Dianne Feinstein: “there are now as many as 415,000 acres of dead and dying trees on the San Bernardino and Cleveland National Forests and…”

“there are now as many as 415,000 acres of dead and dying trees on the San Bernardino and Cleveland National Forests and surrounding private lands as the result of drought, decades of fire suppression, and a bark beetle infestation. Jack Blackwell, the Regional Forester for California, has described this situation as an unprecedented threat to public safety. There are large mountaintop communities with over 90,000 people total, communities that are completely surrounded by thousands and thousands of dead trees. In addition, the only escape routes are narrow winding mountain roads which are themselves surrounded by dead and dying trees. The result is that thousands of lives are at risk. There is some good news, in that San Bernardino National Forest and California Department of Forestry staff agree on the four highest priority tasks to reduce the threat to public safety. First, they want to clear evacuation routes from the mountain communities. This involves clearing a corridor on either side of major escape roads so people can escape from their communities without being blocked by fallen trees, or the radiant heat of the fire.”