Our Wildfire Experience

These leaders are letting wildfires burn to “manage” our National Forests and National Parks. They are burning our forests and parks, and thousands of acres of private property, in the middle of intense fire seasons, hoping something good will happen. They say burning “enhances forest ecosystems.” But nothing good results from allowing a super-heated wildfires to burn at the height of fire season.

The new “managed fire” policy (since 2009) is called “using unplanned wildfire in the right place at the right time” to “reintroduce fire to fire-dependent ecosystems.”

Fire drones dropped incendiary bombs last summer so the Forest Service could burn 250,000 acres of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in New Mexico to “restore natural conditions” to our wild areas. Local sheriffs are calling it “reckless burning.” A sheriff arrested a burn boss for “reckless burning” in October.

The reckless burning is an outrage, an affront to common sense and common law. Agency leaders meeting in Asheville were not elected. There is no oversight of their activities. They operate according to their personal desires to burn us all back to some fantasy state of forest health.

It’s an open checkbook and an open secret.

These so-called fire leaders are using money appropriated by Congress for “emergency fire suppression” to pay for their months-long “managed fire” projects. It’s also a misappropriation of taxpayer dollars resulting in a horrific destruction of people and property.  It must stop.

Unplanned wildfires are uncontrolled and unacceptable. Call your Senators and Representatives. Demand accountability. Shut “managed wildfires” down until we can all agree, in an open public process with everyone invited, whether letting wildfires burn is sound forest conservation policy.