Fire aid legislation

Critical summer Idaho range goes up in smoke this past week near Cambridge forcing ranchers to move cattle weeks early.

The Idaho Farm Bureau along with the American Farm Bureau and other Farm Bureaus want US lawmakers to support the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act.

The Farm Bureau’s Ryan Yates says the legislation would provide wildland fire managers more resources to fight and prevent catastrophic fires.

“The Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act represent a great bipartisan step forward in an attempt to give federal land managers additional tools that help them better manage our federal forests, especially out west. And when it comes to looking at a fire season like we are having in 2020, it really identifies the need for continued active management on our federal lands,” said Yates.

The legislation will emphasize forest management, accelerate post-fire restoration and rehab, and remove dead and dangerous brush from national forests.