Most wildfires human-caused across British Columbia: forests minister

One percent of fires now consume about 30 percent of the Forest Service’s firefighting budget, Vilsack said.

But relying on municipalities or local agencies to help fund forestry projects is only a temporary fix, the Forest Service said in the report. The practice, known as a “fire transfer”, has slowly canceled and deferred forest projects around Colorado, leaving some forests and key watersheds more vulnerable to wildfire.

Simpson introduced a bipartisan wildfire disaster bill last Congress. When it didn’t move, Democrats, including 38 from California and eight from Washington, tried to dislodge it from committee and force a vote through an unusual “discharge petition” procedure.

Over the same period, staffing levels for those dedicated to managing forest lands has decreased by 39 percent – from 18,000 in 1998 to fewer than 11,000 in 2015.

The U.S. Forest Service this week issued a report saying that for the first time in the agency’s 110-year history, it’s spending more than half of its budget fighting wildfires.

“Climate change and other factors are causing the cost of fighting fires to rise every year,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement, “but the way we fund our Forest Service hasn’t changed in generations”. Cities, counties, states and the federal government must stop effectively subsidizing bad construction practices by risking firefighter lives to protect homes built in the most fire-prone areas.

By then, the annual cost of fire suppression could hit nearly $1.8 billion – about $700 million more than would be budgeted under current formulas. Since 2000, at least 10 states have had their largest fires on record.

“Unfortunately, due to Congressional inaction and growing costs associated with fighting wildfires, the Forest Service is increasingly turning into a firefighting agency,” Sen.

More than 20 years ago when the Northwest Forest Plan became the law of the land around here, the Forest Service changed its business plan to almost exclude the harvest of timber. “But because we’re shifting so many resources to fire right now, making those projects happen is getting more hard for the agency”.

Hotter days mean grasslands and trees dry out quicker, leading to more-numerous and more-severe forest fires each year.

Tidwell said the release of the Forest Service’s report is well timed, based on the “hectic pace” of wildfires in the country. For 2015, fire-fighting costs will take 52 percent of the budget, a figure projected to rise to 67 percent in 2025.

The solution mentioned is the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, already in Congress. Members of the Oregon delegation have long supported the concept.

Most Western forests grew up alongside frequent low-intensity fires that burned saplings and brush in the understory and left behind the oldest and largest trees – those capable of surviving the heat.

Cooler temperatures and higher precipitation in Arizona this summer “has lessened the impact to our forest vegetation … so it lessens the risk of wildfires”, Schmidlin said. Now, to be truthful, the agency is cooking the books here a bit: You could argue that programs intended to reduce hazardous fuels should not be lumped in with other firefighting costs.

The agency is allocated a budget to fight wildfires along with other work because Congress doesn’t treat wildfires as natural disasters, for which lawmakers can suddenly allocate emergency funding.