Office of the Secretary

For Immediate Release: March 31, 1998

Contact: Jamie Workman or
Joan Anzelmo (202) 208-6416 and (208) 387-5457

Babbitt, Firefighters Mark Overhaul of Wildland Fire
Gearing up for fifth year after tragic fire season, Interior Secretary returns to Boise

As immortalized in Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire fifty years ago, planeloads of elite wildland smokejumpers soar over the Rockies, step into the air, and parachute back to earth, prepared for anything, miles from the nearest road. Only now work just got more complex.

For this year, under a new federal policy, they may start as many fires as they suppress.

In a dry, La Nina Spring, Babbitt joins jumpers and officials at Boise's National Interagency Fire Center on Thursday, April 1, to mark the complete overhaul of wildland fire operations that are safer, healthier, less costly and destructive for firefighters, taxpayers and natural landscapes alike.

Specifically, he calls attention to federal results of: 1) dramatically increasing the number and size of prescribed fires (+172 percent), agency-by-agency, state-by-state; 2) aggressively thinning small trees in forests choked with fuel, even in Parks; 3) carefully reducing excess smoke through fuels management plans just completed with the EPA Air Quality Planning & Standards office.

"Five years ago, on this jetway, I heard very bad news. Fourteen firefighters were missing and believed dead from an extreme fire that blew up near Grand Junction, Colorado. Soon I spoke with the grieving families. They all felt what one said specifically: 'I hope that you are going to change things to make sure this doesn't happen again.' I promised we would change what we must."

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Babbitt cleared the table. They questioned everything. They set out under the Federal Wildland Fire Policy and Program Review to find ways to work safer, work smarter, work closer together with states, counties, contractors and each other. They forged steady partnerships and charted a clear new scientific course in fire management. In the process, they confirmed what many on the ground had long suspected:

Fire is natural. Suppressing fire builds up fuel. That fuel load means wildland fires now burn several hundred degrees hotter, twenty-one times bigger, and spread many seconds faster, growing ever more lethal, destructive and expensive to fight. In the 1970s we spent millions each year to put out wildfires. A few years ago we spent over a billion. It was time for an overhaul.

"This season may be intense," said Babbitt. "But we cannot simply blame La Nina for the recurring nightmare western cities face each summer. Over this century our presence on the land -- grazing, logging old growth, development of homes in fire prone zones, and, above all, fire suppression -- has triggered a sequence of changes that only worsens the crisis. To defuse fires, we had to de-fuel them; we had to integrate and internalize fire operations into annual land management decisions, and use progressive grazing, thinning, building codes and fire to restore healthy flames."

That overhaul didn't just happen on its own. It wasn't simple. It took courage and cooperation. But after hard work a new attitude -- toward fighting fire with fire -- is well underway:

1) A worried Flagstaff fire district chief last month asked the Forest Service to conduct a prescribed fire, and they did, with the desired results.

2) 'Fireproofing' a forest by thinning out small dense undergrowth, as planned in Grand Canyon National Park, was controversial, but moved forward, armed with science.

3) A new EPA report: "Where there is fire, there is smoke, and smoke pollutes our air. As land managers increase prescribed burning on our nation's wildland, areas affected by the smoke must still meet the federal air quality standards. Federal, State, Tribal land and air quality managers are working in partnership to reconcile these seemingly contrasting goals: healthier wildland ecosystems through the increased use of prescribed fire and cleaner air(www.epa.gov/airlinks/)."

Is it working? Consider these numbers:

Before 1994, USFS managers in Montana burned less than 10,000 acres a year. In 1999, they will burn 75,000 acres, and by 2001 more than 100,000 acres.

Or consider how last year, firefighters fought wildfires that burned 12,000 acres of BLM land in Montana. Next year, fire managers plan to set fire to treat 14,000 BLM acres in Montana.

Collectively, the five federal wildland firefighting agencies plan to treat 2.3 million acres, nearly a threefold or 172 percent increase over the 10-year average.

One graphic measure of progress is that Boise's crew of 66 Smokejumpers now market themselves to fire managers in all agencies to help start fires, to reduce dangerous and dense fuels. Smokejumpers once furloughed for the winter stayed on to complete these projects.

This spring they plan to assist with 20 separate projects in seven western states, ranging from prescribed burns to mechanical treatments and prepping areas for hazardous fuels reductions with BLM, NPS, BIA, USFWS and the USFS. "We know what the forests need, and why, and how to get there. We take a project from start to finish, allowing managers to concentrate valuable time on other assignments," said Sean Cross, Boise Smokejumper Manager.

Nor is this merely a western development. In the Southern US Region, 10,000 unwanted wildfires have been controlled after burning just 117,000 acres, while 700 restorative, prescribed burns have treated 544,000 acres.

Beyond healthier landscapes and safer firefighters: taxpayers benefit. Conducting prescribed fires typically costs about $30 per acres, but can range from $5 to $70 depending on the size of the fire, the type of material burned, and the proximity to buildings. In contrast, suppressing wildland fires costs about $700 per acre, but can range from $500 to $1,600 per acre depending on severity.

Who: Interior Secretary Babbitt, NIFC officials, Boise Smokejumpers

What: "Fulfilling the Promise" event to mark overhaul of fire policy.

When: 10 a.m., Thursday, April 1, 1999

Where: National Interagency Fire Center, by Airport, Smokejumper Loft, Boise

How: Briefings, remarks, state by state and agency breakdowns of changes, impact

Why: Healthier landscapes, safer firefighting, savings for taxpayers

--DOI--

U.S. Department of the Interior