Statement of Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope on Southern California Wildfires

October 23, 2007 -- The Sierra Club is deeply concerned about the families who have been put in harm’s way by the recent fires in Southern California, and about the firefighters courageously working to protect homes and lives.

In the wake of this tragedy, there have been some people willing to place blame on environmental groups. There is no need to sensationalize this tragedy for political gain. Americans deserve better. The Sierra Club has long supported responsible fuel reduction around communities and fully supports any wildfire policy that makes community protection its top priority.

This week’s fires, which are taking place largely in brush and chaparral, underscore the need to focus our fire prevention efforts in the areas around communities, rather than deep in the backcountry forest.

Not a single fuels reduction project has been appealed in these Southern California forests in a decade. In fact, the vast majority of Forest Service fuel reduction projects nationwide--97 percent, according to a 2003 GAO study--move forward without litigation.

With dangerous conditions caused by global warming only increasing, we can unfortunately expect to see more and more of these types of catastrophic wildfires.

Experts agree that focusing on the area immediately around homes should be the first priority of any wildfire policy, and the situation so many are facing in California today reinforces this need. We can all agree that removing brush and small trees immediately around homes and communities will help save homes and lives, and we must dedicate the resources needed to do this most important work first. Forest Service experts have shown that this can be accomplished.

Now the Congress and the Bush Administration need the will to protect communities, not the timber industry.

Source: Sierra Club