Western Govs Make Fire Pact with Clinton Administration

S A L T  L A K E  C I T Y, Sept. 19 -- Six Western governors have forged apolitical truce with the Clinton administration that could resultin an additional $1.6 billion spent on fire relief for the West.

The governors of Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and SouthDakota set aside their differences with the administration overlogging and road-building restrictions on national forests during ameeting Monday in Salt Lake City.

‘A Season from Hell’

The Clinton administration earlier this summer proposed spending$1.2 billion on firefighting, nearly half of which would replenishfederal fire suppression funds. Other funds were earmarked forrestoring burned lands and protecting watersheds.

But the governors said they will present a united front withInterior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Agriculture Secretary DanGlickman on a plan to lobby Congress for $1.6 billion more — makinga total of $2.8 billion — to help the West recover from whatBabbitt called the worst fire season since 1910.

“This fire season has just been a season from hell,” Glickmansaid.

More than half the additional funds requested is needed to repaymoney already allocated for firefighting this season, leaving about$700 million for the states to implement their own preventionplans.

Long-Term Plan

The governors also agreed to work on a long-term strategy toreduce the dangers of fast-spreading wildfires.

Many of the summer’s wildfires — 31 major blazes were stillburning across nine states Monday — have raged on federal lands.Western governors have long been critical of federal management ofrange and forest lands. Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne complainedMonday of “too much command-and-control from Washington, D.C.”usurping forest supervisors.

Babbitt conceded that a policy of trying to extinguish evenminor wildfires had allowed dangerous levels of underbrush toaccumulate with catastrophic results: More than 6.76 million acresof land have burned this year across 11 states.