Wildfire Witch-Hunt Likely Will Miss the Real Culprits
InsightMag.com
waste & abuse
By Sean Paige
A witch-hunt is under way
in Washington state for the negligent weenie roasters believed
responsible for sparking a modest forest fire that suddenly
turned deadly in early July. It killed four firefighters (two of
them female and still in their teens) and nearly incinerated
others. But federal officials continue to evade accountability
for misguided policies and practices that have turned Western
forests into potential towering infernos.
The Hooveresque pursuit
of the camper culprits in the Okanogan National Forest stands in
marked contrast to the aftermath of New Mexico’s Cerro Grand
fire. That prescribed burn set by National Park Service personnel
last year cost no lives but broke from its perimeter and nearly
torched the nation’s premier national laboratory, at Los
Alamos, before leaving hundreds in the town homeless. For that
fiasco the Park Service just recently took the blame (after a
yearlong investigation), making the usual empty gesture of
accepting full responsibility while holding no one in particular
accountable.
The “Thirty Mile
Fire,” in which the Washington state firefighters perished,
occurred in an area designated by the U.S. Forest Service as a
“Resource Natural Area.” It is a de facto wilderness in
which aggressive forest-management techniques that might have
reduced the threat of wildfire — including timber cutting
— were rejected in favor of the Forest Service’s
preferred methodology, which best can be described as forest
nonmanagement.
Why young,
inexperienced firefighters were caught unaware by the changing
weather conditions that sparked the conflagration is something
far worthier of investigation than whose toasted marshmallow
initiated it. The 21-member fire crew overwhelmed in Washington
state had eight rookies, or about twice the number experts
believe is prudent. Three of the four who perished were 21 years
of age or younger; the eldest killed was a grizzled veteran, age
30. Of the dead, Devin Weaver, 21, reportedly had about 40 hours
of training before being assigned to the fire line. “What
kind of idiot would send a kid with no experience into a
situation like that?” Weaver’s father recently asked.
The same question can
be posed regarding other federal fire-fighting practices. That
the government somehow has lost its sense of priorities is
illustrated by the following fact: Helicopters fighting some
wildfires are sometimes prevented from scooping water from the
nearest available river because endangered species such as bull
trout might be harmed or killed as a result.
The Forest
Service’s “minimum-impact [fire] suppression
techniques” also dictate that fire lines in wilderness areas
be cut narrower than normal, increasing the chance that
firebreaks get breached, and that chemical fire retardants not be
used in most circumstances, including within 300 feet of a stream
or body of water. In certain wilderness areas the cutting of
trees to clear a landing pad for rescue helicopters cannot go
forward without special authorization.
There is a final point
worth making: The fact that the area had established roads, which
the ill-fated crew used to flee from the fire and on which some
of its members, when cornered, reportedly made their stand, may
have saved lives that otherwise might have been lost. This is
something to ponder as we continue to weigh the Clinton-era
“wisdom” of managing one-third of all federal forests
as “roadless” wilderness.
Institute an Endangered Humans Act
The
Washington Times
www.washtimes.com
House Editorial
Published 8/10/2001
Surrounded by a wall of fire
spurred by wind in the Okanagan National Forest, trapped
firefighters pleaded for more than nine hours on July 11 for
water to be dropped by helicopters. By the time water was finally
thrown, four young firefighters, two women and two men, lay dead
below, consumed by the raging fire, 140 miles northeast of
Seattle.
Just what could have possibly
caused this tragic delay that resulted in these deaths? Could it
have been a shortage of water? Or perhaps complicated technical
problems? The answer is none of the above. Fox News Channel's
"Hannity & Colmes" reported that, according to
unidentified firefighters, a dispatch team for the U.S. Forest
Service held off on using water from the nearby Chewuch River to
extinguish the flame because they were afraid it might harbor
endangered fish or some other species. And because of provisions
in the Endangered Species Act, these bureaucrats were presumably
afraid that if they used the river water to put out the fire,
they would prompt a lawsuit by environmentalists. As a result,
water that was originally requested at 5:30 a.m. wasn't dropped
until 3 p.m., when it was far too late.
The Forest Service has pledged to
conduct a multi-agency investigation into "all aspects"
of the fire. The probe should be completed in the coming weeks.
And Congress has weighed in on the matter as well. "I am
very distressed by reports that Endangered Species Act
constraints may have delayed efforts to extinguish the Thirtymile
Fire," Rep. Doc Hastings, Washington Republican, said in a
statement. Another factor in the firefighters' deaths was faulty
emergency shelters, that were supposed to be able to sustain high
temperatures, but clearly failed to save these firefighters'
lives.
Lawmakers' concern regarding these
deaths are well placed. The local officials involved at best
weighed the lives of humans against those of fish, and at worst,
weighed the cost of a lawsuit against saving human lives. It
would be difficult to exaggerate how alarming, how devoid of
human decency and pathos, were these bureaucratic machinations
that caused the firefighters to burn to death.
The Endangered Species Act is no
doubt an anachronistic piece of legislation that has, ironically
enough, been the cause many forest fires since it has prevented
officials from removing mature timber that easily catches fire in
protected areas. But the officials who contributed to the
decision to delay the rescue of the firefighters can't hide
behind legislation. Their primary concern should have been to
save the people fighting the fire and deal later with any
potential lawsuit. It appears these robotic bureaucrats –
whose slavish adherence to orders and laws trumps their humanity
– need new legislation, such as an Endangered Humans Act, to
take proper measures to save the lives of human beings in danger.
Copyright © 2001 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
EPA Tries to
Rewrite Libby Label
Applying a Band-Aid to
an open wound, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
recently took ads out in Libby, Mont., newspapers declaring the
town a safe place to live after citizens complained that
sensational government claims about the health hazards posed by a
closed mine are frightening people away and adding to the
town’s economic woes. After ignoring the local asbestos
mine’s alleged health effects for years, EPA descended on
Libby in force in 1999, ordering in an army of workers in moon
suits and generating scary headlines that have tainted the
town’s reputation.
In an effort to bring
some perspective to the actually minor health risks posed to the
general public by the mine, and placate worried businesspeople
who in the Clinton era saw their once-prosperous beug devastated
by timber mill and mine closures, the EPA ads wax poetic about
the virtues of living in Libby. “We have come to appreciate
what a truly beautiful area Libby is,” one advertisement
reads in part. “Much of the EPA staff and contractors
working in Libby have spent vacation days there, some even
bringing their families from all over the country.”
The ads assure Libby
residents that the EPA is moving quickly to clean up the site and
indicate that ambient-air monitors placed in the area a year ago
have detected no traces of asbestos.
Yet it’s not
really the folks still living in Libby — and who during a
recent visit there seemed to take life on the edge of a Superfund
waste site in stride — who need to know that. The EPA’s
real target audience should be nonresidents and outsiders who
might be discouraged from visiting or relocating to the town.
Maybe a national ad
campaign is needed. And the EPA’s tag line could go
something like this: “Libby, Montana: It’s a great
place to visit . … But bring your own moon suit.”
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