The 350-acre wildfire that tore through Exeter last spring could end up inspiring a concerted effort to map long-overlooked fire access roads in wooded areas throughout the state, and financial incentives for private landowners who are willing to make certain changes on their own properties.
Those ideas were among the suggestions that drew widespread consensus among members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives’ forest management commission , which is tasked with formally presenting a series of recommendations to the General Assembly by the end of the month.
The commission, chaired by Rep. Megan Cotter, D-Exeter, was formed in the wake of last April’s devastating blaze in the Queen’s River Preserve — the largest wildfire that Rhode Island has seen since 1942. Fire chiefs and other experts have testified about a wide variety of problems that the fast-burning fire brought into sharp focus, while emphasizing that the outcome could have been much worse.