Sierra Club Sweating AZ Fires! (my title)
We should all work together promote healthy forest management and encourage the Forest Service to invest in fire prevention through thinning the forests near communities, where these activities will do the most good. With scarce dollars and millions of acres of smaller dense trees, the top priority should be to focus on thinning forests closest to communities (within 1/2 mile of structures, according to the experts) and on homeowners clearing away brush and wood from next to their houses and freeing their roofs of twigs and needles.
Very few forest thinning projects have been appealed, let alone litigated. Nearly a year ago the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, looked at all 1,671 Forest Service fire prevention projects on the national forests and found that
only 20 had been challenged by industry, recreation, individual or environmental interests. WRONG
Only one was in Arizona near Flagstaff, and all the parties reached a compromise. The Forest Service is simply not being stalled on fire prevention by citizen groups; their controversies come from continuing to log the few remaining fire resistant, old growth trees for timber sales.Please take a moment to write and let your voice be heard. Don't forget to keep your letters brief (200 words or less is best) and be sure to include your name, address and a daytime phone number. Thank you!