Forest Service strapped for cash to fight flames

With more than a dozen wildfires wreaking havoc in California alone, the Forest Service revealed that more than half of its operating budget – or roughly $1.2 billion – is going toward fighting fires.

“We’re given so much money every year for fire suppression”, said Mike Ferris, Forest Service spokesman.

Costs to battle wildfires will consume nearly all of the U.S. Forest Service budget in 10 years unless Congress changes the way firefighting efforts are funded, the agency warned Wednesday.

Fire spending has soared since the 1995 budget, in which it accounted for just 16 percent of the agency’s spending, according to the report.

According to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, fighting wildfires will take up two-thirds of Forest Service funding by 2025, or almost $1.8 billion, as summer temperatures continue to rise owing to greenhouse gas emissions.

Fire seasons are now 78 days longer than they were in the 1970s, and these catastrophic blazes are projected to burn twice as many acres by 2050, the report said.

Building increasing numbers of structures, including homes, in fire-prone areas is also elevating costs.

Rhynard said that “shifting the source in which we get our funding as opposed to having it transferred from other programs in the Forest Service”, would go a long way to solving the problem.

“This approach treats these large, expensive fires as natural disasters while allowing the Forest Service to reinvest funding in forest restoration activities that reduce the threat of catastrophic fires”, wrote Vilsack.

Murkowski oversaw a 2016 funding bill for the Interior Department and EPA, which she said offered a partial solution.

The report did not specify which facilities lagged, although the agency noted in 2012 that two Colorado facilities, Lottis Creek Campground and Gunnison National Forest housing, were in need of fix.

“We’ve doubled the amount of acres burned from about 3 and a half million [acres] to about 7 [million acres] over the last 30 years”. Its members, who have experience in areas of fire management, law enforcement, human performance and more, will begin their work on August 3.

She said there are about 500 permanent fire-related employees in the region, which typically adds more than 600 seasonal employees during wildfire season.

“Let me put it this way, Dave was passionate about his profession as a firefighter; he was proud to be a firefighter with the Black Hills National Forest Service”. Since 2000, at least 10 states have had their largest fires on record.

The Forest Service has done its best to do more with less and continue to conserve the nation’s forests and meet public needs while simultaneously fighting fires and managing the risk of future fires.

The agency also budgets firefighting costs based on a 10-year rolling average.

Vilsack said Wednesday the Forest Service’s budget problems don’t only affect states where it’s fighting the fires, since the “budget creep” impacts everywhere the Forest Service operates – and the 166 million Americans that visit forests every year. Alaska will see continued periodic acreage growth from established fires which will lead to overall above normal significant fire potential.

Montana’s entire congressional delegation supports treating catastrophic wildfire like any other natural disaster.