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| No. 20 |
MODIFY NEW WILDERNESS FIRE MANAGEMENT POLICY
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The U.S. Forest Service
recently released a draft environmental statement to change its fire
management policy in designated wilderness areas. |
| Heretofore, with minor
exceptions, the Forest Service policy has been to plan for and allow
natural (lightning-caused) fires to burn in wilderness areas, to the
extent that they didn't endanger life or property within or outside the
wilderness areas. |
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| The new policy is to
authorize Forest Service personnel to start fires (planned ignition)
and do prescribed burning in wilderness areas to eliminate excessive
fuel buildups and restore a more natural condition. |
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| The Federation of Western
Outdoor Clubs is gravely concerned that if this new wilderness fire
management policy is adopted and applied throughout the West, it is
likely to get out of hand, and to result in the ultimate destruction of
the wilderness resource itself. There may be chaparral,
fire-prone areas where prescribed burning may be essential, but in the
timbered areas of the West, human intervention will bring about an
increasingly manipulated resource that less and less resembles
wilderness. |
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| If the new policy is
applied throughout the West, special interests, such as state wildlife
managers and sportsmen, will promote more planned ignition in
wilderness areas to maximize forage and big-game populations.
Livestock interests will demand burning to maximize grazing, and water
developers will push burning to maximize water production. |
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| The political force of
these special interests would make it extremely difficult, if not
impossible, for Forest Service officials to resist their demands. |
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Therefore the Federation
of Western
Outdoor Clubs requests the Forest Service to modify its new, high-risk
policy of setting fires in wilderness and fully implement its valid
program of allowing natural fires to burn in accordance with
preplanning. |
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