End the wildfires

The fires in the USA this year are frightful. Every year we have them. It is time to end the fires.

The forest service(s) of the federal government and state departments must issue more logging permits. We need to create fire breaks throughout the West. Environmentalists create havoc with logging by their constant misalignment of what is important for our resources. Lumber prices have nearly doubled during this summer. Our economy depends on lumber. We should also stop shipping raw logs to foreign countries until a normal balance ensues and then only export lumber.

When I grew up in Pennsylvania and my parents would take my brother and I on driving trips, you would see in the mountains large swaths of logged mountain sides. These areas looked like ski slopes but they were fire breaks. Good forest management should include logging for fire breaks. I do not see it much in the forests of the West.

The other edict which should be instituted is to close public lands from June 10th to September 10th, or thereabouts, when we have little rain and the forests are bone dry. The cost of a wildfire is astronomical…what is more important, family camping or fires?

I surmise that carelessness of campers are a large part of our fires. It does not take much to raise a fire when the forests are bone dry. We can’t do much about lightning strikes but first control is more durable.

And lastly, stiffer laws for arson.

Jack Abel

Spokane