forest thinning

In an effort to prevent forest fires, the federal government has committed nearly $5 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to thinning forests on about 50 million Western acres over the next 10 years. But, as Stephen Robert Miller explains in FERN's latest article, published with The Washington Post, that thinning creates piles of sticks, chips, and other debris—called "slash"—that creates its own fire risk. 

Five farm-state Republicans unveiled a package of climate bills that in one instance would allow private-sector donors to USDA conservation accounts to specify where the money would be spent and put "a name or a brand" on a project. Another of the bills would allow landscape-scale forest management projects of up to 75,000 acres — bigger than the District of Columbia — to reduce wildfire risk through forest thinning, controlled burns, salvaging dead or endangered trees, and creation of "fuel breaks" up to one-half mile wide.

Interior Secretary and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue advocated the thinning of forests and removing brush to eliminate fuel for wildfies during a roundtable discussion in northern California, said the Redding Record Searchlight. The cabinet members said thinning the tree stands in foressts did not mean clear cutting the land.