Dear HCN,
With
veiled amusement I read Louise Wagenknecht’s essay, “The year it
rained money,” (HCN, 5/7/01: The year it rained money). You did it
now, Louise. The cat’s out of the bag. Heaven forbid the American
public should understand what those of us in the fire-suppression
game have known forever, but do not like to admit. That wildfire
management is driven by lots of people making and spending lots of
money.
I was also on last summer’s Clear Creek
fire near Salmon. For 30 days I made many of the same observations.
The hundreds of rental vehicles, the Renaissance Festival-scale
fire camp, the hordes of heavy machinery, the air force of
helicopters.
Did you know that we were spending
nearly a quarter million dollars per day to fly those ships into
smoke so thick that the pilots couldn’t even see what they were
dropping the million gallons of retardant on? No wonder a little
got into the creeks. And the Napias Creek (Salmon’s water supply)
fire break. From the air it reminded me of pictures of the Great
Wall of China, how it danced from peak to peak far into the
distance. I wonder how it looked from the space shuttle. Never mind
that even if the fire had run that last 15 miles to the break, that
the flames wouldn’t have even blinked as they blew through.
The mills in the area must have done well from
that Salmon National Forest tactic. They must have pulled a million
board-feet out of there. For that matter, the whole town of Salmon
must have done well last summer, restaurants, bars and hotels full
of “gov’ment” every night. I’m waiting for numbers from the Chamber
of Commerce. Ironic for a town that sports quite a large number of
anti-government bumper stickers.
So, why all the
money thrown at flames of a scale that only the first snow could
knock down? Don’t flatter yourself, Louise, it’s not because of the
thousands of seasonal employees caching the crumbs for winter. It’s
not because of the mid-level permanents, who, contrary to your
assertion, are usually more than willing to be called out on fires
if their unit managers will let go of them (they have kids to feed
and mortgages to pay, too).
Here’s why. Politics.
What do you expect an incident commander to do when the likes of
Sen. Crapo (R-Idaho) and Rep. Simpson (R-Idaho) are standing around
fire camp, pacing the knapweed floor and demanding action? If they
are not personally on the Forest Service’s budget committee, then
the senator and congressman are likely friends of someone who is.
Being the good company man, do you think the IC is going to chintzy
on the aircraft? Heck, even if all the firefighters and their toys
are not effective, at least the “appearance” is that you are
responding. As you suggest, “get something done, and do it now,” is
what the incident team hears.
Fire managers
across the West hear the same thing every year. Worry about the
price, money and environmental damage later. As one incident
commander from the Rockies said after Los Alamos burned, “Every
fire this year is going to be a political fire.” And until the
politicians let the natural-resource professionals do their jobs in
ways that are good for the land, rather than just the special
interests, expect more of the same.
Mark De Gregorio
Masonville,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Smokey’s secret is out.
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