08/01/07 Criticism over wildfire management

Governor Butch Otter and Senators Mike Crapo and Larry Craig didn't have a lot of nice things to say about what they saw as red tape and delays in fighting the Murphy Complex fire. They toured some of the one thousand square miles of southern Idaho that was charred in the nation's largest wildfire this year. Crapo says ranchers in the area never had these kinds of destructive fires in the past when cattle were allowed to graze the range. CRAPO "The rules and regulations about how we manage grazing on our public lands as well as how we intervene when a fire starts need also to be improved. There was pretty strong indication that the fire could have been stopped at a five to ten thousand acre level while it was still even in Nevada." The fire forced the evacuation of Murphy Hot Springs and Jarbidge, Nevada, in addition to causing a one week long power outage at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation of the Idaho-Nevada border. CRAPO "The response was not as prompt from the federal government as it should have been. In fact it required intervention from the senatorial offices to get the kind of response that we needed." BLM officials say grazing rules and regulations aren't to blame. They say drought and very hot conditions are the reason we've seen so many fires in Idaho this year. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott