As a U.S. senator for Idaho, a state enormously impacted by wildfires decimating communities and landscapes each year, I, Sen. Crapo, am a longtime advocate for active forest management that restores forest health to help reduce the number and intensity of fires and protects our communities. And as a former wildland firefighter, I, Madi Clark, know all too well the disastrous consequences of poor federal land management. What the two of us have in common is an experienced point of view about the current mismanagement of our forests that informs our advocacy for improved federal forest management.
The fuel load on federal lands is growing out of control, smoke has become a weather season, and economic and environmental damage is ballooning from massive fires eating up the western United States.
Though residents of the smoke-filled western United States may doubt this fact, the annual number of fires has not changed much over the last 30 years.
What has changed is a growing trend of hotter and bigger fires, with the major accelerant being the mismanaged, densely vegetative, diseased and infested federal lands.