The death of 34 firefighters in catastrophic fires in 1994 reinforced the notion that fuel reduction was imperative. And in 1998, after new appropriations and an organizational revision of federal fire-management policy, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt called for a threefold increase in the number of burns set. Despite the widely recognized need to rejuvenate the forests and to forestall an increase in deadly fires, the solution is hotly contested. The logging industry argues that thinning the forests can reduce the threat of fire. Our public lands are facing the worst health crisis they have ever faced.
Many environmentalists beg to differ.
And neither side trusts the Forest Service's judgment. They want to fight and win at all costs. Unfortunately, the science that could provide such guidance is lacking. There are very few long-term studies on the effects of fire applied over time to different ecosystems, says Ronald Myers, director of fire management at the Nature Conservancy . And one study picked two plots nonrandomly and did show a reduction.