My hat is off to Mr. Riggins for writing the opinion piece on politics and federal firefighting ... and to the Lahontan Valley News for printing it.
It brings to mind what a friend who lived at various times in the Elko and Winnemucca areas. He said he and his sons kept firefighting equipment in their pickup and one day they came upon a wildfire. They fought the flames until they realized the federal firefighters were dogging it until overtime kicked in. He said they never helped with another fire on federal land.
I’m sure numerous farmers and ranchers have stories that could have gone into Mr. Riggins’ article ... maybe ranchers like the Hammond father and son in Oregon who recently were pardoned by President Trump after serving most of a five-year term for setting a backfire to save their property and inadvertently cleared off a small area of federally-controlled land.
The feds had been after them for years to abandon their ranch in an area known to hold uranium deposits.
Some 50 former ranchers and farmers in Clark County, Nevada know the extent federal agents have gone to in dislodging them from land that others covet for developments like solar farms. The Bundy family remains as the last of that breed of determined individualists ... and the feds are now appealing the court battle they won earlier this year.
I hope Mr. Riggins will keep writing about the persecution of people who strive to make the land productive and pointing out how states and counties could do a better job of managing it than bureaucrats who call the shots from thousands of miles away.
Jim Falk
Churchill County
