Bad Forest Management?

Spotted Owl

New Mexico Watchdog - With firefighters battling mulitiple fires across New Mexico — including the Las Conchas Fire near Los Alamos that figures to be the largest wildfire in state history — some legislators are openly questioning whether management policies in the state’s forests may be contributing to the massive amounts of acreage getting burned up.“The public policy on thinning of forests is a huge regional issue,” Sen. Clint Harden (R-Clovis) said at a meeting of the Water and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday (June 30). Tony Delfin, the State Forester, told committee members “We have never seen any fire season like this before.” He also handed out a brief report detailing the number of fires reported in the 2011 fiscal year, which officially ended Thursday. As of the morning of June 30, Delfin told lawmakers that the Forestry Division had battled 1,021 fires in fiscal year 2011 and that 756,249 acres had burned across the state, engulfing 100 structures and 40 homes. The Track Fire in northeastern New Mexico earlier this month burned through the watershed that supplies water to the town of Raton. Read full story here: News New Mexico