Recently burned area along the Columbia River south of Wenatchee, WA.

Public lands often tend to be isolated from towns, houses and people. Although this is one of the benefits of visiting public lands- that it is secluded and away from cities and people, isolation and public accessability also make the lands targets for people who use the land in ways they would not use thier own land. Often public lands are used for trash dumping, target practice, off-road 4 wheeling, and partying. Usually the closer public lands are to population centers, the more use and abuse the land receives. This area is owned by Washington State Fish and Wildlife, easily accessable from a highway, and never has any crowds of people or any supervision by government agencies or law enforcement- consequently it has burned multiple times, and twice within the past two years. Most government agencies are understaffed, and ill equipped to monitor activities on all of the lands under thier management. Often lands are fragmented with isolated parcels spread over large distances which makes it more difficult to check on activities and natural resource conditions. Increasingly federal and state land management agencies are asked to do more, with less money and personel, and much of the available resources are consumed by lawsuits from both environmentalist and conservative groups.