MOUNT LEMMON - From a mountainside where visitors once beheld dense stands of conifers, President Bush on Monday expressed hope that the scene of wildfire devastation would inspire the nation to adopt his Healthy Forests Initiative.

"We need to thin our forests in America," he said to applause from more than 100 people."

The invited guests, from public officials to private homeowners, have a stake in preventing forest fires like the "Aspen" conflagration that roamed virtually at will for a month across more than 130 square miles of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson.

For many years, Bush said, well-meaning federal policymakers actually worked against the health of forests by opposing aggressive removal of small-diameter trees and other forest fuels.

"The decades of neglect, the decades of failed policy have meant that our forest fires are incredibly hot, incredibly catastrophic," Bush said.

"It's going to take a while to solve the problem, and we better get after it now with good, sound forest-management practice."

He repeatedly referred to the plan as "common sense."

As the president flew by helicopter to the mountaintop, 250 environmentalists - among them state Rep. Phil Lopes, D-Tucson, several firefighters and Summerhaven residents - protested at the base of the mountain.

And two Democratic presidential candidates weighed in from the campaign trail, signaling growing discontent with a plan that critics claim puts too few controls on the logging industry.

'Timber giveaway'

U.S. Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Kerry, each with a vote on any forest plan that comes to the Senate, minced no words.

Calling Bush's plan "an excuse for a timber industry giveaway," Lieberman, of Connecticut, said in a statement, "Unlike our first president, George Bush just can't come clean about his plan to cut down trees."

Kerry, of Massachusetts, said he agrees that thinning must be done near developed areas, but Bush's plan allows logging of federal forests hundreds of miles from communities.

Back on the mountain, the U.S. Forest Service's Larry Humphrey, incident commander for the "Aspen" fire, said, "You've got to thin the entire forest. A one-mile buffer is not going to do it."

As Bush greeted well-wishers on the mountain, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he believes the Senate will surmount two stumbling blocks and pass a bill along the lines of the one approved by the House.

The first question involves the diameter of the trees that can be harvested. Commercial loggers have little interest in clearing small growth unless they also can take large trees.

Legal constraints are the other issue, McCain said.

The Senate is trying to "work out a reasonable process where they (the public) get their day in court but it doesn't turn out to be three or four years in court."

Kerry complained that Bush's claims that environmental concerns delay logging projects are not true.

The president spent about three hours in southern Arizona before flying to Denver for a Republican fund-raiser.

He traveled from Tucson by helicopter to address and mingle with the gathering of Forest Service and law-enforcement personnel, firefighters, American Red Cross workers and property owners in the village of Summerhaven at the 8,000-foot elevation.

Bird's eye view

The flight gave him a view of rocky canyons and mountainsides where vegetation was reduced to little more than oversize matchsticks. In other places, small green areas untouched by the fire were interspersed with rusty swaths where severe drought has left pines defenseless against bark beetles.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, whose agency oversees the Forest Service, accompanied Bush, and many of the state's top Republicans were on hand.

Bush's plan would subject about 20 million acres in the West to thinning, a tactic endorsed by forest experts but controversial for where and how it would take place.

Environmentalists are alarmed that the plan would eliminate many safeguards for wilderness areas and wildlife by allowing cutting even in remote areas, giving the public less voice in decisionmaking, thwarting many administrative appeals and setting strict time limits for court actions trying to block forest projects.

The Southwest Forest Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, SkyIsland Alliance and Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter are among foes of the plan.

"Unfortunately, the president's wildfire proposal would not have protected the communities he visited," Wilderness Society President William Meadows said.

Before being contained in mid-July, the "Aspen" fire, believed to have been human-caused, destroyed 340 structures and cost at least $16 million to fight.



Reach the reporter at jon.kamman@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-4816.