ericmetzger

Dave's comments are presumtious, shameful, WAY off the mark, and very premature. Wildland Fire fatality investigations are thorough in the extreme and there has been exactly ZERO official word on the circumstances of the tragedy thus far. Vitelle knows this damn well - If he really does have 25 years in the industry, he knows perfectly well that detailed analyses and lessons learned ALWAYS result from fatalities, and NEVER occur this soon afterward. Please publish a followup article this fall when the actual experts release their findings; it would be the responsible journalistic thing to do, and will certainly disprove most of what Vitelle has so irresponsibly stated here.

I can summarize exactly what Karen Coulter and the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project are advocating for when they fight projects like this: a continuation of the status quo that resulted in the deaths of two people and the loss of 502 homes (as of this writing) in Colorado just this week. Doing nothing puts us all at risk. Period, end of story.

If - scratch that - WHEN there is a fire in the Deschutes Collaborative Forest Restoration area, it is almost certain that I and dozens of people I care about will be there, putting our lives on the line to protect your homes from the fire. This project makes that a much, much safer and more easily accomplished job. Please support it now so you don't have to worry about us or your own lives and properties later.