Bush to address forest thinning - Just because he's cute, doesn't mean Smokey the Bear was right. Forest fires are good.
JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press Writer Thursday, August 22, 2002
(08-22) 10:14 PDT MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) --
President Bush arrived here Thursday to tour the burned forest he will use as a backdrop for a bid to make logging easier in national forests, where he says cutting brush and thinning young trees can save big trees from wildfire.
Bush immediately left the airport to tour the Squires Peak fire, which burned 2,800 acres outside the rural community of Ruch 10 miles southwest of Medford after igniting from lightning July 13. It was brought under control last Saturday at a cost of $2.2 million.
Afterwards, Bush was to make a speech at Compton Arena in Central Point. A senior administration official has said the president will propose removing or reducing administrative barriers to cutting timber in fire-prone forests, without exposing forests to widespread commercial logging.
After the speech, Bush was to fly to Portland for a fund-raising dinner for Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who is running for re-election against Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, a Democrat.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has found that thinning projects before the fire helped calm fire behavior and make safe places for firefighters to build containment lines.
But putting thinning into practice on a wide scale promises to be staggeringly expensive, with little economic return, according to a U.S. Forest Service study: $2.7 billion for 1.6 million acres -- excluding wilderness, roadless areas and stands of minimal timber -- just in the Klamath Mountain region of southwestern Oregon.
That is an average of more than $1,685 per acre.
"The costs are enormous. It's hard to see where that money will come from," said Jeremy Fried, team leader on the study for the Pacific Northwest Research Station's forest inventory analysis program.
So far this year, wildfires have burned 6 million acres nationwide, more than twice the 10-year average for this date. The firefighting cost is expected to hit $1.5 billion.
The fires have ignited a fierce debate over the future of the nation's forests.
Scientists blamed the toll on a combination of record drought and a buildup of fuels from indiscriminately putting out fires for decades.
Logging advocates blame environmentalists for lawsuits that have held up thinning projects. Environmentalists counter they only block logging that cuts the big trees best able to survive fire.
Environmentalists are mounting a political battle against the idea of sacrificing environmental laws, including a five-year, $10 billion plan from the Sierra Club that emphasizes removing brush and thinning trees close to homes, rather than in the backcountry. |
