EDITORIAL: Clear the air and save our forests

North Idaho has five seasons. You’ve got the Big Four, of course, but in recent years a fifth distinct season has emerged: Smoke season.

Nowadays, the clear skies and welcome warmth that were the hallmark of late summer have been hijacked to varying degrees by wildfire smoke from points west and north. Believe what you will about climate change, but conditions have shifted enough to transform this once-rare phenomenon into that fifth wretched season.

While U.S. Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo have advocated for resources to reduce the threat of devastating fires, progress on that front has been slowed at least somewhat by a lack of support from some congressional quarters that might not fully understand the health and safety threats posed by wildfires. Canada’s manifold infernos — more than 500 at last count, with about half of them completely unchecked — might be changing some minds.

Across the Midwest and East Coast, smoke pouring down from Canadian blazes has clogged American skies and produced dangerous, even lethal, air quality at times. Because of the enormous size of some of these fires and the lack of resources to battle them — even though at least 10 nations have sent help to our Canadian neighbors — many of the blazes are simply being left to burn. That means smoke might menace much of the U.S. all summer long.

Ecologically, it’s Mother Nature doing her thing, cleaning house of overgrowth and diseased trees so greater forest health can follow. But all that fire threatens living things and valuable property while the smoke fortifies the greenhouse effect that traps dangerous gasses.

According to an excellent report by CNN.com (https://shorturl.at/fEGQ6), experts in Canada are pleading with their government for more resources to improve forest health so inevitable fires aren’t so devastating.

Throughout the summer, Congress will be tackling the 2018 Agriculture Improvement Act, which expires in September. This massive farm bill, worth more than $1 trillion, holds some of the keys to healthier forests through restoration and conservation projects.

Unfortunately, the plague of partisan politics could threaten the level of funding the U.S. Forest Service needs to protect our woodlands, people and property. One step in the right direction was outlined in a recent article from TheHill.com (https://shorturl.at/itvz0):

“Over the next 10 years, the Biden administration plans to double the level of ‘fuel treatments’ — tree-clearing and prescribed burns — carried out in wildfire-prone Western forests. Loggers and firefighters will traipse across 20 million acres of American forest (the approximate size of Kansas), using fire and saws to clear out brush, shrubs and small trees in an effort to mitigate fire risk.”

It’s our fervent hope that elected officials join together for the good of the nation in this literal fight for survival, no matter who tries to take the lion's share of political credit. Here at home, we can perhaps retire that fifth wretched season and all breathe a little easier.