Local, state and federal officials along with conservation groups and logging interests have to find common ground to reduce increasingly destructive wildfires in the U.S. West, Gov. Brad Little said Tuesday.

He told several hundred participants at an Idaho Forest Restoration Partnership meeting that they have the chance to make a new federal-state program called the "shared stewardship" agreement a success.

"We have got to get this done," the Republican said. "I think the consensus from both ends of the scale is that we have to do this right."

Idaho signed the agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last year that allows state participation in federal timber sales and restoration work like prescribed burns and tree planting on private, state and federal lands.

"I would say it's more holistic thinking about the landscape," said John Phipps, director of the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado.

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