09/06/07 Taking steps to protect forest properties

Wildfires in Idaho have burned 1.6 million acres this year, double last year's acreage burned and more than three times the amount devastated in 2005. In the Payette National Forest district ranger Shane Jeffries says the thinning work they did recently around the small community of Secesh led to less erratic fire behavior and provided a defense line for firefighters. JEFFRIES "The community of Secesh really banded together and went out and got some grant dollars to create defensible space around their homes." Trees and limbs taken out were used for firewood and for fencing, all helping to create a one quarter mile wide belt around the town. Chris Bent has spent more than three decades in Secesh and he saw the results of the forest thinning. BENT "You could see where the fire came through the normal heavy fuel loads, hit that thinned area and slowed way down, gone to the ground, kind of crept along right up to the road and it could have been put out with a watering can." Bent says after this summer's fire season it will be a lot easier to get Secesh residents who didn't reduce fuels around their houses to do so in the future. He says they hope to get another grant to help with that reduction project. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott