BLM to create more than 10,000 miles of fuel breaks in the Great Basin

BOISE, Idaho — The Bureau of Land Management today announced that it released the environmental impact statement to create up to 11,000 miles of fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Nevada.

The fuel breaks are designed to prevent the spread of wildfires.

“All of wildland firefighting is centered around constructing fuel breaks,” said BLM Idaho State Director John Ruhs. “Every time we construct a fireline around a wildfire using hand tools on the ground, every time we drop fire retardant, and every time we herd a wildfire into a previously burned area, we are using fuel breaks.

“Through this [environmental impact statement] we’ll be able to proactively construct fuel breaks where we know we will need them, instead of creating them reactively in responding to wildfires.”

BLM officials said that they have shown that fuel breaks and other land treatments are effective.