Clinton inspects wildfire damage, meet with firefighters in Idaho

Deb Riechmann

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2000 | 12:03 p.m.

PAYETTE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho - President Clinton inspected the smoky wildfires in the West on Tuesday and visited weary firefighters who have blistered feet and bloodshot eyes from battling blazes that have ravaged an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.

"You need to know we are proud of you and grateful to you," Clinton told firefighters in the Payette National Forest in west-central Idaho. "I know that Mother Nature will burn in our forests one way or another, but it matters how it happens."

Clinton's visit came 26 days after fires erupted here, scorching 24,951 acres - so far - of rugged, steep forestland. It is one of 65 fires burning more than 826,800 acres in 10 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho.

The president took a 40-minute helicopter tour with his chief of staff, John Podesta, and Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck. Munching on a banana and a bagel, Clinton asked Dombeck how long it took the fire to move 100 yards. "Faster than you can run," Dombeck replied.

Gazing out at a patchwork of singed greenery and charred trees, Clinton said, "It's so pretty isn't it? But you can really see how scary it would be to be standing there and having flames come toward you.

"It's really eerie seeing all that smoke in the valley," Clinton said. He noticed a large plume of smoke climbing into the sky and said "it looks like a bomb going off." Nearby stood all that remained of a chunk of forest that burned in 1994: blackened, leafless spruce and fir that loomed like telephone poles.

The president directed the secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture departments to recommend ways to rehabilitate burned land and reduce fire risk to rural communities, the White House said. He also said he will release $150 million in emergency funds to the Agriculture Department for firefighting efforts.

An estimated 20,000 military and civilian firefighters are working to contain blazes in Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Arizona, California, Colorado and Montana - the hardest hit by wildfires in the West.

After the helicopter ride, Clinton had lunch with some of the 1,276 people working to contain the fire here near McCall, Idaho. The federal firefighters work for the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Fish and Wildlife Service. There also are federal contract workers and about 600 soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas.

Working 12-hour shifts, they mostly are digging up ground to create fire lines.

"You use tools to scrape away anything that might burn so that what you have left on your trail - about 3 feet wide - is bare soil, which shouldn't burn," said Alexis Collins, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service. "It creates a fire break."

Digging fire lines is dirty work, she said, but not as dirty as the job known as "mopping up."

"These people are digging in the ash, trying to disperse any coals that are there," she said. "That's real dirty work because you're right in the ash. You come back black."