Western Govs Make Fire Pact with Clinton Administration

S A L T  L A K E  C I T Y, Sept. 19, 2000 -- 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.

More prescribed burns, Babbitt said, could contain the threat ofuncontrollable fires, like the blaze that resulted in May at LosAlamos, N.M., where 47,000 acres were scorched and more than 400families were left homeless.

“We need to get in the forest to thin out the dog-hair pinesthat have created this hugely explosive log forest, where the fireladders up and explodes into the crests of trees,” Babbitt said.“We have to get the gasoline rags out, get the forest thinned outto the point where fire will lay down, stay on the ground.”

‘A Historic Day’

The group also was “lockstep in solid agreement” on wider useof prescribed burns, South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow said.

“It may be a very historic day for the West with respect tofire management,” said Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who hosted Monday’shour-long private meeting in the state mansion.

According to him, Babbitt and Glickman quickly agreed toreimburse Western states for fighting fires on federal lands. Theadditional funds requested would require congressional approval.

After the meeting, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber emerged with abruised, swollen eye, but his colleagues joked the wound wasn’tinflicted inside.

Kitzhaber — the only Democrat among the governors — got knockedby an oar on a rafting trip last week in Oregon.