suppression, is what keeps forests healthy.” The forests of
Oregon were born in fire, and fire plays an important cus-
todial role by clearing out dead brush and small trees,
recycling nutrients and maintaining the structural com-
plexity of what would otherwise be dense and homoge-
nous forest stands.
But a hands-off approach to managing the Clark Fire
was not an option, according to Gardner, the incident com-
mander. “A lot of things make that not a good idea for this
area,” he says, pointing to nearby residential areas and
extensive (and highly valuable) neighboring private tim-
berlands. Aggressive firefighting tactics are also called for,
he says, because almost all of the fire is burning in the Fall
Creek Late Successional Reserve, some of the most pro-
ductive spotted owl habitat in the world. “This is not the
place I’d pick to let a fire burn.”
But according to Ingalsbee, the issue is bigger than this
one fire. “The Willamette National Forest has made a con-
scious choice not to do any pro-active fuel management in
these owl reserves, so by default they’ve chosen to use
aggressive fire suppression as their only form of manage-
ment. There’s lots of legitimate fuels reduction thinning
needed in reserves that’s not getting done. Their plans for
this and the rest of the forest is fire exclusion, which is
impossible and futile and ultimately an environmental
calamity when a fire burns through there.”
The answer, he says, is for the agency to turn its back
on the industrial forestry model entirely. Stop clearcutting
in old-growth and roadless areas. Practice judicious fuel
reduction thinning and reintroduce fire to ecosystems that
need it. And create management plans that instruct how
‘ I T ’ S A M I S N O M E R T H AT T H E Y ’ R E F I G H T I N G F I R E S , I N FA C T T H E Y ’ R E F I G H T I N G
T H E F O R E S T , ’ S AY S T I M I N G A L S B E E . ‘ T H E Y U S E A L L T H E T O O L S A N D I D E O L O G Y
O F W A R FA R E A N D T H E Y A S S A U LT A F O R E S T E C O S Y S T E M . ’
and if to fight fires when they start.
“The forest evolved with fire both natu-
ral and human caused, but not with fire
suppression and criminal arson. It’s a bad
scene that we’re in.” (The Forest Service is
still investigating exactly how the human-
caused Clark Fire began).
The Fire Service
One thing is certain, thousands of hours
of flight time and fire crew overtime does
not come cheap. By the 25th, the cost of
suppressing Clark has come to almost $8
million (as EW goes to press, costs have
reached the $14 million mark). The 800
firefighters holding the line on the eastern
end of the fire on this day have deployed
50 miles of fire hose and 250 pieces of
mechanized equipment. They’ve used
13,000 AAA batteries, consumed 70,000
bottles of water, eaten 28,000 meals, taken
13,000 showers and produced 15 tons of
dirty laundry.
To Ingalsbee, the Forest Service has
THE POLITICS OF FIRE
OREGON’S WILDFIRES are becoming a popular backdrop for
political theater, and a ready-made smokescreen for aggres-
sive new logging policies being pushed by the Bush adminis-
tration.
Almost exactly a year ago Bush stood in the still smolder-
ing ashes of the Biscuit Fire in southern Oregon to unveil his
“Healthy Forests Initiative,” which would exempt “fuel reduc-
tion” logging from environmental laws. Last Thursday he
came to the Bend area from a Portland fund-raiser to take a
helicopter tour of the B and B Complex, a large wildfire burn-
ing towards summer homes at Camp Sherman on the Metolius
River.
Later at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds, Bush told a
crowd of local Republicans “it’s hard to describe to our fellow
citizen what it means to see a fire like we saw. It’s the holo-
caust, it’s devastating.”
“We write checks a lot on fire-fighting, and we’ll continue
to do that. But it seems like to me we ought to put a strate-
gy to manage our forests in a better, more common-sensical
way,” said Bush.
Jasmine Minbashian, coordinator of the Northwest Old-
Growth Campaign, scoffed at Bush’s remarks.
“Bush wants to make forests healthy by cutting down
healthy forests. He wants to protect the environment by gut-
ting environmental laws. That’s not common-sensical.”
Minbashian, who coordinates the Northwest Old-Growth
Campaign, was one of almost 200 protestors outside the fair-
grounds who rallied around a six-foot diameter slab taken
from the stump of an old-growth “forest health” timber sale
logged near Grants Pass this summer. — James Johnston
SLOW
THE AGING PROCESS
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