Bush to survey fire damage in push for forest thinning

CRAWFORD, Texas — President Bush surveys a fire-ravaged community in Arizona today as part of a push to get the Senate to approve steps aimed at preventing catastrophic wildfires.

Bush's helicopter-and-hiking tour of the devastation left behind by fire in mountainous Summerhaven, Ariz., near Tucson, is also meant to illustrate what he says his proposals can help save.

The preventive forest thinning Bush is trying to accelerate helped ensure the survival of $2 billion in telecom- munications equipment, camps owned by churches and Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups and two mountain observatories, said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

"When you don't do (thinning), you get moonscapes with matchsticks," Connaughton said in a telephone interview Sunday. "When you do the work right, you get thriving, natural forest that's got a nice, wide canopy."

Bush proposed his "Healthy Forests" initiative last year, and has implemented portions of it through new government rules.

They no longer require environmental studies before trees are logged or burned to prevent forest fires. The rules also limit appeals of such projects.

The House passed a bill that calls for aggressive logging on up to 20 million acres of federal land at high risk of fire. It would eliminate some environmental reviews and limit appeals on overgrown woodlands so forest projects could be completed within months.

The Aspen fire that charred Summerhaven burned 84,750 acres and destroyed more than 330 homes, cabins and other buildings last month.

Another fire at Summerhaven in June 2002 was among the wildfires across the country last year that scorched nearly 7 million acres, killed 23 firefighters, destroyed hundreds of homes and cost taxpayers more than $1.5 billion.

The Forest Service and Interior Department estimate 190 million acres are at risk for catastrophic fire — an area nearly the size of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana combined.

Environmental groups say the Healthy Forests plan will make it easier for logging companies to cut down trees in national forests and will limit the public's input in forest management decisions.

The previous rules required environmental studies for nearly every logging project.