Cathy McMorris Rodgers Quotes

Eastern Washington has experienced a number of deadly forest fires this season, and it is crucial that we have bipartisan legislation that will expedite the research and restoration process.

As the GAO report recognizes, the long-term health of our forests relies on additional fuel reduction options and funding to reduce the risks that catastrophic fire poses to our nation's ecosystems, communities and federal budgetary resources.

Wildfires can leave the land with burn scars that last for years.

The No. 1 cause of forest fires is trees.

Removing substantial fuel loads from our forests helps prevent catastrophic fire and better protects species, watersheds and neighboring communities that call them home.

What we need as much as money is consensus about how we live [with fire] in that countryside [prone to forest fires] or at least agreement about how to decide…. More than 72,000 communities are at risk and only 20% have a plan for protection.

If Europe blazes in the late spring or summer, we must put our house in order before the sparks reach the Western Hemisphere.

Due to climate change, wildfires are growing in size, frequency, and intensity, and wildfire seasons are becoming longer.

When it comes to wildfires, 2013 wasn't a good year, which is why I'm especially proud that the majority of my wildfire prevention legislation was signed into law today.

Wildfires are a result of temperature conditions, of soil moisture conditions; and, of course, something has to start it.

Preparing to fight wild fires is only part of the solution, we must be more pro-active and prevent the fires before they start, or reduce their intensity by removing forest waste and fuel build up.

California must be a really big fan of the 'Hunger Games.' Because it's always catching fire.

Of the over 100,000 wildfires that happen in the U.S. each year, not a single one would get started without the fire triangle: Oxygen, heat and fuel. Fire needs all three to exist. It's like the three branches of our government: Legislative, judicial and executive. The fewer there are, the safer we are.

It is known that wildfires behave unpredictably - this is fundamental - but it is my experience that humans in the presence of wildfire are also likely to behave in aberrant and unpredictable ways.

Arizona's forest fires are not waiting for April, and neither will we. That is why I am pushing for stepped up deployment for Hot Shot wildfire crews in March rather than April, in order to better prepare for the expected fires in northern Arizona.

The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valor only to break out again later.

We have at least 125 communities in Arizona at risk from wildfire, not because of review processes or litigation delays but because of a lack of federal funding on the ground to actually begin the projects.

When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn't just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms.

They have under invested in fire for so long that the catch up costs seem staggering. The traditional inclination is to rely on emergency interventions rather than systemic reforms.

During the time I was in office we have seen the beginning of the elimination of the fire season completely and are having fires all year round. I think we have seen the major problem of the destruction of land and property and lives that is a major problem because we don't have the resources for that many fires and we don't have the resources and the manpower to fight those fires throughout the year.

The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out; and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only to clear theatmosphere of smoke.

Maintaining healthy forests is essential to those who make a living from the land and for those of us who use them for recreational purposes.

We have chosen to bring future generations into this world of rising seas and warming temperatures, droughts and floods, heat waves and wildfires, a world in which one in four mammals and one in eight birds are at risk of disappearing forever. While the damage we've done is irreversible, that doesn't give us the right to do nothing.

If you take 67 brush fires times 10 years, that's almost 700 right there. Those brush fires are incredibly dangerous, all those homes going down proved that.

There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.