A federal appellate court has chosen a rather poor time to weigh in on this question (emphasis added).
Court stricter on fire controlWell, in fairness, several areas won't have to worry about it, since there's no brush left. Or houses. Posted by Ken S at December 6, 2007 05:25 AM | TrackBack (0) |
Environmental OK needed to clear brush near urban areas.By Denny Walsh
In a decision that affects all national forests, a federal appellate court ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Forest Service cannot cut brush and use controlled burns to reduce the risk of wildfires in and near urban areas unless it first performs a detailed assessment of the environmental impact.
The ruling, which reversed a 2005 decision by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. of Sacramento, comes after a devastating fire season that included the destruction of more than 250 homes in the South Lake Tahoe area and a series of Southern California firestorms that displaced hundreds of thousands of residents.
Environmentalists hailed the ruling, saying it halts part of the Bush administration's "Healthy Forests" initiative and what they see as unchecked logging in national forests.
But even one of the federal judges who concurred with the ruling questioned whether the net result would be years of delay before real efforts can be made to protect residents near national forests from wildland fires.
The decision requires Burrell to issue an injunction against the Forest Service that will apply to all 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands halting much of the efforts to use controlled burns and brush clearing to prevent future wildfires.