Victims of Assayii Lake fire given the OK to rebuild

Posted by Alastair Lee Bitsóí | Jun 25, 2015 | News |

WINDOW ROCK

Finally, after a year, victims of the Assayii Lake Fire have some resolve to celebrate – the rebuilding of their summer camps in the Chooshgai Mountains.

The clearance to rebuild their camps, burnt from last year’s 14,000-acre Assayii Lake Fire, will come in the form of a proposed bill Council delegate Mel Begay (Coyote Canyon/Mexican Springs/Naschitti/Tohatchi/Bahastl’a’a’) is going to introduce into the legislative process within the week or so.

The proposal from Begay comes after the Navajo Nation Council’s Resources and Development Committee tasked him to sponsor the bill. The bill will give the 21 impacted grazing permittees from Naschitti, N.M., access to the extreme burnt area, which the BIA and Navajo Department of Agriculture is fencing off with 7-miles of fence line.

The caveat under the bill, however, is no grazing until the burnt forest and woodland regrows, and that fact-finding occurs on the 1992 forestry moratorium that bans new structures from being built in tribal forests, and the 10-year Forest Management Plan, which Navajo Forestry officials say expires at the end of this calendar year.

The proposed bill will also contain a directive from the RDC to tribal programs and departments, including the Navajo Land Department, Navajo Department of Agriculture and Navajo Forestry, to offer technical assistance to the fire victims as they rebuild their summer camps.

According to Naschitti Community Governance’s Assayii Lake Fire Committee, the fire destroyed a total of 34 structures. The fire also impacted twenty-one grazing permittees that seasonally graze over the summer in the Chooshgais.