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06/16/2003: "Former Service Ranger Questions Fire Prevention Near Homes"
FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- The Forest Service is not paying enough attention to preventing fires near homes around the Rocky Mountain region, a former Park Service ranger says.
Phil Cafaro pointed to Forest Service statistics detailing how much underbrush and trees were thinned through prescribed burns. Last year, just 38 percent of the acres thinned in the Rocky Mountain region were in the "red zone" where communities abut forests.
"They're trying to fireproof the whole forest, rather than just the areas around homes," said Cafaro, now a philosophy professor at Colorado State University. "It's not possible to fireproof the forest." (TheDenverChannel.com)
