OpinionJuly 14, 2003

Doesn't the U.S. Forest Service have the same responsibility as farmers to refrain from degrading public health by sending smoke into communities near burning sites?

Yes, says Susan Billings, air quality program manager for the Washington Department of Ecology in Yakima.

And she's right.

Billings has cited the Forest Service for excessive smoke caused by a prescribed burn north of Winthrop in June, which ended up settling over the Methow Valley and causing several health complaints. Billings says her department does not object to prescribed burning, used to prevent future catastrophic fires, in general. But Ecology expects the burning to be done at times when the weather will move the smoke to other than inhabited places.

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The Forest Service also expected the fire it started June 4 to send smoke elsewhere. The time was approved by Roger Autry, smoke and fuels management specialist for the Department of Natural Resources. But an inversion that was forecasted to lift did not, and the smoke remained trapped in the valley.

In northern Idaho, bluegrass farmers are now experimenting with state-prescribed burn times, scheduled when weather is expected to drive the smoke away from populated areas. As the Forest Service experience shows, however, weather does not always follow forecasts.

Despite that, in Washington at least, human life comes before any need to burn.

"What we expect is, when burning is used as a tool, that it be conducted in a way that it doesn't affect public health," Billings says.

She's right again. -- J.F.

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