Are environmental policies affecting wildfires?

In today's polarized political climate, some will blame environmental laws for severe wildfires. However, more convincing explanations can be found elsewhere. If we truly seek to limit wildfires and their harsh consequences, we need to understand those other causes and design multifaceted and realistic solutions.

Michael E. Kraft is the Herbert Fisk Johnson professor emeritus of public and environmental affairs and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

No: Home construction, climate change near forests are causes

By David A. Ridenour

WASHINGTON — If President Barack Obama was serious about saving and creating jobs, he would have done something to save the jobs at Aero Union.

He didn't lift a finger. In fact, he pulled the trigger, killing the air tanker firm and making Colorado's Waldo Canyon fire worse in the process.

More than 18,000 acres of forest were destroyed; 350 homes were raised; septuagenarians William and Barbara Everett were killed; and area streams were polluted by fire-related ash, debris and soil run-off

Last year, the U.S. Forest Service abruptly cancelled its contract for six of Aero Union's air tankers. This left the Forest Service short of tankers just as last year's fire season was getting under way. Only a few weeks later, fires swept through Texas burning 100,000 acres and leaving four dead.

The administration apparently learned nothing from the tragedy. In the intervening year, it did little to address its tanker shortage, and Colorado paid the price for it. The administration says it cancelled the contract due to aircraft safety concerns. That doesn't explain why it dithered in replacing the aircraft. But something else may: President Obama's allegiance to his green allies.

Environmentalists have long opposed the use of slurry, the fire retardant dropped from air tankers, due to its potential for polluting streams.

Following an accidental drop of slurry into Oregon's Fall River in 2002 and a subsequent environmentalist lawsuit, the Forest Service issued new rules barring drops of retardants within 300 feet of waterways except when fire threatens human life and property.

Make no mistake: The rule inhibits firefighters' ability to control blazes. Think about a football defensive line that isn't allowed to do anything until the opposing team reaches the five-yard line and you get the idea.

Now the agency is implementing even more stringent regulations prohibiting drops within 600 feet of waterways. Little wonder it was in no hurry to line up replacement tankers.

Hampering fire control efforts is only one way federal policy driven by greens contributes to wildfires.

One of the main culprits for the Colorado fires is believed to be pine beetles. The beetles carry a blue stain fungus that pulls moisture from trees. In sufficient numbers, these insects can cause whole forests to die of dehydration, creating a tinderbox.

What forests are most susceptible to beetle infestations? According to the Forest Service, they are forests with "large-diameter trees and dense stands." Environmentalists have blocked logging operations that could thin these stands at every turn.

In 2003, the General Accounting Office estimated that 190 million acres of federal land were at high risk of wildfire due to "excess fuels buildup in forests."

Environmentalists claim that our federal fire suppression efforts are responsible for much of the fuel buildup and they aren't entirely wrong.

Thanks partly to effective suppression methods, the average number of acres burned annually dropped from 38 million acres in the 1930s to about 3 million acres in the 1980s. By the 1990s, wildfires started to increase again and in the last decade claimed an average of 6.9 million acres annually.