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7 Point Community Protection Plan
 It's time for the Forest Service to make protecting our communities from fire its number-one mission.
Every community at risk deserves to be protected. If the Forest
Service focuses enough resources and manpower on the job, and
gives this mission top priority, we can make communities safer
in 5 years.
This campaign will cost $2 billion a year, but by reducing the cost of fighting fires and the expense of replacing damaged structures in Community Protection Zones, this program will save far more money than it costs. For example, every dollar spent on prescribed burning saves seven dollars on fighting large fires later.
Communities need three kinds of measures:
- Cut brush and small diameter trees to remove flammable materials in the Community Protection Zone (500 yards around a community), creating a fire break so firefighters can control future fires and keep them away from structures.
- Use controlled burning around communities wherever we can to reduce the dead wood and small brush that fuel large fires. Every dollar spent on prescribed burning saves seven dollars on fighting large fires later.
- Help homeowners protect their homes by removing hazards like brush, small trees and overhanging branches, and moving firewood and other flammable material away from structures. The goal is to secure the immediate vicinity 35 yards around an individual home.
It is time to stop pointing fingers and to find common ground. Whatever our differences with the timber industry, the Forest Service and the Bush Administration on other forest management issues, we should all agree that every community at risk deserves protection and that the highest priority is providing protection where it is needed most: in the Community Protection Zones.
No community should be left at risk because the Forest Service has chosen to divert funds and personnel away from projects to secure Community Protection Zones and left workers in lower-priority backcountry areas.
The 7-point Plan for Protecting Communities
To secure the perimeter around the Community Protection Zones, the Sierra Club is releasing a seven-part plan modeled on research by Forest Service fire scientists. We are calling on the Bush Administration and the Forest Service to adopt it as a blueprint for the next five years.
- Do the most important work first. Make protecting communities from fires the Forest Service's Number One Priority. Reduce fuels in the Community Protection Zone-the first 500 yards out from buildings.
- Provide meaningful funding. This program should be a minimum of five years and funded at $2 billion a year to go directly to fireproofing homes and removing hazardous fuels in the Community Protection Zones. This funding should be secure so the Forest Service bureaucracy cannot shift it to other activities.
- Match personnel to work. Shift Forest Service personnel skilled in preparing brush clearing and thinning projects away from backcountry, low-priority areas to Ranger Districts near the Community Protection Zones.
- Immediately carry out the vast majority of fuel reduction projects in Community Protection Zones that raise no significant environmental issues. Work together with communities and environmentalists to plan fuel reduction activities that may involve critical wildlife habitat.
- Restore fire's natural role. Prescribed burns can help to reduce fuel buildup and restore healthy forest habitats. Every dollar spent on prescribed burning saves seven dollars on fighting large fires later. Restore the natural role played by small fires that periodically sweep across the forest floor, add nutrients to the soil, clear out brush and trigger trees to release new seeds.
- Protect our ancient and wild forests from logging and logging roads. Forest Service studies show that 80 percent of fires in western forests start in areas with roads. Focusing around the Community Protection Zones will produce quicker results and less controversy.
- Stop the attack on forest protection safeguards. Ensure full public participation in decision-making in National Forest management as the best way to deter bad logging practices that increase fire risks.
Photo courtesy USDA.
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