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Time to fire the political fire managers
Michael Swickard
Perhaps the Lincoln National Forest should be taken over by the State of New Mexico. If the federal managers of these resources cannot effectively manage these resources, then a different group is needed.
Editor’s note: State officials dispute the claims Swickard makes in this column. Read about that by clicking here.
“What the congressman (Steve Pearce) fails to recognize is that the Gila National Forest is distinguished nationwide for its cost-efficient use of fire to manage forest fuel buildup. The Whitewater-Baldy fire has burned as we’d expect it to largely because fuels have been controlled this way. The fire is burning, for the most part, in wilderness where logging is not permitted anyhow.” – Letter to the editor by Bryan Bird, Wild Places program director for WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, published Sunday in the Las Cruces Sun-News
Bryan Bird’s letter came at a time when, in Ruidoso, a small, easily contained fire turned tragically devastating. There has never been a plan to manage forests by catastrophic fires. Casual fires (that do not have ladder fuels and floor fuel loads to get them up to the crowns of the trees) were nature’s way of controlling fuel loads before a number of political entities conspired to create this problem.
Remember: The Forest Service tried to do a controlled burn in May of 2000, against the advice of locals, which jumped the fire lines and, before it was done, over 400 families in the Los Alamos community lost their homes. Sadly, that is what has happened once again, this time in Ruidoso.
In an interview by Deborah Voorhees seen on YouTube, Jack Rabbit Flats Volunteer Fire Department Chief Tom Parker relates that he saw the lightening strike up on the Ruidoso Mountainside west of the Ski Apache area. It was called in within minutes of smoke being seen, when it was less than an acre in size.
In the interview, Tom Parker talks about the political decision to let it burn despite the danger to the rest of the mountain. Five firefighters called for water to put out the fire but were denied because, politically, the desire was to use it as a controlled burn even though the conditions for a controlled burn were not met. It could have been put out any time in the three days, Tuesday through Thursday, and then Friday it became too late.
Watch the full interview here:
Politics to blame
But the damage was done earlier. Porter says the politics that stops effective forest management is to blame:
“Forestry goes out and tries to thin. You’ve got a judge in Texas telling us what we can do in the Lincoln National Forest because some group in another state petitions because there might be an owl in the area. Yes, we have to protect endangered species, but we also have to protect ourselves.”
And this is the nut of the problem: Politics trumps effective forest management. Tom Parker points out what effective management looks like, “If you drive through Mescalero and you look at their forests, their ladder fuels are gone, their ground clutter is gone and the healthy trees are still standing. They have gone through their forest and so, if a tree gets hit by lightning, it is out of there. Also thinned are if a tree has a sign of bark beetles, mistletoe or clipper beetles, since those are the three big problems we have in this state. They go in there and get that pocket of diseased trees out before they affect the rest of the forest.”
We are not talking clear-cutting, where all trees are taken down; rather, we’re talking a wise management of the forest done outside of the politics. Letting diseased trees stand ruins miles of good forest and endangers everyone. Even the owls do not want a mismanaged forest. They do not survive the catastrophic fires.
Only the political entities who feed upon our society, entities made up of many lawyers who are paid by us to sue us, which then forces us to create a forest that is weakened by disease and overgrowth. That is the problem.
We must be relentless
Perhaps the Lincoln National Forest should be taken over by the State of New Mexico. If the federal managers of these resources cannot effectively manage these resources, then a different group is needed. It is not the number of firefighters on the line, because catastrophic fires create their own weather, which defies the efforts of man. When the conditions are wrong, there is nothing the firefighters can do but wait for better conditions.
But we, who have to endure the bad management of our forests, should not have to be quiet because the forest managers do not wish to be questioned. We need new eyes looking at this problem; the old eyes have taken us to this point. More so, we must call out the people and organizations that are endangering our forests and those who live near the forests.
The political junkies parrot the talking points but there is no truth to their statements. They do not seem to care about the people and the forest, only the power they can gain by imposing their will upon us. We must be relentless in our saving the forests by managing them correctly. The first contract I would have would be with those people running the Mescalero forests to do the same things in the rest of the state.
The second contract needs to be with the best legal minds of New Mexico to fight in court the political hacks who made this mess. We must never take a step back from them. Instead, we must use best practices in forests at all times. New Mexico forests need real forest management, not political solutions that do not work.
Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.
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Here is the disgraceful budget in which the US Forest Service was shortchanged by Congressman Pearce and Republicans:
Here is the US Forest Service Budget 2010 – 2012:
Discretionary
2010 $5,314,000,000
2011 $5,096,000,000
2012 $4,846,000,000
Mandatory
2010 $800,000,000
2011 $762,000,000
2012 $739,000,000
http://www.fs.fed.us/aboutus/budget/2013/fy2013-overview.pdf
Here is U.S. Forest Service cuts:
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/02/10/house-gop-set-to-cut-forest-service-budget-by-38-million/
http://www.nffe.org/ht/d/ArticleDetails/i/31257
http://thesheetnews.com/archives/9794
In January 2012 the U.S. Forest Service’s budget was lowered $91 million below 2011 levels!
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=146&sid=2672857
Congressman Pearce and his fellow hatchet cutting Republicans did save Smokey the Bear for educational purposes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/smokey-bear-spared-from-gop-budget-axe/2011/12/08/gIQAZ2RyfO_blog.html
Congressman Pearce supported all the cuts in the budget of the U.S. Forest Service. New Mexicans should express their outrage at the voting record of Congressman Pearce and his irresponsibility in a major crisis.
Swickard, you are giving us Ph.D. folks a bad rap with your parroting of the ignorant attacks of Congressman Pearce. Has it occurred to you that the firefighters are still out fighting fires? They don’t have time to write a detailed answer to your uninformed questions.
YOU do some research. How many gallons of water does the helicopter carry, fully loaded? How much does it weigh? Water weighs 8.35 pounds per gallon, so a thousand gallons, which is probably the minimum that would be needed to put out the fire, weighs 8,350 pounds, or over 4 tons.
You state “I did ask a family relative who flies helicopters about a service ceiling of 10,000 feet and he said that the tech manuals show a much higher ceiling.” Go back and ask your relative again, with the correct information on the weight of the water involved. What is safe with no load may well not be safe with a full load of water. Don’t forget to research what the wind velocity was at 10,000 feet during those days.
Hemmingway, could you please post more detail on Pearce’s vote to cut $38 million from the USFS budget? Was it an overall cut, and what was the total budget? When was the vote taken?
Misleading columns like Mr. Swickard add to the frustrations of residents. They hear the malarkey perpetuated by Congressman Pearce and Mr. Swickard acting like rabble rousers against the Federal government. This is not the time to unjustly criticize. It is a time to work together. Maybe the Ruidoso residents would be better served if Mr. Swickard called for help and aid for residents. Hey – maybe raise some money!
Let us look at the fire issues in our New Mexico forests from another angle. In May 2000, the Forest Service was going to do a controlled burn year connected to the Bandelier National Monument plan upwind of Los Alamos. People on the ground pleaded with them to not do so in such a dry time. The summer rains had not come. It was to no avail. The citizens were told that the experts said there was no harm. Somewhere around 400 families lost their homes.
But that was twelve years ago so maybe the lesson was lost or forgotten.
This spring a small plane on the way back from Las Vegas, Nevada flew over the Gila and noticed smoke coming from below. According to FAA regulations, the pilot circled and took photos which were sent to the FAA along with exact coordinates of the fire. At this point a fire-fighting aircraft with a few loads of slurry probably would have extinguished the fire. Either nothing was done or there was a great delay. We all know the outcome in the Gila which turned into the largest fire in New Mexico history. Perhaps the experts were just unlucky and we should not smack them around, mistakes can happen.
However, on the heels of the largest fire in New Mexico history which could have been prevented, it is fair to assume fire officials would be very cautious with how dry New Mexico is currently. It is reasonable to assume that the experts would have redoubled all efforts to protect the tinder dry forests. It is reasonable to assume all small fires would be taken seriously and there would not be any talk of “controlled burns” at this point.
Making the Forest Service even more cautious should have been two conditions: the last couple of years have been very dry in Southern New Mexico. Secondly, the keepers of the forest, for reasons that I do not understand, allowed large infestations of beetles to have a devastating effect upon the forests west of Ruidoso. The dead trees were left standing, dead, dry and one spark away from being a tinderbox. Someone made the decision to leave diseased and dead trees in the living forest where the diseased trees could continue infecting healthy trees and the dead trees would provide a fire ladder into the crowns of the trees thus allowing a catastrophic fire.
It would seem we have not gotten the best effort of the administrators.
The Forest Service asks that we not criticize them before we understand everything about these fires. Others have joined that call saying the Forest Service has a tough job to do and any criticism is harmful to their efforts. I have been told any criticism of the Forest Service is the same as speaking ill of the first responders who died in the September 11 attacks. I have been told that any questioning of the fire officials is a direct and heinous attack on all fire personnel everywhere. Know this: I do not question the actions of the fire crews; my entire concern is with the administration.
My column showed the frustration that citizens have when bad things happen that we suspect did not have to happen. My family ranch is in Lincoln County. I owned the Lincoln County News, the weekly newspaper for three years, and have many friends who are in the middle of this crisis. I feel their pain.
In New Mexico we have lost previously, but did we also lose the lesson. Who let the forests be full of dead and dying trees? Who did not foresee the danger in the Gila and Ruidoso one year after the devastating fires in Arizona and New Mexico?
I hesitate to speak to the how of dealing with fires; however, I am concerned by the statement that helicopters could not bring water to the Little Bear Ruidoso fire because of the altitude. Is that the same reason for the Gila fire also not being addressed when it was so small, eh? I did ask a family relative who flies helicopters about a service ceiling of 10,000 feet and he said that the tech manuals show a much higher ceiling. But that is the call on the pilots. I was told that the decision to deal with the fire was made in the administrative unit, not the tactical unit. The story about this says the pilots said they could not fly. I heard from someone that they were told not to fly. Which story is true? I do not know. Show me the paper trail and I will be glad to admit I am wrong. Still, there were three days where the fire could have been put out while it was still small. Who let these three days go by? These are reasonable questions that do not take away from the efforts to deal with the fire. Don’t want to address them now? OK, when?
Finally, did the officials get the lesson? Are they going to let little fires turn into big fires again?
Arrogantly and irresponsibly Congressman Steve Pearce wrongly blasted the U.S. Forest Service saying it should have done more early on in the Little Bear fire. This is the same guy who voted to cut the budget of the U.S Forest Service by $38 million.
Mr. Swickard has strictly taken an anti-Federal stance that supports Mr. Pearce. It is so irresponsible in a serious crisis. Can you imagine the state handling this emergency? It would be a colossal disaster. This commentary is awful and pure nonsense.
Mr Swickard and Mr Pearce have absolutely no knowledge of forest management – total ignorance and just political rhetoric.