The nation’s largest forest thinning project is another step closer to becoming Forest Service policy. The public will get its first look at the final environmental impact statement on Friday.
The Forest Service is releasing the impact statement for the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, or 4FRI, a few days early in an effort to give the public more time to review it.
The goal of the program is to reduce the risk of extreme wildfires by allowing the agency to extend restoration treatments to about one million acres of land. Those efforts include prescribed fires and allowing commercial loggers to remove small trees from four National Forests in Arizona.
Holly Krake is with the Forest Service. She said the final decision on phase one will allow the agency to accelerate current restoration efforts.
"And it will accelerate that by giving us the legal authority to do many more acres of prescribed fire as well as offer additional acres for thinning, spring restoration," Krake said.
The project’s opposition is concerned that it lacks focus on habitat protection.
The formal 45-day objection period is expected to begin in early December.
