The Loma Prietan
September 2002
Message to Forest Service is Clear:
Protect Communities First
by Annie Strickler
Sierra Club National Office
The Forest Service should redirect its resources to make protecting people and communities from wildfires its top priority, according to a plan released today by a coalition of environmental organizations.
With President George W. Bush visiting the area on August 22 to announce a fire policy framework based on gutting forest safeguards, the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, the Oregon Natural Resources Council and other environmental groups proposed a $10 billion plan based on research by Forest Service scientists as a blueprint for the Bush Administration and the Forest Service.
"It's time for bold actions that will defend communities threatened by wildfires. America needs the Forest Service to make protecting lives and communities from fires its number-one mission," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director.
"By deploying Forest Service resources and manpower to safeguard communities at risk of fire, this plan will save lives, save homes and ultimately save money."
Decades of fire suppression, over-logging and recent years of drought led to this summer's wildfires. In an effort to work cooperatively with the Administration, the Forest Service and local communities, this plan directs that funding and personnel should be focused in Community Protection Zones, so no communities remain at unnecessary risk.
"Smokey had it wrong. You cannot prevent forest fires," said Dr. J. Boone Kauffman of Oregon State University's Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.
"A century of fire suppression and misguided forest management has left many forests and their surrounding communities at risk. We need to proactively protect and restore our forests—we can't simply be reactive."
The seven-point plan includes:
• Do the most important work first. Make protection of communities from fires the Forest Service's Number One Priority.
• Provide meaningful funding. This program should be a minimum of five years and funded at $2 billion a year to go directly to fireproofing homes and removing hazardous fuels in the Community Protection Zones.
• Match personnel to work. Shift Forest Service personnel skilled in preparing brush clearing and thinning projects from backcountry, low priority areas to the Community Protection Zones.
• Carry out immediately the vast majority of fuel reduction projects in the Community Protection Zones that raise no significant environmental issues.
• Restore natural fires to have natural forests. Prescribed burns can help to reduce fuel buildup and restore healthy forest habitats.
• Protect our ancient and wild forest from logging and logging roads.
• Stop the attack on forest protection safeguards.
"No community deserves to be left at risk of wildfire," Pope added. "The Forest Service should focus its people and resources on Community Protection Zones, not let them be diverted to lower-priority backcountry projects."
For more information please go to www.sierraclub.org/logging/fires.asp