Crooked River Ranch Fire Protection Act

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman McClintock and my friend from Arizona for their work on this, especially Chairman Bishop as well. The Natural Resources Committee has been terrific to work with on this measure over a period of time.

The bill is really an important public safety measure. This is a life-and-death measure. There are more than 5,000 people who live in Crooked River Ranch. This is an unincorporated community in central Oregon. It is wedged between two river systems, river canyons.

You can see it here on this map. I want to point out the two rivers here. It is actually on a peninsula. It sits up. These are deep canyons. To the west over here is where the wilderness study area is that we are talking about. It is juniper. It is cheatgrass. It is sagebrush. These are the most volatile fuels you can have.

Unlike here on the East Coast, where in the summer you get thunderstorms and heavy rain with it, out in Oregon, we have humidity. We call it rain that stays in the ground. But in the summer, we don't get that. What we get is dry lightning and very little rain. When lightning strikes occur in that kind of vegetation, it explodes.

I have talked to the firefighters, and I will show you what happens when this happens. This the terrain. The overstocked juniper, you can see it over here. This is very volatile terrain. That is grasslands. As I say, there are all kinds of other volatile fuels in there.

This is at the highest risk category for exposure to catastrophic wildfire. The wildfire planning community protection plan calls it that in Jefferson County.

Fire season is already underway in central Oregon. In fact, wildfires have already burned 120,000 acres so far this year. It has just gotten started. By the way, that is the equivalent of burning about 2\1/2\ times the entire size of Washington, D.C.

So what does that look like? When fire gets into these junipers, they basically explode. It is very volatile. Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins took this picture out of his rig of the Graham fire. This fire nearby--not right at Crooked River Ranch, but in the same county-- burned a few weeks ago. It burned two homes. Altogether, it burned about 2,000 acres--2,000 acres--and a couple of homes before they could get in and get it out.

So what we are doing here with this legislation is removing 832 acres. That is it. Three-thousandths of 1 percent of all the WSAs in Oregon, three-thousandths of 1 percent of the acreage, 832 acres, we are saying that we are just going to take it back to the rim of the canyon, and, on that flat land, you can go in and thin out these junipers and get it back to where you can do fire management.

Now, when I have talked to the fire chiefs and crews there, they have told me: Look, in this community of 5,000, there is one road in and out.

If you have a fire that blows up like this out on the peninsula, out on the end, the fire chiefs basically said: If the conditions are wrong and there is wind, I am not going to put my firefighters' lives at risk, so we will probably not go in and fight that fire. We will just try and get people out.

Can you imagine, on a two-lane road, trying to evacuate more than 5,000 people with a monster fire breathing down your back? That is what we are trying to avoid here.

This WSA was determined in 1992 by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service to not be suitable for inclusion as wilderness. They said: No, it doesn't meet the criteria. It should not be included.

But the way the Federal law works, once the agency decides to study one of these areas, all the restrictions come on the land. As you have heard from both sides of the aisle--well, at least our side of the aisle--that means that you can't go in and do mechanical thinning. You can't do the kind of work we need to do.

By the way, if there is a fire, it takes all kinds of permission to drop the retardant or to get in there with mechanical means.

All we are saying is, let's back that up 832 acres along the rim line, send people in, thin this back to where it is in balance and will not cause devastating wildfire to consume Crooked River Ranch. Let's look at what happens when that does occur.

You will remember this tragedy from my friend's home State in Santa Rosa, California. You don't think fires are monsters and killers and deadly? Look at what happened to this community, the homes and lives that were lost.

This is what we are trying to prevent from happening at Crooked River Ranch. With bipartisan support, the House is going to show its will today, and I think overwhelmingly, to say this is a measured, thoughtful piece of legislation with enormous support in the community and the county that will prevent a Santa Rosa from occurring at Crooked River Ranch.

Remember, there is one way in and one way out, and 5,500 people who live in this area.

I thank the gentleman from Alaska for his leadership on this. He and his staff have been terrific.

I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I know we have some differences about adding other things in. That can be dealt with, discussed at another time, but we have a serious and deadly threat staring us down every summer. We have fires already burning in the area.

If we want to save lives and prevent deadly fires, this is the bill to do it. This is the time to do it. Let's get it done.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2075) to adjust the eastern boundary of the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area in the State of Oregon to facilitate fire prevention and response activities in order to protect adjacent private property, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, Crooked River Ranch is a residential community that is home to approximately 5,500 people. It is located between the Deschutes and Crooked Rivers in Jefferson County, Oregon. Because of this geography, there is only one all-weather road in and out of Crooked River Ranch.

Now, right next to this community, along the Deschutes River, is a roughly 3,200-acre Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area, which is managed--or, more accurately, is mismanaged--by the Bureau of Land Management. This BLM property is thick with vegetation, which poses a very real risk for catastrophic wildfires, in large part because the wilderness study area regulations greatly restrict essential measures for both fire mitigation and firefighting.

For example, in a wilderness or wilderness study area, you can't use mechanized or motorized equipment or transport. This includes chainsaws as well as electrical generators, trucks, and larger equipment essential to fuels management. You can't even use this equipment to cut fire breaks. You can't build fire roads. You can't do mechanical thinning of vegetation. Even the hand thinning that is allowed in such areas is very limited.

Absent a waiver from the Secretary of the Interior, firefighters can't drop fire retardant or use bulldozers to cut fire breaks in the wilderness study area during a fire. Tragically, the benign neglect mandated by these requirements has made all wilderness areas firetraps just waiting for a lighting flash or a careless match.

H.R. 2075, authored by Congressman Greg Walden, with the support of the local community, would slightly modify the eastern boundary of the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area, making it possible to manage the land properly to reduce fuel loads that threaten the neighborhoods in Crooked River Ranch.

The boundary change will reduce the WSA by about 830 acres, but this small change will promote public safety, allow for more efficient fuels treatments on the lands immediately adjacent to Crooked River Ranch, and give critically important flexibility to local firefighters should fire break out in that area.

This is an issue of public safety, and this bill will clearly help protect the lives and property of the thousands of Crooked River Ranch residents from wildfire.

I commend Congressman Walden for his work to provide a commonsense solution to a very real public safety concern. I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the author of this legislation and the elected representative of this threatened community.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the more than 5,000 residents of the Crooked River Ranch and in the name of common sense, I ask for passage of this vital public safety measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Crooked River Ranch Fire Protection Act removes 830 acres from the wilderness study area in central Oregon. The land is adjacent to a rural subdivision, and its removal from WSA will arguably make it easier for the local community and the BLM to plan wildfire mitigation projects.

While we take issue with the point that the WSA designation limits mechanical thinning and other necessary forest treatments, the area is not suitable for wilderness designation, and the release from the WSA makes sense.

However, we still have concerns with this bill, because it ignores the collaborative process that was trying to develop a comprehensive plan for the entire area. That plan would have led to lasting conservation gains by designating wilderness and would have done even more to protect the community from wildfire by creating special management areas adjacent to Crooked River Ranch. Unfortunately, the collaborative group stalled out after this legislation was introduced.

Only Congress can permanently change the status of a wilderness study area. Whenever we choose to make a permanent change, we have a responsibility to consider the whole picture and listen to all stakeholders.

While it is disappointing that we are unable to fulfill that commitment with this legislation, we understand the need to prioritize safety of the Crooked River Ranch residents.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.