Bush promotes forest thinning in fire-ravaged mountain town

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush surveys a fire-ravaged community in Arizona on Monday as part of a push to get the Senate to approve steps aimed at preventing catastrophic wildfires.

Bush's helicopter-and-hiking tour of the devastation left behind by the June 2002 fire in mountainous Summerhaven, Ariz., near Tucson, is also meant to illustrate what he says his proposals can help save.

Forest thinning

The preventive forest thinning Bush is trying to accelerate helped ensure the survival of $2 billion in telecommunications equipment, camps owned by churches and Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups and two mountain observatories, said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

"When you don't do (thinning), you get moonscapes with matchsticks," Connaughton said in a telephone interview Sunday. "When you do the work right, you get thriving, natural forest that's got a nice, wide canopy."

Bush proposed his "Healthy Forests" initiative last year, and has implemented portions of it through new government rules.

They no longer require environmental studies before trees are logged or burned to prevent forest fires. The rules also limit appeals of such projects.

The House passed a bill that calls for aggressive logging on up to 20 million acres of federal land at high risk of fire. It would eliminate some environmental reviews and limit appeals on overgrown woodlands so forest projects could be completed within months.

Wildfires

The Aspen fire that charred Summerhaven burned 84,750 acres and destroyed more than 330 homes, cabins and other buildings.

It was among the wildfires across the country last year that scorched nearly 7 million acres, killed 23 firefighters, destroyed hundreds of homes and cost taxpayers more than $1.5 billion.

The Forest Service and Interior Department estimate 190 million acres are at risk for catastrophic fire -- an area nearly the size of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana combined.

Environmental groups say the Healthy Forests plan will make it easier for logging companies to cut down trees in national forests and will limit the public's input in forest management decisions.

The previous rules required environmental studies for nearly every logging project.

Now, logging projects affecting 1,000 acres or less will not need such studies if the acres are deemed at-risk for fire. Controlled burns, where fire is used to burn excess trees under certain circumstances, could be done without environmental studies for projects up to 4,500 acres.

Neither of these "categorically excluded" projects would be subject to administrative appeals, but they could be challenged in court.

Some critics also said Summerhaven was a curious place for Bush to pitch his initiative. It was lack of money, not bureaucratic hurdles, that prevented critical thinning in the area, they say. Moreover, the legal obstacles to thinning that Bush wants to remove have been almost nonexistent on Forest Service lands in the area, experts say.

Bush is to tour by helicopter the observatories and camps that survived the fire, as well as the vacation hamlet of Summerhaven. Then he plans to land and drive back up the mountain to Inspiration Rock, a spot near last year's fire and another one this summer that forced the evacuation of Summerhaven.

Aspen fire victims still tallying their losses and mired in the rebuilding process have mixed feelings about Bush's visit.

"It's a nice gesture, but it doesn't affect the significance of the fire or the recovery efforts," said Donald Barton, who owned a summer home in the mountaintop community of Summerhaven for 30 years but lost it in the Aspen fire.

"I don't know if his plan is the right solution, but it's certainly a step in the right direction," Barton said.

Edward Carlson, whose cabin burned in the fire, said Bush should have come sooner. "He wasn't around when the forest fire was raging," he said. "This is a campaign stop."

Bush narrowly won Arizona in 2000, and wants to keep its 10 electoral votes in his column. He travels to Colorado later Monday to headline a fund raiser for his re-election.