Drought Tests Trump’s Wildfire Strategy
Nick Smith, spokesman for the American Forest Resource Council, in a national forest in Oregon
Photographer: Bobby Magill/Bloomberg Law
Extreme drought across the West is testing the Trump administration’s strategy of fighting wildfires by increasing logging on federal land, with scientists warning that thinning and industrial-scale logging can do only so much under hot, dry, windy conditions, Bobby Magill reports.
The administration says wildfire risk makes faster logging and stronger timber markets imperative, and the Forest Service plans to increase logging by 25% this year. But Oregon State University’s Erica Fleishman says the drought gripping the West is “a glimpse into the future” and that “thinning and logging forests—that’s not ...