Jim Wheeler requested that the state attorney general investigate. Tom McClintock sent a letter to the Forest Service asking why the Tamarack wasn’t immediately suppressed, and Nevada state Rep.
The Tamarack has become the center of concerns about jurisdiction, accountability and policy. “This is life and death, and we can’t just fight fires the way we did 20, 30, 40 years ago anymore.”
“You can’t just walk away, not with this climate, not with this drought, " he said earlier in the week while visiting the ruin of the Tamarack fire. Gavin Newsom called the “wait and see” culture of allowing some fires to burn on federal lands the “elephant in the room.” He asked Biden for help to ensure “we’re all on the same page in terms of those initial attack strategies” to force a more aggressive federal response. In a virtual meeting Friday with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and governors of other Western states to discuss federal aid for fires, Gov. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which manages fires started on state and some private and local lands, aggressively works to stomp blazes out early - focused on protecting infrastructure and structures in areas that are often close to populated places.Ĭalifornia hit by record-breaking fire destruction: ‘Climate change is real, it’s bad’Īlready this year, there have been more than twice as many acres burned than during the same period last year - and hundreds more fires. Forest Service has a different philosophy on fire suppression than many state and local agencies. Federal authorities have command over fires that ignite on their property, even when they later cross off of those boundaries into populated areas.īut the U.S. Who decides whether a blaze is crushed or allowed to burn is determined by jurisdiction - the federal government owns about 45% of California, more than 45 million acres, which includes the Plumas National Forest, where the Sugar fire began July 2. With wildfires across the West arriving earlier, spreading faster and wreaking more destruction, once-obscure policy battles between firefighting agencies are coming under public scrutiny, adding to a distrust of federal government that has long had a foothold in the rural communities most hard-hit by fire. So is the animus of Catron and others about how they are fought- especially on federal lands and in their early hours - and who makes those choices. Raging July fires are becoming the norm in California.
Why you shouldnt watch the forest driver#
“It never should have got here,” said Catron, a former school bus driver who runs a 16-person department in this Lassen County town staffed mostly by friends and family, including her kids.
Volunteer fire chief Kathy Catron wants answers about why the Sugar fire ever grew large enough to burn her town, why it wasn’t put out before it exploded and turned uncontrollable.
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