In a single one-week period, the cost of the U.S. Forest Service’s wildfire suppression reached a record $243 million during the height of fire activity.

Jaynes lynn
Emeritus Editor
Lynn Jaynes retired as an editor in 2023.

But is the record-breaking fire season an unavoidable natural disaster or fuel mismanagement? The answer to that question will likely determine the outcome of further legislation to fund future firefighting efforts.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Ag Secretary Thomas Vilsack and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Shaun Donovan sent a joint letter to Congress requesting a long-term shift in the way the nation pays for wildfire costs, citing them as natural disasters due to longer fire seasons resulting from climate change.

In brief, the letter requests Congress to take two actions: “First, Congress must allow the firefighting spending to be scored as an adjustment to discretionary spending caps in bad fire seasons, in keeping with the treatment of other federal disaster response activities, instead of transferring resources from non-fire programs, including timber sale and forest restoration projects, research and monitoring efforts, recreation and wildlife activities, and trail and visitor facility maintenance.

“Second, Congress must do this in a way that does not harm the agencies' ability to invest in fuels management and forest and rangeland restoration to make these lands less vulnerable and more resilient to catastrophic wildfire. Both of these actions are consistent with how the nation treats other natural disasters.”

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Read the full letter.

Changing the way we pay for wildfire suppression, however, does not address the root problem, says Natural Resources House Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, in a press release. Bishop says, “Changing the way we pay for wildfire suppression is only one small part of a much more serious land management crisis that we must address – now.

“Our national forests are unhealthy, overgrown and highly susceptible to insects, disease and devastating wildfire. We have 60 million acres at high risk to catastrophic wildfire – we need to treat these forests immediately.”

“The House passed bipartisan legislation [H.R. 2647] in July that will enable the Forest Service to move swiftly while also treating catastrophic wildfire as the natural disaster that it is. This crisis demands a holistic approach that improves forest resiliency and fixes our budget challenge. The legislation passed by the House with bipartisan support addresses both and will reduce the cost of catastrophic fires in the future.”

H.R. 2647, the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015, passed the House with bipartisan support (262-167) on July 9. Click here (PDF, 171KB) to learn more about the bill and here (PDF, 18KB) to see supporting groups (which included National Cattlemen’s Beef Association).

In an earlier National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) news release, Public Lands Council (PLC) President Brenda Richards said, “This year’s fire season has proven once again the federal mismanagement of our forests and rangeland.”

Richards, whose ranch has suffered damage in the current Idaho-Oregon fire, said, “The livestock industry and rural economies will spend decades attempting to recover from the millions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure damage and forage loss that have been the result of catastrophic wildfire in recent weeks and years, not to mention the loss of valuable wildlife habitat. Because of frivolous litigation and attempts to keep peace with extremists, our government agencies have hampered the most natural and cost-effective wildfire prevention techniques, and subsequently put the lives of ranching families like mine and others in rural communities at risk.”

PLC and NCBA strongly supported H.R. 2647 and continue to support S. 1691 introduced by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. These bills would require the Forest Service to treat a minimum of 2 million acres with mechanical treatment or prescribed burns each year, with reduced NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) requirements for these projects.

Further, this legislation would discourage frivolous litigation by requiring litigants to post a bond equal to the estimated costs of court proceedings and would require an arbitration process to precede the lawsuit. The legislation would also prevent fire borrowing and stop the federal agencies from raiding accounts necessary for proper forest and range management.  end mark

PHOTO: A fire crew member stands along 255 Road in the Cougar Creek fire in Washington in mid-September. Photo provided by InciWeb.