Lars Larson: Big wildfire revelation

By Lars Larson
NW and national radio host,

Nine people died in the Santiam Creek fire five years ago and 5-thousand homes burned.

A month ago, a jury decided PacificCorp should pay millions to victims in one of the biggest lawsuit judgments in Oregon history.

The Oregon Department of Forestry finally released its investigation of the fire. Yes, it says there were 7 fires started at power lines … but all of those were quickly extinguished.

The rest of the fires started from embers flying off the Beachie Creek fire burning on badly managed Federal forest land.

Every year, the Northwest suffers from the bad management of state and federal lands. Private lands burn only rarely…and in most cases, those fires start on public lands.

When we had active logging and forest management, the Northwest saw 35 years with NO big fires at all.

Now, Oregon and Washington see one million acres go up in flames in every average year…and more in the extraordinary years.

I know how badly lawyers WANT someone with deep pockets like a utility company to blame…but we all know the real guilty parties.

Their names show up on the ballots you mark every couple of years.

That’s the Rose City Rap. Join me at noon on KXL for 4 hours of Honestly provocative talk. I’m Lars Larson