It is an argument that doesn't hold up. In April 1999, the General Accounting Office issued a report that raised serious questions about the use of timber sales as a tool of fire management. The Forest Service typically keeps about 90 percent of the revenue from these timber sales. The money has helped finance both the agency's budget and its preparations for more commercial logging. Meanwhile, the logging industry gets rich on cheap timber, and pro-timber members of Congress receive millions in campaign contributions as an incentive to keep this system going.
Taxpayers take an enormous loss.
The truth is that timber sales are causing catastrophic wildfires on national forests, not alleviating them. Without them, there is less shade. The forest is drier and hotter, making the remaining, smaller trees more susceptible to burning. In 1994, Jack Ward Thomas, then chief of the Forest Service, said in congressional testimony that fires don't hurt the forest itself. He gave the example of Yellowstone National Park.