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Iron County commissioners back regional emergency push urging Forest Service to speed timber sales and thinning
Summary
Commissioners read a draft letter declaring a regional emergency and asked the U.S. Forest Service to immediately open approved timber sales and accelerate mechanical thinning, blaming decades of overstocked forests and regulatory delays for escalating wildfire risk.
The Iron County Commission unanimously agreed to support a draft regional emergency letter asking the U.S. Forest Service to rapidly activate approved timber sales and prioritise mechanical thinning to reduce fuel loads, commissioners said at their August meeting.
Commission Chair (speaker identified in the transcript as Speaker 3) read a draft that described the Monroe Fire as having burned more than 63,000 acres and said wildfire destruction threatens communities, watersheds, infrastructure and air quality. "In response to this escalating crisis, the Iron County Commission supports the 5-county association of governments formally declaring a regional emergency and urgently calls on the U.S. Forest Service to take immediate action by opening and implementing all approved timber sales and forest thinning projects," he said.
The chair argued that bark beetles are a symptom of deeper forest-health failures and that decades of reduced active forest management have left stands far denser than historic levels. "Where historical forest density averaged around 60 trees per acre, many unmanaged stands now exceed a 120 a 160 trees per acre," he said, adding that overstocked forests become fuel beds that feed mega-fires.
Commissioners said the draft will be considered by the five-county association steering committee (Garfield, Kane, Iron, Washington and Beaver) this week and that Commissioner Leland Pollock will hand-deliver the resolution to the Forest Service director in Washington, D.C. The commission asked staff to finalise the text and pursue signatures from partner counties.
No formal vote to send the letter from Iron County alone appears in the record; the commission indicated strong support and said they will pursue the committee resolution Wednesday and related outreach to federal officials. The commission also discussed the need for federal and state partners to clear regulatory delays and for increased staffing at federal agencies to implement projects quickly.
Next steps: commissioners said they will finalise the letter language and participate in the 5-county steering-committee action scheduled for the week following the meeting.
