Editorial: Toss water on wildfire initiative

Friday, Aug. 30, 2002 | 9:19 a.m.

It's a paradox, but wildfires that kill individual trees are necessary for the long-term health of a forest. Fires allow a forest to regenerate itself and prepare for the next generation of trees and wildlife. Fires in remote, roadless areas of forests are generally started by lightning and often should be allowed to burn out as naturally as they flared up. It's a different proposition, of course, with forested areas near communities. In these areas the most aggressive form of fighting forest fires -- preemptive thinning -- should be a permanent part of forest management.

President Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative" promotes thinning, but he takes the concept to such an extreme that it might better be known as the "Healthy Profits Initiative" for logging companies. His plan emphasizes the thinning-out of older trees deep in the national forests, as if they were primarily responsible for the threat of devastating fires. Of course, these are the trees that are the most commercially valuable. Bush envisions a win-win situation, starting with the federal government agreeing to virtually negate the regulations governing the logging of such trees. In exchange, the logging companies would employ their crews in forests around communities to clear the brush and smaller trees that have little commercial value.

Members of Congress should read the fire plan developed over the past two years by the Western Governors Association, which prioritizes the thinning of forests near populated areas -- with no relaxation of the regulations protecting the deep forests. This plan would really protect people, while Bush's plan would actually increase the likelihood of forest fires. To thin out the wilderness areas, as he envisions, would require the building of roads, which would provide easy access for the biggest threat of all to forests -- careless people with matches. Additionally, the big, living trees that would be cut are resistant to fires, while the debris left behind, the chips, the branches, the bark, the needles, would become grade-A kindling.

Our national forests are a treasure because of the regulations that have been in place for most of the past century. To exploit the past few years of dryness and high-profile fires to promote a policy of unregulated logging, disguised as "thinning," would be unconscionable.