Government policies encourage wildfire risks

Fighting wildfires is a dangerous business and every summer thousands of fire-fighters are put at risk in Western U.S. states because government policies have increased the likelihood of fires.

Those misguided policies, like logging bans, have caused a build-up of tinder-dry brush in fire-prone areas.

Over the decades, government policies have subsidised the settlement of ever-increasing numbers of people in fire-prone canyons and brush lands.

Through home insurance, power line placement, road construction, land-tax policies and the absence of fire-conscious local zoning laws, people are building homes and settling in high-risk areas putting in jeopardy not only their own lives, but the lives of those who may someday be called upon to rescue them.

The rescuers and fire-fighters are being dispatched in aircraft that are sometimes older than those flying them, inviting further tragedy.

Experts are calling for comprehensive programmes and policies at both the national and state level aimed at reducing the risk of fires before they start or at the very least for government to stop subsidising the urge to build in dangerous areas.

Source: Roger Kennedy (former National Park Service director), Why the West Is Burning, New York Times, August 8, 2002.

For text http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/08/opinion/08KENN.html
For more on National Forests http://www.ncpa.org/iss/env

FMF Policy Bulletin\20 August 2002

Publish date: 27 August 2002
Views: 391

Environment,

The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Foundation. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author.

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