Coming to a Forest Near You

By The Oregonian Editorial Board

June 19, 2011

The Oregonian

Arizona is burning, aerial tankers are aging and crowded Western forests are dying

Give thanks to Oregon's lousy weather. Yes, it's canceled a thousand Little League games and dripped on countless picnics, outdoor weddings and graduation events.

But at least the state isn't on fire. Yet.

Across the Southwest, the fire season is here and now. The Willow fire, already the largest blaze in Arizona history, has torched a half million acres and firefighters still haven't stopped the fire's massive 30-mile-long front. Wildfires already have consumed more than 4 million acres of Southwest forests. And it is only mid June.

The Northwest and Rocky Mountain states are safe for now, with many forests still blanketed with heavier than usual winter snows. And with late-spring rains still moving across the Cascades, there's every reason to hope this will be a mild fire year in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. But the region must not get complacent; millions of acres of its forests are overstocked, weakened by previous drought and sickened by disease. A couple of long hot months and a lot of forests in Eastern Oregon would be Arizona-ready.

That explains why Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and other Western lawmakers made things warm for U.S. Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell during a recent Senate hearing. Wyden criticized the Forest Service for moving so very slowly to replace its aging fleet of aerial tankers and for proposing to spend less money on forest thinning and fire prevention in the coming year even though vast tracts of public forests are badly in need of treatment.

It's surely fair to blast the agency for the years-long delay in replacing the aerial tankers, most of which are nearly 50 years old. The agency now has only 19 tankers in service; it must contract out for other aerial firefighting help. The rest of its tanker fleet, which numbered 44 planes in 2004, has been grounded for safety problems. And an inspector general asserted in 2009 that "by 2012 the remaining 19 tankers will be either too expensive to maintain or no longer airworthy."

It's inconceivable that the Forest Service would find itself with no aerial tankers. They are essential to the fire protection umbrella that protects Western forest communities. Yet as Wyden noted, it's taken "the longest running battle since the Trojan War" to get the Forest Service to update its tanker fleet. The agency must settle on a tanker replacement plan, and soon.

If the criticism over the tankers was on target, it was a little rich to hear members of Congress pound on Tidwell for the agency's failure to press for more money to pay for treating overstocked, fireprone Western forests. After all, it's Congress that has the final word on the agency's budget -- and which in the past has made the shortsighted decision to require the Forest Service to rob all of its spending accounts, including hazardous fuels treatment, to help pay for firefighting costs.

It's also Congress that has yet to take action on proposed legislation negotiated by Wyden, environmental groups and the timber industry that would expedite large-scale forest health projects in exchange for old-growth protections. If Western lawmakers want the Forest Service to get moving thinning forests and protecting them from the kind of catastrophic wildfire now racing across Arizona, they ought to pass the Wyden forest bill, not just thump on the chief of the Forest Service.