Megafires spur projects to thin forests

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - With huge wildfires breaking out across Colorado and New Mexico the head of the U.S. Forest Service says its time to get aggressive in restoring forest health.

And that means mass thinning and prescribed burns.

The fires aren't like they use to be when not too many years ago 10,000 acres was considered big.

Now even New Mexico is seeing fires like the nearly 300,000-acre Whitewater Baldy Complex Fire still burning in the Gila National Forest and the Las Conchas Fire that churned through 150,000 acres in the Jemez Mountains last year.

The damage it's done could take a century to fix.

And then there's the Little Bear Fire that devoured 224 homes, charred 38,000 acres and is still burning north of Ruidoso.

"I think we are finding ourselves in a pretty contentious circumstance in the West," Regional Forester Corbin Newman told KRQE News 13.

Newman said the Forest Service has always worked with thinning and prescribed burns to prevent these huge fires. But those projects faded following the timber wars where the public fought to shutdown the huge logging camps.

"Now I think folks are realizing making that go away created a condition that has results none of us want," Newman said.

On Thursday Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell announced he wants to accelerate restoration programs at least 20 percent a year. This year's goal is four million acres.

That won't mean clear-cutting forests, but it does means thinning large areas at a time using machines and prescribed burns.

New Mexico projects include:

• 210,000 acres in the southwest Jemez Mountains
• 210,000 acres in the Zuni Mountains
• 290,000 acres in the Sacramento Mountains south of Cloudcroft.

And there are dozens of other smaller projects in the plans.

"We have all our environmental groups, conservation groups, industry groups, community groups all in these large collaboratives coming to agreement about what we're going to do," Newman said.

The cost of thinning forests is very high. The four million acres slated for treatment this year will cost $1 billion.

The Forest Service says it's looking at creating an industry that can make goods from the wood so those companies can do the work for free.

But it still would limit how many trees can be cut down.