Response to Timber Industry on Fires
9/09/96
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Subject: Response to Timber Industry on Fires
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Topic: Response to Timber Industry on Fires
Written 12:26 PM Sep 9, 1996 by newsdesk in cdp:headlines
The Wilderness Society
jerry_greenberg@tws.org 202-429-2608
How the Timber Industry is Fueling Fire Fears:
Distortions and Misinformation Surrounding the 1996 Fires
The 1996 fire season has proven to be one of the largest in recent
memory, blackening over five million acres nationwide.
Capitalizing on the drama, the timber industry has sought to link
wildfire and forest health to promote increased logging on the
national forests. In a full page advertisement in the August 28 Los
Angeles Times, the California Forestry Association called "shameful"
attempts by concerned citizens to prevent further damage to forests
from abusive logging practices. The American Forest and Paper
Association, a timber industry trade association, blamed "government
red tape and environmental extremism" for blocking increased logging,
which it maintains will improve the health of the national forests.
What is shameful is the deceitful attempt by industry to capitalize
on citizens' understandable concern about fire to promote their
agenda.
1. The timber industry neglects to admit that the vast majority of
the wildfires is not on national forests.
According to Forest Service data as of September 1, of the 5.4
million acres burned nationwide, only 19.3 percent was national
forest system land. In other words, nearly 80 percent of this year's
fires had nothing to do with the national forests.
Type of Land Acreage Burned
Non-federal 1.9 million (36%)
BLM 1.9 million (36%)
Forest Service 1.0 million (19%)
Bur.Indian Affairs 215,000 (4%)
Fish Wildlife Service 178,000 (3%)
National Park Service 97,000 (2%)
The lands burning outside the national forests include grasslands,
shrub and brush, and noncommercial forests such as pinyonjuniper
woodland. These are lands the timber industry has no interest in,
which could explain its focus on fires on national forests.
In the intermountain west, including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming,
Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, where almost two million acres have
burned, less than 13 percent has been national forest land.
In California, 73 percent of the 545,000 acres that have burned are
in southern California, where vegetation is largely nonforest and
highly flammable.
In Alaska, fire has scorched over a half million acres, but not on
the national forests. Out of 22 million acres of national forest, a
scant 178 acres have burned in 1996.
In the South, where fire has burned over one million acres, national
forests have accounted for only 3.8 percent of the total area burned.
In the Northeast and Lake states, fire has burned only 18,000 acres
of national forest, a little more than one-tenth of one percent of
the national forest land and only 11 percent of the total acres
burned in the region.
1996 has been an extraordinarily severe year in Arizona and New
Mexico, where 338,000 acres have burned. Most of these acres (62
percent) were national forest lands, but national forests in the
Southwest are only 29 percent timberland, suggesting that most of
what burned there was not commercial forest.
2. The timber industry ignores the growing body of evidence that
logging has been a primary cause for the fire hazards that do exist
on the national forests.
There is very little disagreement among scientists that excessive
logging is one of the primary reasons why some areas in some of the
national forests are in bad condition. The most recent evidence is
found in this summer's report of the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project
in which a team of scientists concluded that "timber harvest...has
increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity."
3. The timber industry ignores their year-long abuse of the national
forests.
Despite the historical damage from logging, the timber industry is
now asking Americans to believe that logging is needed to enhance
forest health. But the last 13 months of logging under the clearcut
rider make a mockery of their plea for trust. Under the industry-
sponsored rider, environmental laws protecting national forests were
suspended allowing timber companies to level hundreds of acres of old
growth forests and cut healthy trees under the guise of logging dead
and dying timber.
In summary, the forest products industry's characterization of the
national forests as fire traps threatening the nation does not stand
up to scrutiny. Instead of providing solutions to restore health to
the nation's forests, industry is fanning the flames of 1996 to
advance their narrow objective of increased logging on the national
forests.