| Forester critical of
'New' Forest Service The following is a letter dated August 29, by Doug Leisz, a California consulting forester. former regional forester and deputy chief of the USDA Forest Service, to the President. Honorable William Clinton Dear Mr. President, Through the actions of Secretary of Agriculture Glickman, Secretary of the Interior Babbitt, and CEQ Chairman Frampton and their respective staff people, your administration, not Mother Nature, is substantially at fault for the large number of fires wreaking havoc on the national forests in the Western United States. I am glad that you have personally observed the results of your administration's failing practices with respect to the frequency of catastrophic wildfires on the national forests. While your administration didn't light many of the fires, your policies assured there would be catastrophic wildfires if there were many ignitions by lightning or other causes during a heat wave when forests are tinder dry. Some have been caused by your own government people setting "controlled burns", resulting in great losses of natural resources and private property. A series of administrative actions are responsible: First - Under your risky scheme of "reinventing the government", the field organizations of the Forest Service have been decimated. Fire fighting capabilities have been reduced to dangerously low levels. Forces for protection of individual forests are only 50% of 1995 strength. Fire prevention personnel and initial attack forces of organized "hot shots" crews are at the lowest number I can recall. Meanwhile, the Washington office of the Forest Service has increased by 300 people who don't fight fire. It has been impossible for the present fire organization to make prompt initial attack when faced with multiple lightning fires. This insures that many fires will become large and destructive during this hot, dry period. Your administration's resource utilization policy has alienated or driven away most of the local folks (e.g., loggers, mill workers, ranch hands, construction workers) who had helped out in emergency fire situations. Second - Through curtailment of logging, your administration has allowed the accumulation of dangerous levels of fuels. Forests are dynamic. They continue to produce new biomass each year, are subject to wind and snow breakage and losses from insect infestations and disease. These fuels continue to accumulate and build, just waiting to oxidize. A fire, in the dry, hot period we are now experiencing, lets this fuel carry fire up into the tree tops, resulting in crown fires incinerating large and small trees alike. Communities near the national forests face unacceptable fire risks. Third - Your administration decided to deal with the forest fuel crisis in a "natural way," by the use of prescribed fire. The difficulty with this approach is that millions of acres need to be treated and it would take many years before this scheme could be fully tested. This unrealistic proposal flies in the face of personnel reductions imposed on the very same people who are expected to take on this unprecedented level of prescribed fire. The result, of course, can be seen in the escaped fires in New Mexico and California, burning hundreds of homes and millions of trees. The highly qualified people necessary to conduct prescribed fire on such a large scale are simply not on board. How many more homes will be burned under these policies? Fourth - The loss of resources associated with catastrophic fires is enormous. Precious old-growth is destroyed, public recreation opportunities eliminated for many years, fish and wildlife habitat severely damaged, flood damage likely, and enough wood destroyed to build hundreds of thousands of homes for people who own part of this forest legacy, but can't afford their own home. Catastrophic fires are "stand terminating", threatening all forest resource management objectives mandated by multiple-use and other laws; clean air, water quality, recreational values, abundant wildlife, a continuous supply of wood, and a healthy environment for people. Your administration abandoned the multiple-use sustained-yield management principles mandated by law (MUSY Act of 1960). Is timely to reconsider the disastrous consequences associated with this combination of policies. Among others, the National Roadless Study and Sierra Nevada Framework Draft DEIS, promise to exclude access and fuel removal from yet another 56 million acres of national forests! Presidential hopeful, Al Gore added another risky proposal when he announced that he would prohibit any logging in roadless areas, even if material were to be removed by helicopter. That would be dangerous, irresponsible management for the national forests, increasing the risk of catastrophic fire to forests and communities, under the guise of environmental protection. I speak from a 32 year career with the Forest Service serving for years at the field level and as a Regional Forester, Deputy Chief, and Associate Chief. I have an extensive background in protecting and managing the National Forests. My many professional associates and I are appalled by the forest devastation resulting from your administration policies. Since retirement I have continued to work as a consultant dealing with wild-land fire safety. I recently visited forests destroyed by catastrophic fire that could have been prevented, if only your Administration, pressured by preservation zealots, had not halted the Forest Service efforts to remove hazardous fuels before the lightning fires occurred. The recent $12 billion proposal for Congress "to clean dense, fire-prone underbrush from 40 million acres" is ludicrous without an overhaul of forest management and fire protection policies coupled with a major rebuilding of Forest Service capabilities, including research. Many of us would be glad to assist in such a review and reconstruction of the failed policies. Douglas R. Leisz |