE

Some more insights from Stewart:

Stewart: Federal agency hostility toward ranchers and grazing has been many decades in the making. Range management has been lumped into the environmental sciences—which in the United States, and much of the western world, has become politicized and nearly religious in nature. Many of those educated within this system, which vilifies human-guided use and active management of land, sit at every level of the state and federal bureaucracy and decision-making apparatus. It is a tough uphill battle to push back and demonstrate that grazing and ranchers are the true environmentalists out on the range.

Stewart says Trump is responding:

Stewart: President Trump responded on December 21, 2018 with an Executive Order, EO 13855, “Promoting Active Management of America’s Forests, Rangelands, and Other Federal Lands To Improve Conditions and Reduce Wildfire Risk,” followed on January 2, 2019 by Department of Interior [DOI] Secretarial Order 3372, “Reducing Wildfire Risks on Department of the Interior Land Through Active Management,” aimed at practical, common sense reforms. The USFS has not followed suit with their own Secretarial order, but are slowly (very slowly) moving forward on similar reforms. The President has an excellent Secretary of Interior in David Bernhardt, and an absolute rock star at the helm of the BLM in Casey Hammond.

This stands out to me:

In the specific case of our range, we completed monitoring our use two weeks prior to the ignition of the fire, and our records indicate that we had used just 18-20% of allowed forage [in the allowed time], and that overall fuel levels exceeded 1,000% of normal levels. We had requested additional time to graze off these fuels but were denied.

Stultifying agency rules, with the land managers afraid to take reasonable steps because of potential lawsuits by the enviros. The final say on these lands is controlled by the courts and the enviros, and we are reaping the results.