OCR Text |
Show Davis Looks At Mew Agreement For Forest Lands can be finalized prior to the beginning be-ginning of the fire season. "IT JUST takes one bad sea-son sea-son to get into tens of thousands of dollars." he told commissioners. One of the problems, he added, is that during the last four to five years, crews have been involved in only three or four major fires and. yet. the crews continued to be paid for firefighting skills that are rarely rare-ly used. THE COMMISSION agreed to study the contract. But. due to budget belt-tightening, questioned whether or not they would be able to approve the S6.000 increase by the June 1 deadline. As for the forest service. Mr. Dalrymple said they have agreed to "go along" with the new contract. By MARK D. MICKELSEN FARMINGTON Davis County officials are studying a new fire protection agreement for approximately 14,250 acres of forest land which reaches throughout the unincorpor-tated unincorpor-tated county area and eastward east-ward beyond the Bountiful bench. THE AGREEMENT, if approved, would require the State Forest Service to provide pro-vide fire protection for all county forest lands outside the jurisdiction of city fire department depart-ment service. In return, the forest service would receive 64 cents per acre, or close to $9,100 per year from the county in fire protection fees. ALTHOUGH THE contract represents a $6,000 increase for the county, Forest Service Spokesman Dave Dalrymple said the agreement will allow a cutback in personnel and some fire supression costs. He said the county's once rural atmosphere is changing rapidly and said the urbanization urbaniza-tion is forcing some changes in the fire protection process. "THE NUMBER of fires we are involved in has dropped over the years," he told commissioners com-missioners in an effort to con-vice con-vice t'hem to change their annual contract. "We are having hav-ing problems justifying the program in the county." The contract, he added, would be renewable on a year-to-year basis and the forest service would monitor the program and present the results re-sults to the county annually. "WE THINK this is a viable option for the protection of that land," Mr. Dalrymple said. He assured commissioners commission-ers that his department is not "shirking" their responsibilities, responsibili-ties, but said, "we're trying to make the program as efficient as possible." He said he would like to have a final decision on the contract by June 1 so that plans |