[meenie]

The prescribed burn is but one option to be utilized when all other options are impractical. Cattle grazing cleans up a lot of the trash that builds up on the forest floor. Logging will thin out the most of the thick stands that cause the biggest burns.

These are the two most economic means to get a return on the Federal investment as well as furnish lumber for the consuming public.

The officials on the public lands have discouraged any public use for the simple reason it makes their jobs harder. They can draw a salary by setting on their posterior without public involvement. In a case that I am familiar with, there is a force of 108 employees overseeing a total of 87,000 acres with no timber sales and a small amount of grazing.

[Eva]

I just returned from Arizona and I have to tell you that the Environmentalists are getting the blame for the the out of control fires that blackened so many acres. The leftist enviro group that we have been reading about on F.R., that rants about a sustainable environment, filed a legal suit which has halted all logging, thinning, etc. for the past three years.

In addition to the environmentalists, we again have the nimby who object to controlled burns.

It's interesting to note that CNN did a piece on the Indian firefighters in the area and claimed that they did all their own firefighting on their land with no help from the outside. It looks like they start their own fires also.