Free Republic

Today is for mourning. Wednesday was for shock. Four young lives, three from Yakima and one from Ellensburg, were claimed by the Thirtymile Fire near Winthrop. The four were part of a 21-member fire crew that was caught in a valley in the middle of the blaze. Four other firefighters were injured, including one Yakima man who is hospitalized in serious condition. Families were notified in the early hours of Wednesday. Their grief spread as word of the deaths circulated. Two teen-agers with college aspirations. A 21-year-old who wanted to be an engineer. A 30-year-old football hero and father of...

<p>WASHINGTON - As fires continue to ravage parts of eastern Arizona, Colorado and California, the U.S. Forest Service is conducting an internal study into how much environmentalists may be to blame.</p> <p>Environmentalists said Tuesday that there's a recent government report addressing the issue and that it shows they aren't to blame for the wildfire crisis.</p>

<p>In December 1995, a storm hit the Six Rivers National Forest in northern California, tossing dead trees across 35,000 acres and creating dangerous fire conditions. For three years local U.S. Forest Service officials labored to clean it up, but they were blocked by environmental groups and federal policy. In 1999 the time bomb blew: A fire roared over the untreated land and 90,000 more acres.</p>

Federal Government Declines Private Assistance -- Again Stanley for U.S. Senate 2002 Published 06. 21. 02 at 7:22 Sierra Time (DENVER CO -- 1:00 pm) Thursday, June 13, was not an ordinary day for Ron Largent. The Hayman blaze, on its way to becoming the largest wildfire in the history of Colorado, was burning out of control at Lake George, just 25 miles north of Ron's home in Cripple Creek. The U.S. Forest Service hadn't been able to contain it. Today Ron was going to fight the fire. Ron Largent is the Operations Manager for Anglo Gold Mining in...

Mexican spotted owl recovery team sees the forest for the trees Friday, June 07, 2002 By Ben Ikenson Beneath a dome of stars in a canyon folded into southern New Mexico's Guadalupe Mountains, Sarah Rinkevich hears a distinctive, hollow-pitched, four-note call emerge from the surrounding forest: hoo ... hoo-hoo ... hoooooo. Although the sound has become familiar to her, she's always thrilled to hear it. A biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rinkevich is on assignment to survey federally threatened Mexican spotted owls (Strix occidentalis lucida). Rinkevich is one of 13 biologists and other scientists comprising the Mexican...