Letters: Fix Our Forests disguises logging as fire safety

"The Fix Our Forests Act isn't about environmental safety; rather, it is a blatant attempt at expanding the logging industry under the cover of wildfire prevention. Congress is rushing to pass a bill that dramatically expands backcountry logging while weakening environmental review and public input, allowing projects up to 15 square miles to bypass the National Environmental Policy Act. Decades of research shows that logging can actually increase fire severity by leaving behind flammable debris and drying forest microclimates."

"Chad Hanson suggests that implementing the federal Fix Our Forests Act will increase the threat of wildfire to communities. In reality, this act will reduce wildfire threat to communities by facilitating forest thinning and strategic deployment of prescribed fire. Over a century of successful fire suppression across the landscape has allowed far too much vegetation (trees, brush) to accumulate. These overcrowded conditions represent an extreme wildfire threat. The act seeks to accelerate the treatment of unnaturally dense forests."

One letter asserts that the Fix Our Forests Act masks an industry expansion by dramatically increasing backcountry logging, weakening environmental review and bypassing public input for projects up to 15 square miles. That letter warns that logging can increase fire severity by leaving flammable debris and drying forest microclimates, ignores proven community protection strategies like home hardening, defensible space and evacuation planning, and reduces scientific and judicial oversight while risking harm to watersheds, wildlife habitat and recreation. A counter letter contends the act will reduce wildfire threat by accelerating thinning and prescribed fire to treat unnaturally dense forests produced by prolonged fire suppression.

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