McCall Idaho Headline News

Butch Cooper, owner of the Winter Inn in Warren, has lost 2-1/2 months of business during his normal peak season due to this summer's fires.

Butch Cooper sits in his empty Winter Inn in Warren. He and many others who frequent the business are convinced the fire managers let this summer's forest fires burn rather than put them out.

"I'll be able to continue, despite the Forest Service," Cooper said. Cooper, 60, has operated the business for two years, taking over from his late sister Shirley Winter, who owned the business for 18 years.

"They (fire managers) basically destroyed my summer business," he said. "They've created one hell of an ecological disaster, and this is just the beginning of it."

Cooper lamented the damage to the roads and to the salmon spawning grounds. He blames the Forest Service for not putting out the fires and poor forest management.

"Since we've done away with logging, now we are a recreational area," he said. "Now that they are destroying the recreation part of it, where does it stop? Do they want to just get all the people out of the forest period?"

Cooper knows that the federal government has made low interest loans available through the Small Business Administration, but he is not interested. "Why would I want to pay interest on my losses?" he asked.

He believes the Forest Service is endangering more people by allowing the fires to burn.

"People who use the forests are in danger now," Cooper said. "They (Forest Service) are endangering a hell of a lot more people than the firefighters."

Cooper wants the forest to allow selective logging.

"Trace down how many people one log out of here employs," he said. "It employs people all the way down to Home Depot to carpenters, and they need screws and nails which employs miners."

Thinning the forest through logging would limit the severity of the fires, Cooper said.