legislative committee digs into roots of wildfire crisis
25 January 2023
Published by: https://www.paysonroundup.com
USA – A special legislative committee set up to investigate wildfire control efforts in the state wrapped up with a report documenting the problem – but no recommendations for changes in state policy.
The Forest and Wildfire Management Ad hoc Committee chaired by Rep. David Cook (R-Globe) probed the decade-long failure of large-scale forest restoration efforts, the forest-thinning bottleneck caused by the lack of a market for biomass and the sometimes destructive reliance on backburns in an emergency.
“As a result of the five hearings we held round the state,” said Cook in a release, “we are better informed of the critical issues that can be addressed before Arizona families and communities are impacted by new catastrophic wildfires and post-fire flooding. In Arizona, we unfortunately know all too well that it’s a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if’.”