KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) - Montanans for Multiple Use has asked a federal court in Washington, D.C., to ban the U.S. Forest Service from implementing road and trail closures.

The group said its requested preliminary injunction is necessary because of an approaching fire season which will expose the public to a substantial health and safety risk.

It also said the Forest Service continues to implement a "continuous stream" of forest plan amendments across the country aimed at closing forest roads and trails.

"The elimination of roads and other actions in the amendments have culminated in increased fire hazards, increased probability of catastrophic fires, increased firefighting costs, increased risk and probability of damage to natural resources, loss of critical timber industry jobs and infrastructure, and loss of private property and human lives," said president Fred Hodgeboom.

His statement was issued Thursday, one day after the court request was filed.

In a lawsuit filed last year against the Flathead National Forest, the same group and 13 other plaintiffs contended that forest plan amendments approved in recent years are unlawful because they implement significant management policies that should be addressed through complete forest plan revisions.

Current forest plans were adopted in the mid-1980s. By law, they should have been revised several years ago, Hodgeboom said, but most national forests are only beginning lengthy revision processes.

"By obliterating roads in the suitable timber base," he said, the government "violates the timber management requirements of federal law and escapes the limitations on designation of roadless and wilderness areas in federal law."

In an interview with The Daily Inter Lake, Hodgeboom said the motion is significant because it seeks an injunction that would apply to all national forests. The Kootenai National Forest, for instance, recently approved a forest plan amendment that establishes road management policies aimed at improving habitat security for grizzly bears.

The Kootenai Forest approved the amendment even though it is more than a year into its forest plan revision, he said.

The motion reiterates most of the main points raised in the lawsuit filed last year against the Flathead Forest. That case has been in limbo for months, and Hodgeboom said Montanans for Multiple Use believe the court should consider the upcoming fire season with urgency.

After the lawsuit was filed, several environmental groups were granted intervenor status. Those groups have sought a change of venue that would put the case in a federal court in Missoula, which Montanans for Multiple Use considers biased in favor of environmental groups. The Washington, D.C. court has yet to rule on a change of venue.

"We thought it was a bitter irony that it's Montanans for Multiple Use, which is always calling for more local control, that filed a lawsuit back in Washington, D.C., rather than a court in Montana that's more familiar with these issues and this landscape," said Keith Hammer, chairman of the Swan View Coalition, one of the intervening groups.

Hammer said the lawsuit and the motion for an injunction are "frivolous and dangerous" because they take aim at policies that have provided for wildlife habitat security, which allows the Forest Service to continue with a timber program.

AP-WS-05-07-04 0944EDT