Latest news with #ForestService
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Humans caused thousands of Arizona acreage to burn in spring. Feds now seek to prosecute
Federal officials are seeking prosecutions for four human-caused wildfires that burned through southeastern Arizona this spring, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Human activity started the Redington Fire (Pima County), Stronghold Fire (Cochise County), Cody Fire (Pinal County), and Jacobson Fire (Graham County), which burned a combined 3,406 acres and at least 18 structures, according to Forest Service announcements. All those fires are now under control by firefighters or extinguished. Law enforcement agencies have not announced any action against the individuals suspected of being responsible as of June 11, and federal officials stated that their investigations are still ongoing. The Pinal County Sheriff's Department has cited one individual, 67-year-old David Lindley, for allegedly starting the Cedar Fire, which burned 10 acres near Oracle in Pima County on May 20. Lindley was charged with reckless burning, a state misdemeanor, on the same day the fire started. A sheriff's department spokesperson said it was unclear exactly how Lindley started the fire. A deputy responded to a call regarding a fire that was 'getting out of control quickly,' according to an incident report. When the deputy arrived, emergency fire and medical personnel were treating Lindley for dehydration. Lindley reportedly told the deputy that he was working a mining claim when he lit a cigarette and fell asleep, starting the fire. The deputy also heard from others on the scene that Lindley stated he had started the blaze as a 'signal fire' because he was stranded at the claim without water, though Lindley did not validate that statement. Lindley told the deputy he was working the claim with a friend, who left him alone without any water. Crews suppressed the resulting Cedar Fire throughout the afternoon, stopping its forward progress by that evening. The fire did not burn any structures. The most damaging of the human-caused spring fires was the Cody Fire, which consumed 1,223 acres southeast of Oracle in late May. The flames destroyed five homes and eight other structures. Residents of Oracle were evacuated for seven days while the fire burned. The Pinal County Sheriff's Department has not cited anyone in connection with that fire. All five fires were part of a larger rash of blazes that sparked in southeastern Arizona during the spring months. Lightning started two other blazes, the Parker Fire in Cochise County and the Ranch Fire in Santa Cruz County, during the spring. Federal and state lands in southeastern Arizona have been under stage 2 fire restrictions since May, meaning campfires, fireworks, smoking away from cleared areas, recreational shooting, and the use of gas-powered motors off established roads are prohibited. Arizona fire officials predicted in 2024 that human-caused fires could flare up this spring with hot and windy conditions and late precipitation. Humans start roughly 90% of the wildland fires in Arizona every year, according to the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management. The state of Arizona can charge thousands of dollars in fines for individuals who cause fires, even accidentally. Carelessly throwing cigarettes, working outside with metal tools, dragging trailer chains, driving off-road vehicles without shielded mufflers, discharging firearms, and other activities can all lead to wildfires. Individuals charged with reckless burning can also face up to six months in jail under Arizona law. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Federal officials investigating four human-caused wildfires in Arizona
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Map: These wild California forests could open to logging under Trump plan
The Trump administration is seeking to undo a 25-year-old rule that shields nearly a third of U.S. Forest Service lands from roads and logging, including large swaths of California, notably areas near Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and Giant Sequoia National Monument. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who announced the plan to rescind the 'roadless rule' this week, called the protections outdated, saying they were preventing responsible timber production and necessary wildfire prevention work. Conservation groups, however, shot back that the move would simply encourage destructive logging ventures in ecologically important areas. They pledged to fight the action as it winds through what promises to be a lengthy and litigious repeal process. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule covers about 59 million acres of Forest Service lands, mostly in Western states. The protections were initiated by President Bill Clinton to try to stop the encroachment of industry in some of the last untouched parts of national forests. Many have criticized the measure, though, as an end run on the Wilderness Act because it establishes safeguards similar to wilderness areas without getting congressional approval as required by the act. In California, 4.4 million acres across 20 national forests are protected by the rule, according to the Forest Service. It's nearly 5% of the state's total lands and includes stretches of such heavily visited forests as the Tahoe, Sequoia, Sierra, Stanislaus and Inyo. Many of the spots that are protected border wilderness areas and national parks. 'Most people think they're in wilderness when they step in,' said John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for healthy landscapes. 'People use them as gateways to go through to get to wilderness areas' and to parks. Buckley and others describe some of the protected lands as ecological hot spots where the development of roads and timber operations would fragment sensitive habitat, disrupt wildlife and pollute watersheds. 'It would be short-sighted and arrogant for the American people to support the unleashing of chainsaws and the bulldozing of new roads into the small percentage of our public lands that have managed to stay pristine, wild, roadless areas,' Buckley said. While enterprises such as oil drilling and mining aren't expressly prohibited under the roadless rule, the policy has served as a de facto ban because roads are required for such endeavors. Supporters of the rule say new roads would inevitably bring these commercial activities. Speaking this week at a meeting of the Western Governors' Association, Secretary Rollins said not building roads into these areas is worse. It prevents the Forest Service from ensuring that important firefighting and fire mitigation work is done, she said. She also said it stifles economic development, which is at odds with President Trump's many executive orders calling for greater resource extraction on federal lands. 'This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation's forests,' Rollins said. 'It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land.' The timber trade widely welcomed the proposed rollback, though opening new public lands for private logging is no guarantee of increased timber production. Building roads into these areas will be costly. Under the Trump administration, the Forest Service has cut the staffing that helps plan and oversee logging contracts. The timber industry, especially in California, has lost capacity to harvest wood. Matt Dias, president and CEO of the California Forestry Association, said foresters would be happy to have more opportunities to work with the federal government on projects that can increase forest health and fire safety. 'We are very pleased that they're considering rolling back this particular policy, if it will help us get to where we want to be,' he said. The announcement of the repeal kicks off an administrative process that requires a technical review of what the impact would be as well as inviting public comment. This could take months, a year or even longer. If the rule is changed or eliminated, litigation will almost certainly follow. Environmentalists insist that little good will come of revoking the rule. They say the Trump administration's promotion of the action as a fire prevention measure is simply propaganda. 'Logging, that's what this is about,' said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. 'They don't like anything that puts a stop to commercialization and exploitation. … Stripping protections from these last unfragmented national forests risks our drinking water, plants, animals and some of America's most beautiful wild places.'
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gov. Cox: How Sen. Lee's public lands proposal can get back on track
SANTA FE, N.M. — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on Tuesday he supports the aims of Sen. Mike Lee's public lands proposal that has ignited national debate, but said previous versions of the legislation were too broad. Lee submitted more restrictive language for his initiative to make public lands available for private home development on Tuesday morning, limiting the lands that can be sold to include only Bureau of Land Management lands within 5 miles of a population center. A previous draft, which would have allowed agencies to sell up to 3.3 million acres of federally controlled land, including Forest Service land, across 11 Western states, was stripped from President Donald Trump's massive tax bill on Monday night because it did not comply with budget rules. The governor's office is still getting updates on how the latest version would affect the state of Utah, Cox said. But he was clear that despite his shared desire to use some public lands to increase the supply of homes, Lee's initial proposal strayed from that narrow objective. 'You saw the maps. It was much broader. It could have taken in large swaths of land,' Cox said in an interview with the Deseret News. 'I don't think that was the intention, certainly not conveyed to us, and that wasn't clear. Sadly, the thread has been lost on that for sure.' Lee's public lands proposal, a revised version of his HOUSES Act that garnered widespread support among Utah's Republican leadership, has elicited a wave of social media pushback from environmental groups, conservative influencers and lawmakers from both parties over the past week. It has also been one of the underlying themes at this year's annual Western Governors Association conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Cox is joined by governors from Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico and Wyoming. The bipartisan group of governors expressed concern during Monday morning's opening press conference that the process outlined in the bill would not directly involve states. And a crowd of several dozen protesters welcomed event attendees with signs and chants of 'Not for sale!' 'The nationwide backlash sparked by Senator Mike Lee's proposal to sell off millions of acres of public land shows just how universally unpopular his idea is,' said Scott Braden, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, in a statement. But Cox said opposition to the proposal has just as much to do with environmental groups fomenting outrage, and a general misunderstanding of the public lands situation in the West, as it does with the poor wording of Lee's initial proposal. The limitations public lands place on cities in states like Utah, where almost 65% of the territory is federally controlled, are hard to convey to leaders in parts of the country where public lands typically make up less than 5% of the area, Cox said. According to the governor's senior adviser on housing affordability, Steve Waldrip, 217,000 acres within Utah city boundaries, and 650,000 acres within a mile outside of city limits, are owned and managed by the Bureau of Land Management or the National Forest Service. 'The federal government owns a tremendous amount of land within city limits and right adjacent to city limits that the average person would never have any idea was public land,' Cox said. 'That's what we're talking about. And so anything we can do to restrict that.' There are already examples of this working in the area around Las Vegas, Nevada, where former Sen. Harry Reid secured the ability for the BLM to sell public lands to local governments at below fair-market value for affordable housing purposes, Cox pointed out. The final version of Lee's bill should tailor public lands sell-offs to just those locations that would already 'be used for housing, but for the federal government owning it,' Cox said, with additional qualification to encourage small lot sizes and owner-occupied homes. In addition to excluding the sale of 15 categories of land, including national parks, Lee's latest proposal would prohibit the sale of land utilized by ranchers and recreational users, and would also establish 'Freedom Zones' to ensure any lands sold are used for housing projects. However, even with these carve-outs, Cox echoed the sentiment of his fellow governors that states are better positioned than the secretaries of interior and agriculture to determine which public lands should be sold and for what purpose. 'I think the public is really concerned about the process, and they should be concerned about the process,' Cox said. 'I mean, this idea of we don't trust the federal government to own the land, but we trust the federal government to sell the land.' Rob Sisson, the former president of ConservAmerica, a center-right nongovernmental organization focused on conservative environmental concerns, said he believes that some version of Lee's initiative is needed, especially in a place like Utah. When Utah was established as a state, federal policy did not foresee a time when the Wasatch Front would be home to over 2.5 million residents, surrounded on all sides by public lands, Sisson said. 'All it takes is one drive through the state on I-15 to understand there's no room for the next generation to build affordable housing and stay there with their families and communities,' Sisson said. But as a hunter from Montana — whose GOP senators have vocally opposed Lee's idea — Sisson said any plan to transfer public lands should not include every underused patch of public lands that happens to be near private property. The more 'specificity' Lee can bring to his proposal, the less likely it will be to anger environmentalists and outdoorsmen, and the more likely it will be to achieve its goals, according to Sisson. Despite its rocky start, Cox believes Lee's bill can still be a great opportunity to balance community concerns with housing needs if it recognizes that federal land sits at a 'public nexus' that requires public 'support and trust.' 'It works,' Cox said. 'It can help lower the price of housing, and we desperately need more space for housing in places like Utah and all throughout the West.'
The Hill
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Lee seeks to revise plan to sell public lands after parliamentarian excludes it from GOP policy bill
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said he will revise his plan for selling off public lands after the Senate's parliamentarian ruled it cannot move forward as part of a Republican policy bill. Lee's initial legislation would have sold off millions of acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land in up to 11 states. However, the Senate's arbiter ruled that the provision cannot move forward through the upper chamber's budget reconciliation process, which allows it to pass some limited provisions with a simple majority, meaning it does not need any Democrat votes. Lee, in a post on X, said he would revamp the plan. The new legislation will still sell off land owned by the Bureau of Land Management — but not that owned by the Forest Service. He also said he would 'SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE' the amount of land in the bill, limiting it only to lands within five miles of a population center. Lee added he would seek to establish 'FREEDOM ZONES to ensure these lands benefit AMERICAN FAMILIES.' He did not say what that entails. He also said he would 'PROTECT our farmers, ranchers, and recreational users. They come first.' 'Yes, the Byrd Rule limits what can go in the reconciliation bill, but I'm doing everything I can to support President Trump and move this forward,' Lee added, referring to the Senate's procedural rule that prevents 'extraneous' measures from being included in reconciliation bills. Lee has said he wants to sell public lands and use them for housing as population growth means more people need homes. The moves received significant pushback from Democrats — as well as certain Republicans who oppose public land sales.
CBS News
24-06-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Trump administration plans to yank "roadless rule" that impedes logging on 59 million acres of national forests
The Trump administration plans to rescind a nearly quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Monday. The "roadless rule" adopted in the last days of Bill Clinton's presidency in 2001 long has chafed Republican lawmakers, especially in the West where national forests sprawl across vast, mountainous terrain and the logging industry has waned. The rule impeded road construction and "responsible timber production" that would have helped reduce the risk of major wildfires, Rollins said at the annual meeting of the Western Governors Association. "This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation's forests," Rollins said. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, right, with Forest Service firefighters behind her, talks to media during the Western Governors Association meeting in Santa Fe, N.M., on June 23, 2025. Eddie Moore / The Albuquerque Journal via AP Scientists say worsening wildfires are driven by a combination of climate change that warms and dries out forests, less logging and decades of fire suppression that has enabled fuels to build up. The roadless rule has affected 30% of national forest lands nationwide, or about 59 million acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency over the Forest Service. State roadless-area rules in Idaho and Colorado supersede the boundaries of the 2001 roadless rule, according to the USDA, meaning not all national forest land would be affected by a rescission. Rollins' announcement Monday was a first step in a process to rescind the roadless rule to be followed by a formal notice in coming weeks, the Agriculture Department said in a statement. The announcement comes amid recent talk of selling off federal lands in part to improve housing affordability, an idea criticized by Democrats as a public land grab. Selling public lands drew a mixed reception from governors at the same meeting. They expressed enthusiasm for economic development and worries about curtailing public access to shared lands. Speaking to a panel of governors and hotel-ballroom audience, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum described a new "era of abundance" on public lands under President Trump's administration in the development of natural resources, including energy and critical minerals needed for domestic production of cellphones, computers and vehicles. Immediate opposition appears Outside the hotel entrance in downtown Santa Fe, several hundred protesters filled the street to denounce efforts that might privatize federal public lands, chanting "not for sale" and carrying signs that read, "This land belongs to you and me" and "keep our public land free for future generations." Hundreds of people protest efforts to privatize federal public land in Santa Fe, N.M., outside a meeting of governors from western states and top Trump-administration officials as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced plans to rescind a decades-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands on June 23, 2025. Morgan Lee / AP On social media, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Trump ally, called the reversal on roadless areas "another example of President Trump fulfilling his campaign promise to open up resources for responsible development." The roadless area change meanwhile marks a sharp turnaround from the Biden administration, which far from opening up more areas to timber harvesting sought to do more to restrict logging and protect old-growth forests. Environmental groups, who want to keep restrictions on logging and road-building for places such as Alaska's Tongass National Forest, criticized the possibility of rolling back the protections. "Any attempt to revoke it is an attack on the air and water we breathe and drink, abundant recreational opportunities which millions of people enjoy each year, havens for wildlife and critical buffers for communities threatened by increasingly severe wildfire seasons," Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement on the USDA's plans. Contrary to what Rollins said about reducing wildfire risk, logging exacerbates climate change and makes wildfires more intense, said Center for Western Priorities political director Rachael Hamby. "This is nothing more than a massive giveaway to timber companies at the expense of every American and the forests that belong to all of us," Hamby said in a statement. In Alaska, home of the country's largest national forest, the Tongass, the roadless rule has long been a focus of litigation, with state political leaders supporting an exemption to the rule that they argue impedes economic opportunities. During the latter part of Mr. Trump's first term, the federal government lifted restrictions on logging and road-building in the Tongass, something the Biden administration later reversed. Mr. Trump in January called for reverting to the policy from his first term as part of an Alaska-specific executive order aimed at boosting oil and gas development, mining and logging in the state. The Tongass is a temperate rainforest of glaciers and rugged coastal islands. It provides habitat to wildlife such as bears, wolves, salmon and bald eagles.
