|
|
 |
Logging
English (Text Version) > Preventing Fires > Fuel Management > Logging
After the 2000 wildfire season, there was a push for the government to allow more logging. Proponents of logging to control wildfires say that if you remove fuel (trees), then wildfires can't burn.
Policy In The Forests
Former President Clinton protected 60 million acres of National Forests from most commercial logging, mining, and new road construction. Forest policy under the Clinton Administration did not rely on commercial logging to reduce fire danger.
President Bush recently allowed the 60 million acre protection policy to stand, but left open the option of drastically changing it. The Bush Administration favors a plan that would protect forests on a case-by-case basis, giving local businesses, loggers, and miners more of a say on what would be allowed and what wouldn't.
Logging To Prevent Fires
There is a controversy between loggers and environmentalists about whether logging actually helps reduce fire danger.
Environmentalists and some foresters say that this approach doesn't work; you have to remove the ladder fuel (which has almost no commercial value) to stop wildfires from burning. They argue that big commercially valuable trees don't provide fuel for fires; they say this is proven by the timber industry's interest in "burned" timber salvage.
Loggers say that when you remove trees, you remove fuel, and stop fires.
In a study for former President Clinton, the Congressional Research Service found that the current increase in wildfires is not caused by the decline of timber harvest on federal land. In fact, they found that between 1980 and 1999, fewer acres burned in areas where logging was limited.
The National Research Council reached similar conclusions, finding that logging and clear cutting can cause the rapid growth of primary wildfire fuels like shrubs and small trees, and thus creating, within a few years, highly flammable fuel conditions.
|
