Walden on Wildfires

Representative Greg Walden (R-Hood River) recently spoke on KEX's The Mark Mason Show about his efforts and thoughts regarding wildfire prevention."These fires have become an enormous business, they are enormously expensive to taxpayers, they are deadly to people, and we shouldn't have the worst air quality short of Beijing, literally, every summer."

He then discussed what can be done to prevent these fires. First, he highlighted the need for partnership between local fire officials and the Office of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service.

Walden went on, "Second, we did pass some legislation in the Farm Bill that's given our Forest Service and BLM new tools to manage the forests, but third we need to pass the forest resiliency bill (the Resilient Federal Forest Act) which would allow us to go in after the fires, clean up the mess, plant a new forest quicker."

He continued, "I really believe that it works well in private land, county land, state land, we go in quickly, tribal land, and cut the burned dead trees where appropriate, while they still have value, and then you replant. On federal forest land, it is just not happening. Roadside clear, hazard trees get taken out and then virtually the rest is left standing until it falls and then it burns again in the next fire and destroys the soils even more. So, there is more work, legislatively, I think we need to do, but we are making some progress."