Bruce Westerman: “Fires are ravaging the West. I want to talk a little bit about what is going on with the fires, and I want to talk about…”

“Fires are ravaging the West. I want to talk a little bit about what is going on with the fires, and I want to talk about what is not going on here in Congress. To start with, I just want to take a quick look at the science of fire. This fire triangle shows that three things are required to have a fire. You have to have fuel, heat, and oxygen. There is a lot of talk about the role climate change is playing in these fires. Climate increasing temperatures can draw fuel. If it gets windy, you can have more oxygen. Lightning can be one of the things to ignite fires, but a lot of fires obviously are ignited by man-made ways. When we talk about putting out fire, the first thing we do is try to get the fuel out of the way, or we use water to cool the fire and remove the oxygen. But we have to spend way too much time working on extinguishing fires when we can take the actions to reduce the fuel to reduce the fires. Any time I talk about forest management, I get accused of wanting to clear-cut the national forests, and I can promise you the last thing I want to do is clear-cut the national forests. I want to use good management on the national forests. That is what we should be doing. But I often wonder if those people who talk about clear-cutting even have any idea of what a clear-cut is.…”