Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Politicians Yell “Fire” in Arizona

Finger Pointing for Wallow Fire Starts Before the Smoke Clears
Contact: Bryan Bird (505) 988-9126 x1157

Snowflake, AZ – Politicians in Arizona, including State Sen.Sylvia Allen, a Republican from Snowflake and State Representative BrendaBarton a Republican from Safford, have begun pointing fingers for the WallowFire in Arizona. The culprits: Environmentalists and federal forest policy.However, weather and drought conditions are the responsible parties.

“Either these politicians are badlyinformed or they are intentionally misleading Americans.” Said Bryan Bird an ecologistwith WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, NM. “Its shameful to play fear politicswhen people are suffering and fleeing the flames.”

New Mexico and parts of Arizona are experiencing the worstdrought conditions in recorded history and combined with windy, spring weather,extreme wildfires are predictable. It is unlikely that thinning or otherfederal forest policy changes can prevent catastrophic fires in theseconditions. The most people can do is get out of the way.

“Under these historic droughtconditions and windy weather, catastrophic fire is to expected and all peoplecan do is get out of the way.” Said Bird. “Thinning only changes fire behaviorunder certain conditions, we arefar outside the range of those circumstances, and answering for a century ofunsustainable logging in the West.”

A century of unsustainable logging and overgrazing combinedwith historic drought has left the native forests of the Southwest vulnerableto catastrophic fire. The dry pine forests evolved with fires of every severityfrom low to very high: fire to these forests is what rain is to a rainforest.The proper response, once the smoke clears, is to reconsider zoning laws andinsurance policies for structures in fire-prone areas.

“Logging is not the answer to thefires, but rather demanding changes in construction zoning and insurancepolicies in fire-prone areas of the West,” Said Bird. “If counties are going toallow residential development where fires are easily predictable, perhaps theyshould burden the exorbitant costs of fire fighting rather than the federalgovernment. What ever happened to personal responsibility?”

Representative Barton claims spotted owls will have no whereto nest, but in fact, fire is what creates the habitat that spotted owls aremost successful in. The patchy forest landscape with meadows after fires iswhere the prey of the owl is most abundant.