Wildfire Update

Wildfire committee Says Promises Not Kept Three years after Western governors and the Bush administration agreed on a plan to reduce wildfire danger, money is still lacking and the partnership between the federal government and state and local agencies isn't working well. A report by the Western Governors' Association advisory committee was sent to the secretaries of agriculture and interior Thursday outlining how the 10-year wildfire plan is going. ``The central message of the report is that the federal government talks the talk on collaboration, but doesn't walk the walk,'' said Niel Lawrence, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's forestry project and a member of the panel that wrote the report. The plan, approved in 2001, called for improved fire prevention and suppression, fuels reduction, a long-term strategy for restoring wildlife habitat and community involvement. While 75 percent of the plan's goals have been met or are close to it, emphasis on fuels reduction and fire prevention has come at the expense of restoration and getting help from communities, the report said.

I've been busy with non-blog things for the past week, and at the moment I'm too tired to say much, but I thought this story was worth noting.