I believe I have a unique perspective on this subject. I have spent almost 10 years working as an elected local government official (and 20+ years before that in the private sector). During my public service career, I've had the opportunity to work with all levels of government, from local to state to federal. Believe me, I know--better than most--how the "system" works . . . and doesn't work.
One statement that I firmly believe is true is that "people usually get the government they deserve." In this country, that's especially true, since whatever government we have was created by people we elected to office. We may not think that we asked for the complicated mess that we have in some government programs and agencies today, but we did. Sometimes, it's a matter of getting unintended consequences from otherwise well-meaning mandates. Other times, it's a matter of narrowly focused special interests influencing policy makers. Apathy and ignorance among the general (and increasingly non-voting) public lets that happen.
Now, to the Forest Service. It IS a federal bureacracy--no doubt. And, especially at its higher eschelons, it IS political. What that means is that some decisions are made on a political basis, and not upon sound "forest management." Examples: the Forest Service has known for over 40 years that many forests were becoming overgrown and unhealthy. When they tried to log in some areas, or otherwise "treat" them, environmentalists screamed. When they tried prescribed burning, the public raised a ruckus. When they suggested that building fire-prone homes on private land near the forests wasn't a good idea, they were pillaried as overbearing government telling private landowners what they could do with their land. Etc., etc.
As a result, the Forest Service is stuck with some very unhealthy forests, subject to catastrophic crown fires in a drought year like this. Privately, several foresters have told me that the fires raging today were made inevitable by policies of fire suppression combined with a lack of fuel management options. And, they resent the fact that they were prevented by politics from managing the forests in a manner that would have prevented--at least to some extent--the problems occurring today. Most of all, they resent the fact that their personnel are put at risk trying to stop fires that are essentially unstoppable in the kind of forest environment so prevalent today in the Rocky Mountain West.
A Forest Service acquaintance of mine spent the summer of 1988 at the Yellowstone fires. I paraphase is comments about that summer--one similar to this summer. He said:
"We spent tens of millions of dollars and risked hundreds of firefighters in Yellowstone in 1988. All we really managed to do was save the Old Faithful lodge. 20 men and 3 firetrucks could have done that. All the rest was to keep the politicians, media, and ignorant public happy. That forest was sick and had to burn. We didn't stop it. The snow did. We have lots of sick forests in Colorado. Left to themselves, they will burn, just like Yellowstone. We'll have to go and try to fight the fire and save a few buildings if we're lucky. We'll spend lots of the taxpayer's money. And, when Mother Nature decides to put the fire out, she'll put it out."
He told me all of this in 1989!
To bring this "home," all one has to do to see a very unhealthy forest at the C&TS is look across the Rio de Los Pinos from about Sublette to Mud Tunnel. It's a tinderbox. I wouldn't doubt that the area is one that concerns the Forest Service. If a fire started from the C&TS ever migrated across the canyon and got into that, it would burn furiously. I'm not going to get into the discussion about the fairness or prudence of the C&TS closure by the Forest Service, but there can be no doubt that there is forest right around the C&TS that is prime to burn.
