To the Editor:

As the smoke clears around Sheriff McKinley’s arrest of a local Forest Service employee on reckless burning charges, we should recognize the entire incident as an alarm that something is horribly broken in the federal-private neighbor relationship. Regardless of which side of the fence a fire starts — or is started — if protocols and agreements to protect the other side aren’t in place and fully understood by everyone beforehand, then the system is failing.

Neither federal nor private landowners are going away anytime soon, which means we’ll continue to share many miles of a common “boundary,” and certainly controlled burning and wildfire are here to stay.

Instead of just another event in the long-running feud between landowners and government, maybe we should recognize what’s before us — a choice of either throwing more fuel on our respective hardline positions of supporting “our guy” in our zero-sum fight or of setting aside the posturing and accusations, even momentarily, and dropping the recriminations for a conversation that might produce a positive, mutual benefit outcome. The latter requires humility and an honest attempt to understand the foundations for our different perspectives while the former potentially leads to a dangerous reality that the next incident becomes violent. At that point, will it really matter which side has the most power or the loudest voice?

The Malheur Forest and county landowners have been neighbors for over 100 years. How is it then that a fairly regular event that, from all outward appearances, probably could have been avoided through upfront communication and coordination wound up as headline news clear back to the East Coast? Is it really necessary that the response to something as predictable as a fire moving across an arbitrary boundary must result in costly, punitive measures and hostilities rather than serving as an example of the effectiveness of working together?

All neighbors have routine disagreements. Most are tempered by some level of mutual understanding, if not respect and cooperation. Some are born from conflict. Maybe this time, we don’t need to let things get worse before we make them better.

Shaun W. Robertson, President

Grant County Farm Bureau