Failure to repress Grass and Brush has led to problems = but no profit for
removal!
What are you going to do with fire danger and no old growth or clear-cuts to
profit from???


http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sit...ry/html/139368

Headline:

Dry and dangerous: Fire officials worry blaze could hit wooded suburbs
2003-08-04
by Mike Archbold
Journal Reporter

How dry is it?

Greg Smith, fire chief for Mountain View Fire and Rescue on the Enumclaw
Plateau east of Auburn, points to the normally moist and tough Alder trees.

``Even their leaves are curling up,'' he said last week, admitting he is
extremely worried about the fire danger this summer. There wasn't any rain on
the Plateau in July. Normally the district picks up .88 inches in July, he
said.

``This is probably the driest we have seen it in years out here,'' he said.

Out here is where forests and houses mix in neighborhoods with agreeable names
like Remington, Heather Highlands and Golden Ridge. Fields of grass and scrub
brush rub up against homes.

That tranquil image is repeated throughout suburban King County, from Redmond
and North Bend through Maple Valley to Kent and Auburn. More and more
developments poke their way into wooded areas.

The image of a forest fire raging through a suburban neighborhood is far from
residents' minds as they barbecue in their back yards. Forest fires are the
stuff of TV news from remote mountain areas.

Redmond fire a `wake-up call'

But the threat is here, say suburban fire district officials. They point to the
wildland fire in Redmond July 18 that burned 50 acres and threatened 70 homes
as an classic example of what can happen.

Redmond Deputy Fire Chief Andy Hail called the fire a ``wake-up call'' to
suburban and rural communities in the area.

``The threat is real,'' he said. ``It takes the whole community to have a
defense against that.''

Recalling that early afternoon fire that started in a grassy area in the
Sammamish River Regional Park, Hail said that he never thought during his 23½
years fighting fire in Redmond that they would ever lose homes to a wildland
fire.

But he thought that would happen July 18.... (cont)