Local Knowledge For Local Fires
I’ve heard from ranchers and private property from across the West about their growing frustration with management of the region’s big fires were fought this summer. This August Idaho’s Tepee Springs Fire began on August 12th and devastated more than 95,000 acres in Central Idaho near the town of Riggins. Sarah Walters and her family have an elk ranch that was damaged by this fire. They lost approximately 2,000 acres to the fire —- that came back across their property twice more after the initial fire began. Walters shares her frustration with the system that is in place to fight our nation’s fires.Walters: “We went in and tried some of it ourselves in areas where they would not go. We tried to put the fire out. But at the same time, we are trying to work and they won’t provide resources. They’re using resources to prepare a back burn line. That back burn would have taken our whole ranch. We did become a little defensive because that would have take the whole watershed which would have took all of our irrigation for hay and everything else out. So when they’re putting all their resources into a back burn instead of fighting the fire. If I think they would use local ranchers and local people that who know the lay of the land, to put that line in they could have been at an advantage. But they were going to manage the fire and let it burn.”
She adds that change is needed.
Walters:”We just need to figure out a way to change the system and so that we are controlling how our wild land fires are manage and how we manage our public lands to make a difference so we don’t have to go through this again.”