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Loggers eye up fire-damaged forests in US

By Kurt Kleiner

19 January 2002

IT’S not just Australia that can’t decide how to deal with wildfires. The US
government is embroiled in a legal wrangle with environmentalists over what to
do with the remains of forests that have been partially razed by fire.

About 1200 square kilometres of the Bitterroot National Forest on the
Montana-Idaho border burnt during wildfires in the summer of 2000. The federal
government ordered some of the surviving charred timber to be logged to prevent
fires breaking out again. But now environmentalists have won a court ruling
allowing them to appeal against the decision. They say the logging will be…

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