After burning up 6 million acres last year by delaying
action to stop fires when they were small because of arguing about whether
endangered species would be harmed by building fire lines or dropping
slurry near streams, the US Forest Service may have gone even further this
year – they are accused of killing six firefighters. According to the
August 10 Washington Times, unidentified firefighters claim "a
dispatch team for the U.S. Forest Service held off on using water from the
nearby Chewuch River to extinguish the flame because they were afraid it
might harbor endangered fish or some other species." As a result of
the debate, "water that was originally requested at 5:30 a.m. wasn’t
dropped until 3 p.m., when it was far too late," said the Times.
Tragically, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) may have
contributed to putting the firefighters in harms way in the first place.
These forests are not being harvested, supposedly to protect endangered
species. By not being harvested, they build up huge fuel loads. After a
few decades of no harvesting, these Western forests become disasters
waiting to happen. There is no excuse for putting endangered species over
human life. But, that is what happens when these bureaucrats are trained
to "consider human beings as a biological resource," as per 1994
BLM guidelines on Ecosystem Management.
