Kempthorne defends fire management

BOISE – U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is defending wildland firefighters against accusations from Idaho’s governor and its two U.S. senators that the giant Murphy Complex of fires in Southern Idaho and northern Nevada could have been handled better.

“My heart goes out to the citizens who have been hard hit, but it’s not for lack of effort on the part of our firefighters,” Kempthorne said.

He said a combination of events led to the ferocity of the fire, which has burned more than 1,000 square miles but on Thursday was nearly contained.

Kempthorne said the hottest July since 1870, spring rains in 2005 and 2006 that led to large areas of dead grass, a smaller snowpack, some 1,600 lightning strikes on the day the fire started on July 16, and strong winds contributed to the blaze.

“It was explosive,” said Kempthorne, Idaho’s governor before becoming Interior secretary last year.

Earlier this week, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, a rancher, and the state’s senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, joined ranchers in blaming federal safety rules for crippling early efforts to douse the fire near the town of Murphy Hot Springs.

They also said that when the July 16 lightning storm rolled through Idaho and Nevada’s remote border country, locals with bulldozers stood ready to help build fire lines but were told by Bureau of Land Management officials to stay put.

The three Republicans blame a 2005 federal court ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Idaho-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project for reducing cattle grazing and allowing fuel buildup, conditions they contend fed the flames that burned an area the size of Rhode Island and cost $9 million to fight.

Otter has planned a fire summit for Monday with other Western governors, spokesman Jon Hanian said.

“We have not been faulting the firefighters on the ground,” he said.

Environmental groups say the ranchers and politicians want to exploit the fires to expand cattle grazing land, and allowing that to happen would reduce habitat for species such as sage grouse.

Kempthorne did not directly respond to Otter or the two senators.

“We’re going to look at what sort of new measures are appropriate,” Kempthorne said.

Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United For Safety, Ethics and Ecology, welcomed Kempthorne’s defense of the firefighters.

“He probably has upset a lot of his old friends,” Ingalsbee said.

“But the last thing firefighters need is a lot of hot air out of Washington, D.C., and Boise.”

Kempthorne said he will work out of Boise during August.

“I’m ready to get out of Washington, D.C., and spend a little time in the West again,” Kempthorne said.

“It’s going to allow me to see these issues first hand and recharge my batteries.”

He said he plans to tour fire lines to see firefighters at work.

“What these men and women do day-in, day-out in some of the toughest conditions imaginable is truly amazing,” he said.