The growing threat of devastating wildfires in the West and the frustration with federal and state agencies’ fire-fighting policies has led to establishment of many local and county fire-fighting organizations, in spite of the fact that federal regulations often prohibit private citizens from attempting to fight fire on public lands.
There may be some hope for more flexibility, however, at least in some regions. Bill Wilbur, a rancher in eastern Oregon, says a growing number of rural fire protection associations in his region have done a good job of stopping fires before they get out of hand.
This is vastly different from the federal (and in some cases state) agencies that have a “let burn” policy and don’t try to put out fires unless they encroach on private property—and by then it’s often too late to control the fire or takes more time and money to try to contain it.
“I am encouraged that some of the folks in Washington D.C. are finally figuring out that local people—who are there on the ground every day—should be able to have the first chance at stopping a fire. Local folks should not be shackled with a bunch of inappropriate regulations,” Wilbur said. Those regulations reduce the chance to halt fires while they are still fairly easy to control.
“In southeastern Oregon the growth of local organizations to fight fires has been tremendous and they are getting good equipment to do it—including radios, to be able to communicate. This enhancement has made them much more effective,” said Wilbur.
The local people are right there, and also more eager to try to stop fires because they have more at stake. It’s their lives and livelihoods on the line; they have more incentive to fight a fire that might destroy or damage their farms/ranches/ranges or communities.
“If they can be allowed more free rein to do this, we can save taxpayers billions of dollars by controlling small fires before they become large and damaging,” said Wilbur.
These local associations have had good training. “In our area they also have a good interface with the BLM, who at least in southeast Oregon has been very cooperative and eager to help. It’s a leg up against catastrophic events of the future.” — Heather Smith Thomas, WLJ correspondent
