U.S. Forest Service: Burnout and walk away

Forest Service stonewalling is shameful

During last summer's wildfire season, the worst in recent memory, crews struggling to contain blazes resorted to extraordinary steps, including the widespread use of backburns to keep flames in check.

We're not second-guessing firefighters who took what looked like the best available steps in the middle of a dire emergency.

Once the fires are out, though, it's not too much to ask for the government to help clean up the messes it made, and especially to compensate private property owners who suffered severe losses when their land was abused to protect the general public.

It's not too much to ask - unless you're asking the U.S. Forest Service, which has denied claims for compensation related to burnouts including that of William Heinrici, a Junction City-area resident who's had to haul water to his home since a burnout destroyed his water lines.

Heinrici seeks just $6,000 to replumb the pipes, and given the modest sum involved and the severity of the harm - lost water service isn't just an inconvenience but a threat to the family's health and safety - a sensible and humane government agency would have cut a check to Heinrici immediately.

Instead, nearly a year after the fire and a full six months after Rep. Wally Herger's office intervened with the Forest Service, the Heinrici family is still trucking water in drums.

In Herger's correspondence with the Forest Service, the agency said it was waiting until all fire-related claims were received or the two-year statute of limitations passed before processing any of them. This might make sense in the Magical Kingdom of Bureaucratia, but it is simply insane when we're discussing human lives. Two years to process the claim? The central-office functionaries who made that call should spend two weeks living without running water and then see how important prompt action is.

It's easy to imagine disputes over whether damage was caused by the wildfire or by the fire crews themselves - but there is no question in this case. Even the district ranger agrees Forest Service crews started the backburn and has verified the damage, according to Herger. Yet the Forest Service is still stonewalling Heinrici. It's shameful.

When fire crews rush to contain a blaze in regions with complex mixes of public and private land, they'll inevitably bulldoze or burn through someone's property. That risk, like the risk of fire itself, is a consequence of living in the woods.

But when families' property is commandeered for an emergency firebreak, they've done more than their share to protect the public - and the public owes them in return.

Our view: It might be reasonable to set backburns in an emergency. It's appalling to ruin private property and then let its owners suffer.

Source: Redding.com - Link