Viewpoint: The Forest Service’s wildfire misinformation
John Carter
The June 26 Jackson Hole News and Guide article, "Experts warn of wildfire pitfalls" bemoaned the decline in volunteer firefighters and promotes fear of wildfire by saying, “It should scare everybody in the state of Wyoming.”
The Forest Service and Federal government have been promoting this fear for decades and passing laws so what I call wildfire hysteria can be used to garner public support for logging and deforestation even in our most remote wild places and wildlife habitats where no structures are at risk.
I find it ironic that counties, who approve houses, subdivisions and other structures in forested or at-risk areas, are now worried about being able to fight fires. There is apparently no deep thinking or analysis on this issue, just rote approval as we have seen here in Sublette County.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently noted that we are building in wildfire prone areas known as the “wildland urban interface” at the rate of 2 million acres per year. Local governments approve the permits, and the buck should stop there, not pass on the responsibility to the Federal Government or taxpayers.
We have been programmed to fight every wildfire, no matter where it occurs instead of being rational. Natural disturbances such as fire, insects or disease, which reset forest succession and create diverse habitats, are to be prevented by the current congressional and agency cure.
The cure is called fuel treatments or fuel reduction. This is used as the rationale to clearcut, thin, chain, and burn large swaths of our public lands and forests, thereby eliminating functional ecosystems and secure habitat for wildlife such as Grizzly bears, Canada lynx, deer, elk and myriad small mammals and birds. Millions of acres are at risk, not from wildfire, which is natural, but from agenda-driven extraction and destruction.
In our work at the non-profit, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection, we analyze wildlife habitat and Forest Service projects that threaten that habitat. Recently I completed an analysis of the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest in Montana. I found that this 3.6-million-acre National Forest contains 1.4 million acres of “wildland urban interface” which then allows logging and thinning projects to go ahead with little analysis of the impacts to wildlife and fisheries.
In addition, laws have been changed so that logging projects in this wildland urban interface can be excluded from analysis and the public is left without tools to challenge it. When I analyzed the actual forested wildland urban interface areas within the Beaverhead Deerlodge NF that contained structures that might be considered at risk, it was 35,000 acres, or 2% of the Forest, not the 44% the Forest Service deems is necessary.
Similarly, here in Sublette County, the Bridger-Teton NF has approved the East Rim WUI Fuels project to log, thin and burn 3,000 acres. Using the current laws, they did not analyze the project and used what is known as a “categorical exclusion” to justify the lack of analysis and keep the public from appealing the project.
This is a beautiful, forested area with clear streams and secure habitat for elk, bears, Canada lynx and numerous other species. When I analyzed the project, none of the five adjacent “communities” which include a couple of large ranches, met the structural density to qualify as wildland urban interface. So, more wildlife habitat is to be lost under the guise of wildfire protection.
I live in a log cabin in the footprint of the 2018 Roosevelt Fire near Bondurant, Wyoming that burned 60,000 acres. The old cabin survived while large fir trees next to it burned. Why did the old log cabin survive?
I can only believe it was the metal roof. Recommendations are to clear trees and brush within a zone of 100 feet from the structure and use fireproof construction. These should be local government enforced requirements and property owner responsibilities and if not done, neither the insurance companies nor government should be responsible for bailing them out.
It is time for local governments to wake up and stop approving these developments and it is also time for personal responsibility. If you live in or plan to live in a forested or wildland area, it’s time to accept the responsibility to do your own fireproofing and not look to the county, state or federal government to bail you out.
It is time for the Forest Service to stop using the misinformation inherent in its “wildland urban interface” and be honest. If they want to log or do a prescribed burn, or thin a forested area, then admit that is the purpose, do an honest environmental analysis and justification.
That would be much more acceptable than false claims of “urban” environments being in our Forests to justify these projects and escape the analysis and public accountability our wildlife deserve.
John Carter, PhD Ecologist, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection, Bondurant, Wyoming.