News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
President George W. Bush spoke at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds after touring the B&B Complex fires on Thursday, August 21. photo by Matt Cyrus
After a couple of weeks of rumor, then a couple of days of excited anticipation, local residents saw a planned visit to Camp Sherman by the President of the United States overtaken by an emergency.
President George W. Bush was scheduled to tour the forests around Camp Sherman on Thursday, August 21, then speak in the community on the Healthy Forests Initiative.
Instead, the forests to the west went up in a towering column of smoke as the Booth Fire blew up, raging in all directions and forcing the evacuation of Camp Sherman.
The President's advance team canceled the Camp Sherman event and shifted plans on the fly.
The only view President Bush got of the local forests was a smoky one from a Marine helicopter as he took an aerial tour of the Booth and Bear Butte fires before returning to Redmond to deliver his Healthy Forests Initiative speech at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds.
"We just toured two fires that are burning in the area," President Bush told the assembled crowd at the fairgrounds. "It's hard to describe to our fellow citizen what it means to see a fire like we saw. It's the holocaust, it's devastating.
"We saw the big flames jumping from treetop to treetop, which reminds me about the brave men and women, what they have to face when they go in to fight the fires.
"I first want to start by thanking those who put their lives at risk to protect our communities, to protect our people, to protect our national treasures, the U.S. forests. I appreciate our firefighters.
"All those firefighters know something that I've come to realize, that we can thin our forests, that we can use common-sense policy to make the fires burn less hot and protect our forests."
The president went on to praise the Metolius Demonstration Project, where The Friends of the Metolius worked with the Forest Service to test and demonstrate different forest treatment techniques from thinning and mowing and burning to doing nothing.
Deschutes National Forest Supervisor Leslie Weldon had briefed the president on the project and its effects.
"Bill Anthony is not with us today -- I think he's fighting the fires -- deserves a lot of credit for this program, as does Leslie," Bush said.
The project has led to broad community consensus and a project to treat some 12,500 acres with a variety of techniques to protect and enhance the health of the Metolius Basin.
Ironically, the project area is now threatened by the Booth Fire.
"Ranger Bill says community participation has been critical to the success of the project and that's the kind of initiatives we like and want," Bush said. "We want initiatives where the federal government works closely with the state government, with community groups, conservation groups, local people, in order to do what is right for our country and our states."
President Bush urged support of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act.
The bill would allow fuel reduction projects (thinning) on 20 million acres of forest land and reduce environmental review processes and speed up litigation. The bill also "directs the court ... to consider the public interest in avoiding long-term harm to the eco-system" when lawsuits are filed.
The president also discussed energy policy in the wake of a massive blackout in the northeast this month.
For more information on the Health Forests Restoration Act visit http://agriculture. house.gov/h.r.1904sec-by-sec.pdf.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
Reader Comments(0)