Idaho Gov. Little aims to ‘complement’ Trump order with this wildfire plan

Tim Ingalsbee, a former wildland firefighter and the co-founder and executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, told the Idaho Statesman that an overreliance on commercial logging would in fact exacerbate the risk of wildfires. He supports increasing the use of prescribed burns — along with strategically cutting back smaller trees and clearing out undergrowth — as a more effective form of mitigation.

As a wildland firefighter, “I worked hard as a young man to save those trees, to keep them standing,” Ingalsbee said. “If that’s their solution, why bother to fight fires at all?”