Andrew Pollack: How Trump Can Save Western Forests from Wildfires

In 2020, Americans were forced to sit back and watch our cities burn because of BLM — Black Lives Matter. After my daughter, Meadow, was murdered in the Parkland school shooting, due in part to BLM-inspired policies, I decided to pick up and move out into the country.

But this summer, I’m once again forced to sit back as I see the countryside around me burn because of another BLM: the Bureau of Land Management. If and when he retakes the Oval Office, President Donald Trump must tackle the root cause of this self-imposed arson.

Just as with the BLM fires that raged through our cities, I can’t help but shake the impression that the Biden-Harris administration neglected the ongoing wildfires in the western countryside to score political points. The land burns, and the Biden-Harris administration blames climate change. President Biden says something like these “wildfires are being supercharged by climate change,” and then uses them as an opportunity to impose restrictions on logging. Then the media run with it, claiming that the only way to keep America from literally going down in flames is to keep electing Democrats.

But that’s not really the problem, and that’s definitely not how to fix it.

I own a ranch in rural Oregon that borders land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. It is immediately obvious where my land and the land of my neighbors’ ends, and where the land managed by the BLM begins. While the trees on my property are green and healthy, the trees on BLM land are dead.

Beetles are killing these trees, and unlike the privately held land, the forest service isn’t taking care of their property. Cedar and pine tree beetles can be killed with insecticidal spray. The Douglas-fir beetle generally prefers larger trees of 12 to 14 inches in diameter. Cutting down old trees when an infection starts can help control it. These are things that private landowners will do, but that BLM just won’t. 

Sometimes, leaving the environment completely untouched by humans is counterproductive. Take hunting, for example. Leaving deer and elk populations alone leads to boom and bust cycles, where populations increase until they overgraze and don’t have enough food to feed all the animals. When that happens, populations crash, and there is mass starvation—not exactly a very humane outcome.

Similarly, BLM policy leaves our forests untended, which leads to deadwood and fires, which leads to calls for further restrictions on private land use. President Trump needs to break this destructive cycle. Appointing a head of BLM who has actually owned private forest land would be a start. Implementing Schedule F to make it easier to actually change BLM policy would be another good move.

But ultimately, American land would be in better hands if it were tended to by American citizens. With our government running massive deficits, the sale of federal lands would be a triple-win. It would help bring down the deficit, improve the productivity of our country, and guard against the wildfires that can cost billions of dollars in damages.

I, for one, am sick of seeing America burn for political benefit. I hope and trust that when Trump retakes office, he’ll stop this sad cycle. 

Andrew Pollack is the author of Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies That Created The Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students.