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Sept. 28, 2000 By Janelle Holden Fire managers are monitoring, rather than actively fighting, a lightning-caused fire that started near Dissapointment Valley on Monday. The fire, which started in the Big Water Springs area, is expected to be out by Friday. Fritz Cluff, an engine foreman working on the fire, said the Dolores-Mancos and Norwood ranger districts have close to 20 personnel and a few engines out on the fire. The fire is burning in Ponderosa pine and oakbrush, and Cluff estimated that it would eventually burn 400 to 500 acres. He said that there are several roads in the area which will serve as natural fire breaks. On Tuesday, the fire had burned 100 acres. Cluff said that this area had been considered for a prescribed burn in the next few years because managers had been concerned by the amount of oakbrush in the area. This summer at least $1.5 billion has been spent fighting fires in the South and the West. Since the fires, experts and various environmental groups have debated methods for reducing fuels in the nation’s forests. The Forest Service’s web site cites research across the Intermountain West that has shown that thinning trees and using prescribed fire can help restore and substantially reduce fire hazards by reducing accumulated forest fuels and breaking up interconnected tree canopies. Wally Covington, director of the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University, recently testified in front of the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forests Health that researchers had been predicting catastrophic wildfires for years. "It is not a prediction I ever wanted to come true," said Covington. |
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