The Nuclear Option – Lawsuits to Force Fuel Reduction and Proper Light Fire Management Lawsuits to force public land management agencies to put light fire back into light fire ecosystems could be a very important tool in our pro-fire activist arsenal. Lawsuits could also remove bureaucratic and private obstacles to fire hazard reduction that keep cropping up and secondarily be used as a means for further public education. These lawsuits could focus on two separate but interconnected issues, one being fire hazard reduction and negligence, and the other mismanagement of public and private lands endangering light fire ecosystems. Carnival Cruise Lines has faced a lawsuit for failing to address a known fire hazard risk caused by fuel leaks in its engine room that resulted in a fire on one of its ships. Management had known about the risk of fire and had done nothing about it prior to the fire aboard ship. My thinking is that public land management bureaucracies have known for decades that fire suppression leads to increases in fuel loads in light fire ecosystems causing huge catastrophic fires that destroy lives and property. Like Carnival Cruise Lines they have been negligent in allowing these fuel loads to accumulate, granted that they are often hamstrung by other private and public agencies like the EPA and even Congress. In my opinion these other players are also participating and supporting the mismanagement of public and private lands and also could be subject to lawsuits to cause them to stop creating obstacles to overall fire hazard reduction. In the case of the mismanagement of light fire ecosystems this would appear to be a violation of the public trust to competently manage public lands and maintain biodiversity. Clearly we are dealing with an entrenched system or culture with many different players contributing to the problem, so lawsuits should be both narrowly focused, and broad spectrum, to clear obstacles to adequate management of light fire ecosystems. There is plenty of finger pointing among all players, but there is plenty of blame to go around causing these outrageous fuel buildups, resulting in catastrophic fire in light fire ecosystems. The end result is that as shown by the continued increase of catastrophic fire globally, that the current situation needs a series of powerful shocks to bring about major changes in fire management policies. A series of high profile lawsuits could make all players supporting dysfunction on notice creating a willingness to support change on all fronts. https://facebook/groups/234543706747903/
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 13:58:56 +0000
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