Thin Forests Like We Fight Fires

Alan Aker's column in the Rapid City Journal today has some good ideas for thinning forests to stay ahead of these huge wildfires that are growing worse all the time:

It’s time to approach the problem the same way we approach forest fires.

First, don’t let budget limitations turn into limitations on timber thinning. Right now, the forest service asks Congress for a budgeted amount of money to fight forest fires and to thin timber. Even the expenses for preparing timber sales that make the government a profit have to fall within this budget for administering timber thinning. If costs for preparing timber sales and for noncommercial thinning of small trees exceed projections, or if Congress appropriates less than requested, the government simply does less timber thinning.

It works much differently for forest fires. If the cost of fighting forest fires is greater than what’s budgeted, do the firefighters pack up and go home and wait for Congress to appropriate more money? No, they fight the fire and fuss about the money later. So far, year after year, Congress has found the money. No firefighters have gone unpaid.

It could work the same for timber thinning. Each month or each quarter, the forest service could evaluate how many acres of timber were actually thinned. If the goal is to thin 50,000 acres a year in the Black Hills (and it should be), we’d better have 12,500 new acres under contract by April 1 and 25,000 new acres under contract by July 1 and 37,500 acres by October 1.

Alan works in the timber industry and has a number of good ideas in this column.