Interior’s Zinke blames environmentalists for California wildfires
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke said yesterday that the deadliest wildfires in California’s history were partly due to lawsuits from environmentalists who have sought to stop forest management practices, such as forest thinning.
“Radical environmental groups that would rather burn down the entire forest than cut a single tree or thin the forest,” have brought lawsuits to stop forest management, Zinke told reporters in a teleconference about the California wildfires. “Yes, I do lay it on the feet,” of environmentalists, he said.
Remains of 79 victims have so far been recovered since the Camp Fire erupted on Nov. 8 and largely obliterated the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people.
Zinke did not name specific groups, saying he did not want to finger point. He said other factors, such as hotter temperatures, historic drought conditions, and plenty of dead and dying trees also were also to blame.
Randi Spivak, lands director for the Center of Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has sued the government over forest practices, said there have been just 38 lawsuits over the federal government’s 576 forest management decisions involving California from 2009 to 2017.
“When Zinke says it is due to extreme environmentalists he has no basis in fact,” Spivak said. She said climate change and increased development of forest zones prone to wildfires caused the destruction.
Zinke first blamed environmentalists in an interview on Breitbart News after visiting communities hit by the California wildfires.