The US Military learned many lessons in Viet Nam, but none so lasting as the importance of controlling the news media. During the Viet Nam war the media had virtually unrestricted access. Many will remember the graphic images out of that war for the rest of their lives. By contrast, many thousands died in both Iraq wars with almost no coverage except what was permitted by the US censors. Why should forest fires in British Columbia be treated with the same kind of censorship that the US military has applied in controlling the media during wars since Viet Nam?

Eventually Premier Gordon Campbell will have to take full responsibility for censoring the media during the 2003 fire season. For now the media image is of bureaucrats from the emergency response program who are saying that they are attempting to protect the victims. Perhaps they are right. A full postmortem will be necessary to evaluate whether experts agree that censorship of the media during a time of natural disaster is in the interests of both the public and the victims. At the end of that postmortem, Premier Campbell should not be allowed to hang the responsibility for any bad decisions on the neck of some bureaucrat who he could overrule in a second.

If my house were in the center of the fires, I would want to know as much as possible. I suspect that most people feel the same, and that censorship is adding to their pain and suffering.

The biggest fire, McLure http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_fires_noon200308-6, is by itself almost as big as all the forest land lost to fires last year. BC must have an inquiry into this disaster. For now, the fire season has hardly begun. Hundreds of additional fires remain to be fought before the fall rains.

Everyone's heart goes out to the brave firefighters and the victims of the flames. The government should not be allowed to escape accountability for either cuts to fire preparedness or for censorship during the disaster by hiding behind the firefighters.

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August 4, 2003

Forest Fires and Budget Cuts

No one can blame the Campbell government for 40 days with almost no measurable rain in the Kamloops area. Only after the last embers are cold will attention turn to whether cutbacks in fire prevention and protection played any part in this summer's devastating forest fires. For now, attention is rightly placed on compassion for the victims - families and their communities. Some might be quick to criticize Premier Campbell for appearing to be primarily concerned over the impact on his budget of the cost of fighting the fires and perhaps compensating the victims, but the initial media clips might have missed deeply felt compassion.

The service plan for the Ministry of Forests (page 17) indicates that the "Total area of Crown forest lost to unwanted wildfire annually (in hectares, on a 5-year rolling average)" was projected to be 17,096 heatares in 2002-03 rising to something less than 30,000 heatares in subsequent years. In others words, the "plan" called for almost a doubling of the amount of forest lost to wildfire. During legislative debate, the Minister of Forests, Mike de Jong, fielded a friendly question from backbench MLA Pat Bell:

The preface to the plan contains a statement signed by de Jong which says that it was "was prepared under his direction in accordance with the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act." The Ministry's annual report for 2002-03 boasted that it contained 93 per cent of all unwanted fires at less than 4 hectares (ha), and it kept the area burned by unwanted wildfires to 20,471 ha, below the published target of less than 45,000 hectares.

It is probably true that we have been very lucky with fires in recent years and this year seems headed in the opposite direction; however, there are some disturbing numbers in the Ministry's budget for fire protection. Budget vote 25 provided $11.2 million less for fire protection in 2003-04 than in 2002-03. It provided more than $8.5 million less for fire preparedness; the budget decreased from $45.7 million in 2002-03 to $37.2 million in 2003-04.

Whether those cuts in any way affected the ability to fight this year's fires can only be determined by experts in the field. When the last embers are cold, the public needs to hear from the experts.