Timber industry seeks to ease logging rules

WASHINGTON (AP) - Timber industry officials called for relaxed environmental restrictions to speed up logging in national forests, saying bureaucratic delays aggravated this year's severe fire season in the West.

Dramatic reductions in national forest logging over the past decade have contributed to the overgrown conditions that provide fuel for fires, Henson Moore, president of the American Forest & Paper Association, said yesterday.

``As you cut down on the harvest, you increase the fuel load and that increases the likelihood for forest fires,'' he said at a news conference.

``The reason we have this problem has been a lack of management of these federal forest lands. . . . It's the worst in 30 years and it isn't over,'' Moore said.

His remarks came as about 18,000 people were battling blazes yesterday on more than 320,000 acres across California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

This year's fire season already is rivaling that of the record years of 1988 and 1994.

While admitting that red tape sometimes causes delays, Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas said timber industry officials were oversimplifying a complex problem caused in large part by historical efforts to snuff out fires, disrupting the natural fire cycle.

Environmentalists said the government already has the tools it needs to expedite logging in dangerous fire situations and accused the timber industry of exploiting the Western fires.

Check out the "http://www.batnet.com/woodcom/afpa/index.ht ml" American Forest & Paper Association Web area.