Wildfires: Who is really to blame?

Baxter Black

Commentary

The mountain West as pictured by European immigrants in the days of Lewis and Clark, was covered with immense healthy forests that had recycled themselves naturally (and with help from Indians) for centuries. They grew from seeds, matured, reproduced, died, burned, and prepared the land for a fresh seeding.

Fire was not the enemy, writes Baxter Black in the current issue of RANGE magazine. RANGE is a recipient of a Freedom of the Press Award and the editorial voice for the people who produce food for more than 300 million Americans.

Today, fire is THEIR enemy.

Black is a radio and television commentator who also writes and performs cowboy poetry. In his travels, he has seen firsthand the destruction and suffering endured by people, livestock and wildlife when a conflagration sweeps through an area.

Currently, fires are burning in several states. It is terrifying.

Historically, timber companies, ranchers and railroaders thought the virgin forests were unending, he writes. “Then mid-century brought the conservationists, politicians, environmentalists and tree huggers. They took the stand that thinning, clearcutting, grazing, hunting, improving water tanks, roads and settlers just harmed forests. So they instigated restrictions. They chose forest fire as the enemy and Smokey the Bear spread the word.”

During the next 50 years of forest management, people were encouraged to build beautiful homes in the tall pines. Any attempt to use the crowning, crowded timber or deadfall as a private industry resource was scorned. The trees kept growing and seeding, shedding, dying and falling on the forest floor. In the 1980s, the pine-bark beetle became a problem and large stands of pines turned yellow and died.

Lightning storms, incorrectly handled “burns,” and careless humans can ignite drought- and disease-plagued brush and trees, setting off thousands of blazes that put people in peril, destroying their homes, killing wildlife and placing America’s food source in jeopardy.

Today forest fires consume twice as much land annually as they did in 1970, writes Black. The burn season is two-and-a-half months longer.

Black wonders what happened to the environmentalists, conservationists and politicians who led the battle to drive lumberjacks, cowboys and miners out of the woods? The same activists who used the Endangered Species Act to shut down sawmill towns and eliminate grazing permits and road builders?

“Now that they have helped savage the West through unintended consequences, I expect they’ve moved on,” says Black. 

BACKGROUND:

Who is to blame for the surge in wildfires? Look to governmental policy, actions by environmentalists, and just plain greed. The cause is close to home—the series of lawsuits filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and others, which collect huge tax dollars via litigation. According to CBD’s website: “The spotted owl has long served as a flagship species for environmentalists across the nation, and the Mexican spotted owl is the Southwest’s most famous old-growth resident. 

Unfortunately, by the late 1980s—at the height of logging operations in the national forests—biologists estimated that only 2,000 of the birds remained in the world. The species’ numbers are still declining as it continues to lose habitat to logging, development, mining, and wildfire.”

The next time fire explodes in the biomass that now makes up our forests, look to the birds who have not been “saved” despite the CBD. And, don’t forget the Endangered Species Act itself, which “enabled” all this to happen.

A special report in the Spring 2013 issue of RANGE magazine written by forestry expert Bruce Vincent, explores the politics and attitudes that help fuel the destruction.

In 2000, the General Accounting Office presciently reported that the single biggest threat to 192 million acres of western forests is catastrophically huge, catastrophically hot, stand-destroying forest fires. Fed by pervasive fuel-loading problems in our dead and dying overstocked forests, the casualties of the coming calamity will include our wildlands, watersheds, wildlife and forest communities. The report states that the agencies [federal] have done precious little to combat the potential collapse of forest ecosystems,” writes Vincent.

Leading the charge against responsible management of the forests are the professional litigants—many of whom have been paid tax dollars through the Equal Access to Justice Act and the Judgment Fund. Fourteen environmental groups, which have filed at least 1,200 federal suits in 19 states and the District of Columbia, have collected over $37 million in taxpayer dollars thanks to badly written laws. 

Environmental attorneys don’t even have to win to get paid. Their efforts successfully destroyed the logging industry that could help keep forests healthy by reducing the amount of diseased and dry fuel and the summer firestorms.

A digital version of the special report, “A Collision of Visions,” can be found by visiting www.rangemagazine.com, and clicking on the Spring 2013 issue.

For additional background, the 2011 analysis, “Clearcuts Don’t Burn,” by Derek Weidensee, can be found by visiting www.rangemagazine.com, and clicking on the Fall 2011 issue.

To see how little things have changed, visit www.rangemagazine.com, and click on “Special Report: The Great Lie,” Fall 2006 issue.

Baxter Black is an American cowboy, poet, philosopher, former large-animal veterinarian, radio and television commentator.