Hurricanes distract us from wildfire problem

Earlier this month, standing on a hill overlooking the Columbia River, the view was stunning. But not in the usual way. Water was barely visible through the smoke of the Eagle Creek Fire then decimating 30,000 acres. Ash floated in the air like gray snow.

As Americans monitor television reports on Hurricane Maria, there’s little attention left for the fires across 10 Western states. The smell of fire burning over

8 million acres permeates our region more than ever in our lifetimes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Since weather patterns fueling wildfires and hurricanes typically occur in summer and early fall, hurricanes and fires often devastate simultaneously. Hurricanes grab the attention when they hit heavily populated Eastern coastlines. Life and private property losses are exponentially worse. That explains why hurricanes receive special federal disaster relief from wide-ranging state, local, individual and business assistance programs.

Congress authorized about

$120 billion in extra spending for Hurricane Katrina and $50 billion for Sandy. Harvey and Irma will likely be similar. The entire

2016 budget for the U.S. Forest Service was $7.1 billion. More than half went to fight wildfires. In bad years, like this one, the service must move funds from other operating accounts to fight fire. It’s a practice called “fire borrowing ” that, ironically, depletes accounts for forest management that could actually reduce catastrophic wildfire if scientifically based forest management practices were implemented.

We could reduce catastrophic fire risk and grow healthy, resilient forests. Our woodlands aren’t really “natural” now. Pioneers saw fewer, more widely spaced older trees with thicker, more fire-retardant bark. Woodlands then had open “crowns” (space between treetops). As a result, they were less vulnerable. Fires stayed on the ground burning under the branches.

But we’ve reshaped that landscape. Through old logging methods and a Smokey Bear approach to preventing fires, we’ve covered the land with small, tightly packed trees with continuous “fuel ladders.” Fire now climbs from ground level, up bushes to low branches to crown tops. Slow-moving ground fires leap into the crown where fast moving flames decimate forests faster than anything can be done.

We can adopt management practices to replicate the pre-pioneer forest, what managers call “restoration silviculture.” The approach is well understood, and leading forestry scientists largely agree, but federal rules stand in the way. Ask agency leaders. They know they could be doing better.

One of us has introduced legislation to get that started. Wildfire costs economically and environmentally, but it has fallen below our radar as hurricanes dominate the news. How many more ever bigger fire years must we endure before we change?

Ken Fisher, founder of Fisher Investments, originally attended Humboldt State University to study forestry. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., is the only member of Congress with a career and graduate degree in forestry.