AZ Republican politicians took a tour of the fires in our state yesterday and figured it was a good time to throw the blame for the fires on immigrants, environmentalists and federal forest officials.
U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, who owns a home in Greer, was touring the fire area Saturday along with Sen. John McCain and Arizona congressmen Jeff Flake and Paul Gosar.
http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=14934392
http://www.kpho.com/...
"There is substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally," McCain said. "The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border."
However, he offered no evidence to substantiate his claim.
Civil rights advocate Randy Parraz told CNN such unfounded allegations were "careless and reckless" and said McCain was trying to make rightist political headway with the wildfire crisis.
"It's easier to fan the flames of intolerance, especially in Arizona," Parraz said.
http://www.upi.com/...
McCain said that illegal immigrants set such fires either to send signals, keep warm or distract law enforcement agents. But he did not specify which fires allegedly had been started by illegal immigrants, nor did he identify his sources or provide details of the "substantial" evidence he cited.
Firefighters are currently battling five wildfires that have burned a combined 732,427 acres in Arizona, according to InciWeb, an online interagency database that tracks fires, floods and other disasters. The fires are under investigation and suspects have not been named. However, local media outlets have reported anecdotal cases of fires breaking out in areas where illegal immigrants have been known to cross the border.
Angelo Falcon, the president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, criticized McCain for what he called "increasingly blatant" political opportunism.
"The degree of irresponsible political pandering by Sen. McCain has no limits," Falcon said in an email to CNN. "With the lack of evidence, he might as well also blame aliens from outer space for the fires."
http://www.cnn.com/...
Over the last week, firefighters in Arizona has been fighting horrible wildfires. Perhaps it was only a matter of time until the fires were blamed on the demons for all seasons -- "illegals."
CNN quotes contrasting explanations for what started the Monument fire, "which has spread across the Huachuca Mountains and burned 20,956 acres as of Saturday afternoon. . . . [A]authorities likely won't state a cause until the blaze is more under control." "We know where it started and when it started, but (the specific cause) is under investigation," an official spokesperson said. "When we do have that information, we will share it."
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/...
The forest service has come under fire because of their lifting a ban on campfires right before Memorial day weekend. They are really in a no win situation on this issue because locals might have complained if they hadn’t. Snow on the ground the weekend before made them feel like it was okay. Campfire restrictions were lifted in all the other forests in the state and they had no fires. Instead of blaming irresponsible campers, the blame is shifted to the forest service who had to weigh competing interests.
"They try at all cost not to implement them (fire restrictions) if at all possible," said Pam Baltimore, a spokeswoman for Apache-Sitgreaves, referring to fire restrictions. "When we got that little bit of moisture, the decision was to hold off."
Baltimore said officials had been planning to impose the fire restrictions before the snowfall, but they decided to wait until after the holiday.
Avoiding a negative impact on the tourism industry was one of the considerations, she said.
Apache-Sitgreaves were not the only forests in Arizona without fire restrictions over the Memorial Day weekend.
The Kaibab, Prescott and Coconino national forests all lifted restrictions in late May, citing the recent precipitation.
Baltimore said that fire restrictions alone would not necessarily have prevented the blaze, which has charred more than 400,000 acres and claimed nearly 30 homes.
That is because some campers will go deeper into the forest and light campfires anyway to avoid detection.
http://www.azcentral.com/...
The U.S. Forest Service chief said earlier Saturday at the same press conference attended by McCain that he was "very optimistic" that damage from future wildfires could be minimized by thinning forests and clearing out biomass -- which did occur, to some extent, in parts of eastern Arizona. He noted that 3.2 million acres were "treated" nationwide last year.
Kyl noted that the estimated $64.1 million price for the Wallow fire would more than double after the costs of mitigation efforts to prevent mudslides from the summer monsoons.
"Just think that what we could have done using those funds to treat those forests in advance," Kyl said.
But government budget strains have limited the amount of money going to such efforts. McCain said "the only way we are going to get these (forests) thinned is through greater participation of private enterprise" -- adding the government should try to facilitate such initiatives, including by allowing limited logging in national parks.
"There is simply not enough tax dollars to get the job done without them," McCain said of private companies.
http://www.wgal.com/...
Steve Campbell, a University of Arizona extension agent in Lakeside, said a forest-thinning program started in the wake of the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire - the White Mountain Stewardship Contract - saved Alpine, Greer and other White Mountain communities from heavier damage.
"Overall, it's just like cleaning up your house. Mother Nature had a program,"
Campbell said. The Wallow Fire destroyed underbrush and other biomass that had been accumulating in the forest for 100 years or more, partially because of fire-suppression efforts that were well-intentioned but ill-advised.
http://www.azcentral.com/...
Although there is broad agreement among many groups about the effectiveness of the thinning program, only 15,000 acres are being treated a year because of limited funds and demand for products produced through recycling, including wood pellets for stoves and wood molding for houses, he said.
"The demand for the product doesn't pay for getting it out of the woods," leading to a need for subsidies, Campbell said. "They are not moving fast enough."
http://www.azcentral.com/...
A collaborative effort has been underway in our state for several years now to address how to manage our forests. It is not like the problem has been ignored. Many different groups have been working together on solutions of how to manage our forests.
4FRI: The Four Forest Restoration Initiative
In the late 1990s, we began working with pivotal partners to accelerate collaborative, science-based restoration of ponderosa pine forests on the Mogollon Rim. Originally, with the Grand Canyon Forests Partnership, which later became the Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership, we helped design and implement 5,000-10,000 acre fuel-reduction and restoration projects in the area surrounding Flagstaff. These activities offered the perfect venue for scientific learning and provided a steppingstone for establishing a collaborative landscape-scale restoration effort of unprecedented size and scope — the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI).
In 2009, more than thirty organizations, municipalities, institutions, and agencies united to collaboratively plan and carry out landscape-scale forest restoration efforts across 2.4 million acres of Arizona’s Mogollon Rim. The 4FRI, which will cover portions of the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab, and Tonto national forests, aims to implement comprehensive restoration over the next twenty years, including thinning of predominantly small trees across one million acres, and safe controlled burning and natural fire management on much of the landscape.
The unprecedented alignment of several factors makes 4FRI a hopeful solution for implementing landscape-scale forest restoration:
• 4FRI involves diverse stakeholders
• 4FRI is working at the right scale — 750,000 acres for the first project phase
• 4FRI is guided by strong science developed by key stakeholders
• 4FRI engages appropriately scaled wood products industries
4FRI benefits from strong and capable National Forest Supervisors
http://www.grandcanyontrust.org/...
Parraz said it is particularly distressing that immigrants are being blamed for destructive fires, at a time when many are also being targeted given the state's unemployment, foreclosure and other economic issues.
"People are looking for someone to blame," he said, claiming it is too easy and convenient to target what he called one of Arizona's "most vulnerable populations."
http://www.wgal.com/...
The area where the Monument fire started:
Coronado National Memorial sits on the Arizona-Sonora border between Naco and Nogales. The memorial was established to commemorate the journey of Francisco de Coronado and his men through the southwest in the 1540's. It was established in this place because the property was federal land administered by the National Forest Service (since transferred to the National Park Service) and it was in a position to offer outstanding views down into the San Pedro River Valley, most likely the route of Coronado's expedition as they were leaving Mexico and crossing into what is now Arizona on their way to find the Seven Cities of Cibola (Cibola is most likely a Spanish corruption of "She Wo No," meaning Land of the Zuni).
The Memorial is a day-use only area. Picnicking and hiking are allowed but no camping (camping is allowed on the National Forest lands which surround the monument). And these days, things are a bit different this close to the border. Boundary markers 100, 101 and 102 are within the park with fencing running between them. The nearest legal border crossings are at Naco, Douglas or Nogales.
http://www.sangres.com/...
I lived about three miles from the Coronado Monument area for seven years, and my husband used to own land by the Chiricahuas, the area of the Horseshoe Two fire. It is true that these areas are major crossing points for immigrants. Ramsey, Miller and Stump Canyons had very few people living in them many years ago, but steadily built up because they were one of the few areas that had water seasonally running through them, so there were more trees and wildlife. Theses were my old stomping grounds, and I would go there every few days. The Rodeo -Portal area is a large desolate area in southeast AZ. More people have moved there in the last couple decades than probably have lived there in the last couple hundred years. It is also a major recreation place for many people who live in the area.
Fires have been made worse by the populations that have moved into areas where previously only a few would live. We spend most of the millions protecting property, not putting out fires. To blame immigrants without proof, or lack of logging in the forests when the problem is not so simplistic, is too easy and irresponsible. To do it publicly is throwing gas on the political fires that have been raging in our states. McCain has not helped the situation.