While Forest Service Chases Down Wildfires, the Solution Gets Away From Us

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July 6, 2016

TRCP’s new communications and operations associate grew up in wildfire country—now in D.C., she’s experiencing the impacts of fire in a completely different way

It was 4am on a school night when I woke up to sirens wailing in the streets. Firefighters were shouting into megaphones, informing us that our neighborhood was being evacuated. I couldn’t even finish brushing my teeth before first-responders were knocking on our door, making sure we were awake and on our way out. My family had already packed our SUV full of photo albums, social security cards, and sentimental odds and ends, so we piled in and headed across town to my aunt and uncle’s house.

Anthony_Citrano_Flickr — Image courtesy of Anthony Citrano/Flickr.

Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, we didn’t really have winter, spring, or autumn. We didn’t have tornadoes, hurricanes, or blizzards. We had TV pilot season—and we had wildfires.

I still remember hiking around my old neighborhood and stumbling upon the last line of fire—that charred boundary between the thriving chaparral and its blackened mirror-image. It was about a quarter-mile from my house, and just a few hundred yards from a friend’s. It was jarring to see how close we were to the flames. Though I never lost my home to fire, I knew people who did. Last month a single wildfire in California took two lives and more than 250 homes.

Our wildfire epidemic has always felt personal to me, but now that I live in Washington, D.C., safely removed from immediate danger, I’m realizing that we all feel the burn—and the enormous costs—of fire suppression.

The U.S. Forest Service’s budgetary allocation for wildfire management has been soaring, siphoning money away from critical activities such as wildlife and fisheries habitat management. Meanwhile, the Service’s maintenance backlog has exceeded $5 billion. That’s because over half of the Service’s budget is now dedicated to wildfire management—up from 16 percent in 1995.

Even the remaining 48 percent of the budget, the portion not dedicated to wildfire management, isn’t secure, because “fire-borrowing” is crippling non-fire programs. Essentially, when firefighting costs exceed what’s been budgeted, the Service is forced to dip into other unrelated program budgets and spend cash meant for habitat restoration, water quality improvements, and new public access points for hunters and anglers.

Kansas_Sebastian_web — Image courtesy of Kansas Sebastian/Flickr.

The result of all of this is dramatic—instead of investing in preventative measures that benefit forest health, as well as suppression and rehabilitation efforts, we’re scrambling to control the damage as it’s happening. We’re chasing the problem down, instead of getting in front of it.

Living here in our nation’s capital, my relationship with wildfire has changed. I’m no longer worried about my house burning down, but I’m worried about the wild places that are at home in my heart and memories—the lands we all inherited from Theodore Roosevelt that are full of trees and wildlife and unrelenting beauty.

So, no, it’s not just the people within view of the fire line who should be paying attention to this problem. We need a wildfire funding fix, and we need it soon.

Here’s a possible solution.

2 Responses to “While Forest Service Chases Down Wildfires, the Solution Gets Away From Us”

Edward Tamson July 9, 2016

Dani,
Thank you for a very well done description of your personal experience with wildfires in California. I appreciate your connection of such with the need for a comprehensive and detailed wildfire funding fix. I 100% agree that we must protect all of our precious lands which is really about protecting our wildlife and ourselves.

July 9, 2016 at 4:08 am

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Matt Rodgers July 16, 2016

Dani, glad to see you’re on board with TRCP and I look forward to reading more from you. I’ve personally had somewhat of an about-face regarding the utilization of the “state’s can’t afford to fight wildfires” line that gets used often when defending our federally owned/managed public lands. The Montezuma County, CO commissioners have come out as a proponent for Public Lands Transfer to occur here in CO and argued in one letter that wildfire fighting costs shouldn’t be as high as they are currently due to the mismanagement of our forests by the Federal government with respect to fire suppression. I can’t really argue much against this point. While overall forest health can certainly be a very complex issue to discuss with all sorts of dynamics at play, I believe the overgrown nature of our forests out west are at least partly a result of USFS fire suppression techniques and an ethos that includes “Smoky the Bear”; this M.O. facilitates an overall less healthy forest condition with stressed trees becoming more susceptible to pests such as the pine beetle and allows fires to burn hotter than what nature intended attenuating the restorative benefits that fire can have on soils and plants. Perhaps a better balance can be attained by the USFS between protecting property and lives while managing our forests more efficiently through the use of commercial logging and truly restorative fires?

July 16, 2016 at 7:07 am

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by: Kristyn Brady

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COUNTY OFFICIALS SUPPORT PROPOSED CHANGES IN BLM’S ‘PLANNING 2.0’

News for Immediate Release

Jul. 06, 2016

Contact: Kristyn Brady, 617-501-6352, kbrady@trcp.org

Western county commissioners and supervisors go on-record supporting the BLM’s land-use planning update after seeing pilot programs in action

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Top county officials from Montana, Colorado, and California say the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed Planning 2.0 rule, which would update how the agency revises land-use plans in the West, will provide additional opportunities for public involvement earlier in the planning process and result in Resource Management Plans (RMPs) that better reflect the diverse needs of county citizens. They sent letters of support for Planning 2.0 to BLM Director Neil Kornze ahead of a House Natural Resources Committee oversight hearing on the rule.

The county commissioners and supervisors hail from the three BLM planning areas where the agency is piloting Planning 2.0 measures. The three early adopter land-use plans are the Missoula Resource Management Plan, the Eastern Colorado Resource Management Plan, and the Northwest California Integrated Resource Management Plan.

“We’re seeing that, in places where Planning 2.0 improvements have already been rolled out, there is support from elected officials and the public,” says Whit Fosburgh, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “These are the people who will benefit from having more input on land management decisions and enjoy better hunting, fishing, and outdoor experiences because of it. After two oversight hearings in the House and one in the Senate, we hope this is finally made clear.”

The Board of County Commissioners for Missoula County, Mont., wrote to commend the BLM for its efforts to better address the diverse interests in their county and communities across the West. “The proposed rules continue to provide for coordination with state and local representatives” and “early public involvement will help resolve conflicts and produce a Resource Management Plan that better reflects the needs of our citizens as well as others who use public lands and have a stake in their future,” they wrote.

Similarly, Mike Brazell, chairman of the Board of Commissioners for Park County, Colo., writes that he and his colleagues support, in particular, the provisions that plan for additional public involvement earlier in the planning process, “including the chance to review preliminary resource management alternatives and preliminary rationales for those alternatives.” Writing on behalf of Humboldt County, Calif., supervisors from two districts (here and here) emphasized that encouraging public involvement early and often would be especially important given that the BLM’s Arcata Field Office will be using this more inclusive approach as it revises its existing RMP, which dates back to 1995.

Montana’s Lewis and Clark County, though not an early-adopter plan area, has also written a letter in support of Planning 2.0.

As House lawmakers continue to examine the states’ role in Planning 2.0 tomorrow, nearly 8,000 hunters and anglers have signed a petition and sent letters of support for better BLM land-management tools that prioritize public access, conserve and enhance habitat, and balance energy and other development with the needs of fish and wildlife. More than 500 hunting and fishing businesses, sportsmen’s groups, and wildlife professionals have backed the idea that BLM lands are “Sportsmen’s Country” and should be managed in ways that support sportsmen’s values, including habitat conservation and access.

To learn more, visit sportsmenscountry.org.

Inspired by the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, the TRCP is a coalition of organizations and grassroots partners working together to preserve the traditions of hunting and fishing.

by: Kristyn Brady

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County Officials Support Proposed Changes in BLM’s Land-Use Planning

Western county commissioners and supervisors go on-record supporting the BLM’s land-use planning update after seeing pilot programs in action

Top county officials from Colorado, Montana, and California say the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed Planning 2.0 rule, which would update how the agency revises land-use plans in the West, will provide additional opportunities for public involvement earlier in the planning process and result in Resource Management Plans (RMPs) that better reflect the diverse needs of county citizens. They sent letters of support for Planning 2.0 to BLM Director Neil Kornze ahead of a House Natural Resources Committee oversight hearing on the rule.

The county commissioners and supervisors hail from the three BLM planning areas where the agency is piloting Planning 2.0 measures. The three early adopter land-use plans are the Eastern Colorado Resource Management Plan, the Missoula Resource Management Plan, and theNorthwest California Integrated Resource Management Plan.

BLM2.0_web — Image courtesy of Eddie Claypool.

Montana’s Lewis and Clark County, though not an early-adopter plan area, has also written a letter in support of Planning 2.0.

To learn more, visit sportsmenscountry.org.

by: Nick Dobric

posted in:

June 30, 2016

There’d Be No Thrill in Drawing a Rare Tag Without Quality Habitat

On a once-in-a-lifetime hunt, this Wyoming couple had a revelation about the value of the backcountry

HuntersGlassing_JoshCoursey_web — Image courtesy of Josh Coursey.

Some lucky hunters just learned the draw results for coveted elk, deer, and antelope tags in Wyoming, but hope hasn’t been dashed for the rest of us. Wyoming locals don’t look at the draw as make-or-break for the season. The truth is that the over-the-counter tags available to any Wyoming resident still promise pretty incredible hunting.

As a friend told me recently, “I get to hunt big bulls and big bucks in the places I did as a kid. I can go hunt a legendary mule deer unit in western Wyoming. I drew nothing and I am stoked!” He’s not alone.

This embarrassment of riches defines hunting in Wyoming. And this is why the TRCP and our partners are working so hard to grow support for Backcountry Conservation Areas (BCAs), a new management tool the Bureau of Land Management can use to protect essential areas of intact and undeveloped fish and wildlife habitat. By implementing BCAs and placing a strong emphasis on restoration to address modern management challenges, the BLM can ensure that all who visit these lands can experience a quality hunt, today and well into the future—no matter their luck in the lottery.

This is of special concern for the public lands around Rock Springs, where the BLM is revising plans that will affect the way these lands are managed for the next 20 years. It’s home to Unit 101—an area recently featured as one of Guy Eastman’s top five Wyoming deer hunts—where only a handful of mule deer tags are in such steep demand, there’s only a two-percent chance of drawing.

Patricia Hettick of Laramie, WY., beat those odds a few years ago, and she and her husband Buzz enjoyed a limited-quota, once-in-a-lifetime hunting experience in a unique area of our state. I asked Buzz to tell the tale, which illustrates just what’s at stake in Wyoming’s backcountry:

Right off the bat, we glassed up the big buck we had seen while scouting the night before. But, after several close calls, that buck walked into the vastness of the Red Desert, and out of our lives forever. Several days later, Pat connected on a great buck, but, for both of us, what we found out in the Red Desert was more than just a successful hunt. We had an opportunity to spend time in perhaps one of the most unique landscapes in Wyoming. At first blush, the landscape looks rather desolate, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is alive with all kinds of wildlife. We observed sage grouse, golden eagles, and prairie falcons. Nearly every day we saw large bull elk, multiple mule deer bucks, and dozens of pronghorns. We also saw coyotes, bobcats, badgers, and swift foxes.

The one constant on this hunt was that the areas that held the most wildlife were the areas that contained the least amount of development and roads. The remaining areas in the Red Desert that are somewhat free of development, need to be retained and afforded some kind of protection from further development. We owe it to future generations to enjoy the Red Desert, as it truly is one-of-a-kind.

RifesRimBuck_BuzzHettick_web — Image courtesy of Buzz Hettick.

The areas like Rifes Rim of Unit 101 where these wildlife are healthy are exactly what we all need to work to protect through Backcountry Conservation Areas. Luckily, the BLM’s planning process is a public one, and the TRCP has made it easy to get involved: Click here to make your voice heard today to secure the future of some of our greatest hunting opportunities in Wyoming.

Give yourself a reason to keep putting in for those tags. There’s no thrill of the draw without quality habitat to produce big bucks.

by: Mia Sheppard

posted in:

June 29, 2016

We All Benefit From Public Access, But Are You Willing to Step Up to Defend It?

The loss of a popular public access point hits home for our Oregon field rep, but luckily this story doesn’t end with a locked gate

At the TRCP, we’re always talking about the importance of sportsmen’s access to the strength of our outdoor recreation economy and the funding that eventually goes back into conservation. Access is a galvanizing issue for so many hunters and anglers because it’s tangible—it’s how we get on the water. It’s where we take our kids hunting or where we harvested our first mule deer. These special places are fully formed in our minds. They’re places that we’d fight to protect and be heartbroken to lose.

If you ask me what’s at stake when I think of public access, I picture a river in central Oregon, where a solo float or walk along the ridges leaves you mesmerized by rim-rock canyons full of mule deer and bighorn sheep and smelling of juniper. It’s the third-longest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states, and while the river is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, much of it is surrounded by private land, limiting access to just a few spots. In fact, until a few years ago, there wasn’t a day-long float to be had in the lower 137 miles of the river.

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that a major point of access—one that I use regularly—was closed by the county and state park. They just put up a locked gate. It kicked me into high gear to find out what was happening and if I could do anything to reverse this shocking decision.

Luckily, these issues are of public concern, and the county commissioners held a public meeting to address the closure. Local sportsmen, ranchers, and other groups turned out in support of public access and shared why this particular put-in was so important to the community. One sportsman said, “I’ve been fishing this river for 30 years and this access point allows me to float the river in a day.” In the end, the county agreed that a plan needed to be put in place to make this access point a legal boat ramp, where anglers had some assurances that they wouldn’t arrive to find a locked gate. In the end, all local agencies agreed to temporarily open this ramp until a permanent solution could be implemented.

Leaving the room, I felt like we’d won a small victory, but I also recognized that my voice in the public process is more effective than I thought.

Yours is, too. We’re all busy—school’s out and our kids have camp and music lessons and we just want to get out on the river before sundown. But, from this experience and many others, I can’t stress enough how important it is for sportsmen to show up, and speak up, for our access to public lands and waters.

Anglers, hunters, boaters, and outfitters need these opportunities, and we all need quality habitat once we get out there. Without it, hunting and fishing can’t contribute to our rural economies, and our traditions could be in serious jeopardy. Just one access point or parcel of public land means countless jobs, dollars, and hours afield for sportsmen and women.

If just one of us speaks up for our way of life, why shouldn’t it be you? Let your voice be heard and speak up for sportsmen’s access on public lands.