Larger Wildfires Cost More To Fight
Climate change has led to longer fire seasons with larger, more complex and more costly fires. Last year the National Forest Service and the Interior Department had to borrow $650 million from other federal programs to fund increased firefighting costs.
Federal officials announced a better budget plan Wednesday.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters that wildfires can have an impact on as many as 46 million homes and 70,000 communities along the urban wildland interface. Over the last decade Vilsack says the costs of fighting these fires has grown from 13 percent of the Forest Service’s budget to 40 percent this year.
“We’ve had to transfer and borrow from other fire and non-fire programs to cover suppression costs each year,” Vilsack said. “And frankly the solution is to treat fire the way we treat other natural disasters.”
Vilsack and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell have proposed providing funding for extraordinary conditions creating a cap adjustment, which is a ceiling and not a funding target, to fight the most severe 1 percent of fires. Those fires account for 30 percent of the annual firefighting budget. Congress is considering a similar proposal.
