Saturday, July 23, 2022

Too many wildfires in the U.S. are caused by government neglect and failure

This well known fact can not be told enough!

"The largest wildfire in New Mexico history was set by the federal government. In April, a prescribed burn carried out by the U.S. Forest Service escaped about four hours after being set. The fire was intended to reduce hazardous fuels and the risk of wildfire, but it became a conflagration that burned more than 340,000 acres.
The Forest Service made many mistakes during the out-of-control burn ...
One recent study lamenting the lack of prescribed [controlled] fire in the West found that between 1998 and 2018, 70 percent of all burning nationwide was carried out in the Southeast. ...
The federal government has aggressively suppressed all fires for decades, an approach that included outlawing "cultural burning" by tribes in the early 20th century. One consequence of curbing the use of fire for so long is that fuels have accumulated in federal forests across the country, most of which are in the West. ...
When the Forest Service wants to remove those built-up fuels, it takes years to even get started, partly due to bureaucratic red tape. Recent research from my organization, the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), found that once the agency begins the environmental review process, it takes an average of nearly five years to implement a prescribed burn. ..."

California Could Learn From Florida On Fighting Wildfires What Florida gets right about using controlled burns to prevent damaging wildfires, and what California could learn from it.

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