On 9/5/96 Andrew Monk writes: > > Dear Bret: > > I'm not convinced that the real power behind the fire management practices > you mentioned lies with industry, but rather with voters who don't want > their houses to burn down. > > Andrew Monk > While this is certainly part of the equation, I think an over all examination of the way the federal government got started in fighting forest fires reveals that the industrys pleas to protect valuable timber played a far greater role in fire supression policy than voter's fears, if for nothing else because at the time the Forest Service first started fighting fires there simply were not that many people living in fire interface areas. This has obviously changed over the past 75 years, but even today a large percentage of forest fire fighting activities take place in remote areas where structure fires are not a risk. Until the late 1940's the timber industry begged the federal government to not offer federal timber for sale so as to limit the available supply and increase the value of private timber, but they still wanted us to foot the bill for fire protection because one day they knew that they would have cut all of their own timber, and they wanted to be sure that as much federal timber was available when they were ready to exploit our national forests. Now they mine our forests at below cost, and we still foot the bill for fire protection; which ironically is the primary cause for the fires we have today. Bret Diamond Oregon, USA
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