As a heavy equipment operator, the chance to reopen these closed off and forgotten access roads in the forest excites me. As an outdoorsman and a conservationist, I hope access will be restricted to the public by foot traffic and bikes only, and emergency services use as well. As a realist, unfortunately I see politicians using this as a potential land grab once the forests do all the work. I hope I’m wrong on that account.
Like it or not for fire apparatus you only gain access if you have access, period! Retardants alone are useless and were proven in 1972 to actually lower the fuel ignition temperature required and then once lit, the fuels generate more heat. (That went unpublished for several years) Im not sure building roads is the best avenue, however, certainly going back and re opening old roads would prove beneficial especially with the idea of helipad strategic dip site setups. Also an equipment operator and with some time spent repairing a large area of our washed out roads access for us is critical.
Washed out roads on many NFs in the West are so bad that fuel reduction staff or contractors go out and recon roads to see if they are even able to access the fuel project area. This is most common on Forests nuked by mega fires over the last 15 years.
If they're removing any protective designations, it'll be managed in the same way all other Forests are. There is no incentive to maintain roads if no one is allowed to use them. Of course they'll be open to vehicles.
The rescission of the roadless rule is a political stunt that is not going to address the "wicked" problem we have in wildland fire management. There is a reason that these areas are roadless, the terrain is harsh, steep, and complex and the timber growing on it would not make enough money to transport it off the mountain! These roadless areas provide a buffer and opportunity to manage fires for other than full suppression and the lack of values at risk certainly lends itself to such fire management strategies. If anybody thinks that we're going to start putting in hard money transportation systems in these areas to harvest timber to address hazardous fuels, you're kidding yourself and do not understand the scale and complexity of the fire management conundrum. The Forest Service will never have the budget to do take on such a herculean task for such little reward. Also, the states of Idaho and Colorado have their own state roadless rules, which would not be affected by the FS Roadless Rule rescission. The use of timber harvest to break-up the vertical and horizontal continuity of fuels and reduce hazardous fuels loadings has merit in and around the wildland/urban interface. Timber harvest out in vast roadless area has minimal value or efficacy in contributing to strategic fuels management. Beneficial fire, whether we light it or mother nature lights it, is what is needed in roadless areas.
100% right. This isn't about fire prevention. It's about profit. If they do think it'll help fire prevention, they're severely misguided. One minute they're saying they're broke and have to sell off public lands to balance the budget, the next they're saying they have the funding to vastly expand and maintain the Forest road systems?
This is a huge concern to me as a member of the public. The public and fire often don't mix well. Where I am, because we don't get natural starts, public = fire.
The absolute worst possible thing you can do with a road is to simply close it. Put up a gate, dig a tank trap, set some "BFR's" and walk away. That's the worst option, and that's what they've been doing.
Once the road was put in, it altered the hydrology of the landform basically forever. Inboard ditches, culverts, various wet drainage crossings, all changed the hydrology of the landform and, without maintenance, lead to massive sedimentation of creeks and streams.
There are only two options (sort of three):
1) Maintain the road as designed, forever.
a. Re-engineer the road to reduce/eliminate inboard ditches, outslope the road surface, at least ensure the culvert crossing will “fail soft” when (not if) they clog and fail and not simply divert the entire creek a mile down the road to the next creek
2) Totally remove the road. Excavate all the fill from all drainage crossings, re-contour the fill onto the bench and up the cut banks.
Note that I don't discuss the value of having a road in the first place, only the obligation that building the road represents to public land stewards
Most of the roads were built by timber harvesters and weren't required to be maintained after they were done. To prevent the public from going into these areas and causing damage (like starting fires), they gated them. The Forests didn't have the funding to continue maintaining them. And they certainly don't now. The Roadless Rule doesn't actually prevent any roads from being constructed. It requires timber harvesters to remediate the road when they're done using it. Only temporary roads are allowed.
Maintenance definitely needed! Are there funds allocated for maintenance of Existing Roads in association with the rescinding of the Roadless Area rules as well as building new? If not, then it's less about improving the system of firefighting and more about enriching those that can get in on the construction and resource extraction.
If the feds are so broke they're trying to sell off public land to balance the budget, how are they going to afford to maintain these remote roads? Do you really think they are going to prioritize fuels management in these remote areas, far removed from communities and homes? We can't even complete the projects slated to be done immediately adjacent to towns and cities.
95% of wildfires are caused by human activity, per the USFS. Roadless areas have vastly fewer humans because of the difficulty of access. Therefore the risk of fire in roadless areas is vastly reduced. If we open them up with roads, human use by OHV users and campers will no doubt increase. This measure is simply a way for the Trump administration to get their grubby hands on more of our collective resources to sell off to the highest bidder, and to make money for his buddies. It’s not about fire prevention.
Blah, Blah, Blah - the deferred maintainece of USFS roads (and everything else) is decades old. This ambitious plan, seems to contradict the proposed $396 Million planned reduction in the Agencies annual funding and a reduction in workforce that may be in the neighborhood 20% by the time 2026 rolls around ??
Fire access and FF safety would certainly improve with better quality roads - But increased and easier access is a two edged sword... More public - more human caused fires and several other problems, plus the hydrological issues we are all aware of.
This is about opening more areas for resource extraction and eroding the laws of protected land status - little else.
The Australian Capital Territory ACT learned this lesson the hard way during the 2003 Canberra Fire Storm. The ACT VFD hadn’t lost a home to wildfire since 1952. Environmentalists (a gross misuse of English) succeeded in forcing the closure of most of the extensive fire road system in ACT Wildland surrounding the Capitol. When firefighters attempted to access multiple lightning fires they found access was blocked by decades of overgrowth and erosion. By the time their heavy plant got to the multiple small fires it was too late. The years of unchallenged eucalypt growth and unmanaged vegetation exploded and wiped out everything the enviros were hoping to preserve. More than 500 homes burned. We need our roads into our forests for our use and enjoyment. Not all of us can hike or bushwhack at will. Some of us may not like vehicles in our multiple use lands but there are miles of wilderness for those folks. I’m glad the rule is gone.
Most of the roads in these areas were built by timber harvesters and weren't required to be maintained by these companies after they were done. To prevent the public from going into these areas and causing damage (like starting fires), the Forests gated them. The Forests didn't have the funding to continue maintaining them. They can barely keep up with the open roads (actually, since 2024, a lot of our public roads have been left gated due to a lack of staff and funding to maintain them).
I’m not a fireman and don’t pretend to be one (unlike most on the internet). But there’s a couple of things I see. If there’s a roadless area, there’s likely no overstocked plantations that need to be thinned bc they would have put a road thru it when they did it?
The FS can’t maintain the mainline roads, much less the smaller roads with the budget they have. So adding more roads to maintain doesn’t seem like a logical answer.
Also, genuine question…what about not trying to suppress every fire there is? Isn’t that how we got into this predicament with places that haven’t been burned in many years? We’ve changed the fire return interval by suppression and now stands are overstocked. Or are we generally just fighting fires where structures are threatened?
I agree maintenance of existing roads is a good thing, but needs funding. This bill goes way beyond and opens the door for all manner of negative impacts. We have dozers and if a road could have been there and dozer can put a line in and rehab it when the fire is out. As for the lack of roads being the reason for all the negative things listed, not hardly. All the red tape to conduct timber sales and other maintenance decisions contribute way more than the lack of roads.
Agreed. Roughly maintained access roads and 50-100 ft shaded fuel break specs off of them should be a standard across all forestry. Every road doesn’t have to be graveled and super well maintained, but when you can’t even get a little F150 down it to recon projects or access fires, it’s a huge problem.
A dozer and a grader out of every district to maintain roads is vital to support every program on the forest.
How does this recent action empower, direct, fund, or guide a Forest Leadership Team (FLT) as they prepare their program of work for the next fiscal year?
Here are my questions for fire folks.. does being in a Roadless Area affect wildfire management..
1. If there are roads in the Roadless Area (yes, some have them)?
2. Using heavy equipment to build firelines?
3. Any other changes to standard procedures?
4. Does it affect decisions to use managed fire (or Resource Benefits?) possibly because it's more important to reduce fuels that way because logs cannot be removed via roads.
As a heavy equipment operator, the chance to reopen these closed off and forgotten access roads in the forest excites me. As an outdoorsman and a conservationist, I hope access will be restricted to the public by foot traffic and bikes only, and emergency services use as well. As a realist, unfortunately I see politicians using this as a potential land grab once the forests do all the work. I hope I’m wrong on that account.
Like it or not for fire apparatus you only gain access if you have access, period! Retardants alone are useless and were proven in 1972 to actually lower the fuel ignition temperature required and then once lit, the fuels generate more heat. (That went unpublished for several years) Im not sure building roads is the best avenue, however, certainly going back and re opening old roads would prove beneficial especially with the idea of helipad strategic dip site setups. Also an equipment operator and with some time spent repairing a large area of our washed out roads access for us is critical.
No access = 100% fire growth
Washed out roads on many NFs in the West are so bad that fuel reduction staff or contractors go out and recon roads to see if they are even able to access the fuel project area. This is most common on Forests nuked by mega fires over the last 15 years.
If they're removing any protective designations, it'll be managed in the same way all other Forests are. There is no incentive to maintain roads if no one is allowed to use them. Of course they'll be open to vehicles.
The rescission of the roadless rule is a political stunt that is not going to address the "wicked" problem we have in wildland fire management. There is a reason that these areas are roadless, the terrain is harsh, steep, and complex and the timber growing on it would not make enough money to transport it off the mountain! These roadless areas provide a buffer and opportunity to manage fires for other than full suppression and the lack of values at risk certainly lends itself to such fire management strategies. If anybody thinks that we're going to start putting in hard money transportation systems in these areas to harvest timber to address hazardous fuels, you're kidding yourself and do not understand the scale and complexity of the fire management conundrum. The Forest Service will never have the budget to do take on such a herculean task for such little reward. Also, the states of Idaho and Colorado have their own state roadless rules, which would not be affected by the FS Roadless Rule rescission. The use of timber harvest to break-up the vertical and horizontal continuity of fuels and reduce hazardous fuels loadings has merit in and around the wildland/urban interface. Timber harvest out in vast roadless area has minimal value or efficacy in contributing to strategic fuels management. Beneficial fire, whether we light it or mother nature lights it, is what is needed in roadless areas.
100% right. This isn't about fire prevention. It's about profit. If they do think it'll help fire prevention, they're severely misguided. One minute they're saying they're broke and have to sell off public lands to balance the budget, the next they're saying they have the funding to vastly expand and maintain the Forest road systems?
With access roads everywhere the public will start more fires way out there....
This is a huge concern to me as a member of the public. The public and fire often don't mix well. Where I am, because we don't get natural starts, public = fire.
The absolute worst possible thing you can do with a road is to simply close it. Put up a gate, dig a tank trap, set some "BFR's" and walk away. That's the worst option, and that's what they've been doing.
Once the road was put in, it altered the hydrology of the landform basically forever. Inboard ditches, culverts, various wet drainage crossings, all changed the hydrology of the landform and, without maintenance, lead to massive sedimentation of creeks and streams.
There are only two options (sort of three):
1) Maintain the road as designed, forever.
a. Re-engineer the road to reduce/eliminate inboard ditches, outslope the road surface, at least ensure the culvert crossing will “fail soft” when (not if) they clog and fail and not simply divert the entire creek a mile down the road to the next creek
2) Totally remove the road. Excavate all the fill from all drainage crossings, re-contour the fill onto the bench and up the cut banks.
Note that I don't discuss the value of having a road in the first place, only the obligation that building the road represents to public land stewards
Most of the roads were built by timber harvesters and weren't required to be maintained after they were done. To prevent the public from going into these areas and causing damage (like starting fires), they gated them. The Forests didn't have the funding to continue maintaining them. And they certainly don't now. The Roadless Rule doesn't actually prevent any roads from being constructed. It requires timber harvesters to remediate the road when they're done using it. Only temporary roads are allowed.
Maintenance definitely needed! Are there funds allocated for maintenance of Existing Roads in association with the rescinding of the Roadless Area rules as well as building new? If not, then it's less about improving the system of firefighting and more about enriching those that can get in on the construction and resource extraction.
If the feds are so broke they're trying to sell off public land to balance the budget, how are they going to afford to maintain these remote roads? Do you really think they are going to prioritize fuels management in these remote areas, far removed from communities and homes? We can't even complete the projects slated to be done immediately adjacent to towns and cities.
95% of wildfires are caused by human activity, per the USFS. Roadless areas have vastly fewer humans because of the difficulty of access. Therefore the risk of fire in roadless areas is vastly reduced. If we open them up with roads, human use by OHV users and campers will no doubt increase. This measure is simply a way for the Trump administration to get their grubby hands on more of our collective resources to sell off to the highest bidder, and to make money for his buddies. It’s not about fire prevention.
It’s all about greed.
Blah, Blah, Blah - the deferred maintainece of USFS roads (and everything else) is decades old. This ambitious plan, seems to contradict the proposed $396 Million planned reduction in the Agencies annual funding and a reduction in workforce that may be in the neighborhood 20% by the time 2026 rolls around ??
Fire access and FF safety would certainly improve with better quality roads - But increased and easier access is a two edged sword... More public - more human caused fires and several other problems, plus the hydrological issues we are all aware of.
This is about opening more areas for resource extraction and eroding the laws of protected land status - little else.
Exactly
The Australian Capital Territory ACT learned this lesson the hard way during the 2003 Canberra Fire Storm. The ACT VFD hadn’t lost a home to wildfire since 1952. Environmentalists (a gross misuse of English) succeeded in forcing the closure of most of the extensive fire road system in ACT Wildland surrounding the Capitol. When firefighters attempted to access multiple lightning fires they found access was blocked by decades of overgrowth and erosion. By the time their heavy plant got to the multiple small fires it was too late. The years of unchallenged eucalypt growth and unmanaged vegetation exploded and wiped out everything the enviros were hoping to preserve. More than 500 homes burned. We need our roads into our forests for our use and enjoyment. Not all of us can hike or bushwhack at will. Some of us may not like vehicles in our multiple use lands but there are miles of wilderness for those folks. I’m glad the rule is gone.
Most of the roads in these areas were built by timber harvesters and weren't required to be maintained by these companies after they were done. To prevent the public from going into these areas and causing damage (like starting fires), the Forests gated them. The Forests didn't have the funding to continue maintaining them. They can barely keep up with the open roads (actually, since 2024, a lot of our public roads have been left gated due to a lack of staff and funding to maintain them).
I’m not a fireman and don’t pretend to be one (unlike most on the internet). But there’s a couple of things I see. If there’s a roadless area, there’s likely no overstocked plantations that need to be thinned bc they would have put a road thru it when they did it?
The FS can’t maintain the mainline roads, much less the smaller roads with the budget they have. So adding more roads to maintain doesn’t seem like a logical answer.
Also, genuine question…what about not trying to suppress every fire there is? Isn’t that how we got into this predicament with places that haven’t been burned in many years? We’ve changed the fire return interval by suppression and now stands are overstocked. Or are we generally just fighting fires where structures are threatened?
I agree maintenance of existing roads is a good thing, but needs funding. This bill goes way beyond and opens the door for all manner of negative impacts. We have dozers and if a road could have been there and dozer can put a line in and rehab it when the fire is out. As for the lack of roads being the reason for all the negative things listed, not hardly. All the red tape to conduct timber sales and other maintenance decisions contribute way more than the lack of roads.
Agreed. Roughly maintained access roads and 50-100 ft shaded fuel break specs off of them should be a standard across all forestry. Every road doesn’t have to be graveled and super well maintained, but when you can’t even get a little F150 down it to recon projects or access fires, it’s a huge problem.
A dozer and a grader out of every district to maintain roads is vital to support every program on the forest.
How does this recent action empower, direct, fund, or guide a Forest Leadership Team (FLT) as they prepare their program of work for the next fiscal year?
Here are my questions for fire folks.. does being in a Roadless Area affect wildfire management..
1. If there are roads in the Roadless Area (yes, some have them)?
2. Using heavy equipment to build firelines?
3. Any other changes to standard procedures?
4. Does it affect decisions to use managed fire (or Resource Benefits?) possibly because it's more important to reduce fuels that way because logs cannot be removed via roads.