Romney calls for early-detection, logging to stop wildfires

As wildfires ravage the U.S. West, Republican Mitt Romney has called for more logging and a high-tech early detection system, though the plan was met with some skepticism.

Romney, a U.S. Senate candidate in Utah, said in an essay that more logging would thin out forests and clear out dead timber so fires have less fuel.

“If the devastation of wildfires were being caused by a foreign enemy rather than by natural causes, we would do and spend whatever it took to stop it,” he wrote. There have been nearly 1,000 fires in Utah alone this year that have cost some $60 million to fight, the state said.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke also advocated for thinning out forests in a USA Today op-ed published Wednesday, as California continued to fight its largest wildfire in state history.

While Zinke took aim at “radical environmentalists,” who oppose logging, Romney said there could be common ground if stopping fires meant saving animals and habitat.

Romney’s Democratic opponent Jenny Wilson lauded protective measures but said his plan misses the mark by not specifically addressing climate change-linked factors like warmer weather and drought.

“We must address climate change as a national crisis in order to protect the American West,” she said in a statement.

Romney said he also wants to beef up regional firefighter resources and create an early-detection system of drones, satellites and sensors to stop wildfires before they get out of control. Romney’s campaign didn’t provide additional detail on his ideas.

Fire experts and the Utah governor’s office said Wednesday that an early detection system isn’t at the top of their wish list.

It would likely be very expensive and would only help with a very small portion of wildfires: Ones that start at night when people are asleep and are fast-moving near urban areas, said Tom Cova, director of the University of Utah’s Center for Natural and Technological Hazards

“Detection of wildfires is not really a problem,” Cova said. More logging would certainly help but wouldn’t solve the issue, he said.

Firefighters use human spotters in lookout towers. There are also cameras placed on existing cell towers on mountaintops in many Western states, including Nevada and California, said Jessica Gardetto, spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Money spent thinning forests of weeds and other vegetation, especially near buildings, is well spent, she said.

She said wildfires are a confluence of many factors, including longer, hotter summers.

“We’re seeing more of a fire year whereas we were seeing fire seasons in the past,” she said.