CREDIT:
AP/U.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service has
nearly depleted its budget for fighting wildfires at the peak of wildfire
season, a development which hasforced the agency to divert $600 million in funds from timber and other
areas to continue fighting fires.
As of Wednesday, the agency
was down to $50 million after spending $967 million this year on fighting
wildfires. So far in 2013, 33,000 wildfires have burned in the Western U.S., spanning 5,300 square miles and
destroying 960 homes and 30 commercial buildings.
This year is the second consecutive year and the sixth year since 2002 that the Forest Service has had to divert funds
for fighting fires. The Forest Service’s wildfire fighting budget was slashed by $115 million by automatic, across-the-board sequester cuts that
went into effect earlier this year. In addition, a wildfire reserve fund
created in 2009, known as the FLAME Act has dropped from $413 million in 2010
to $299 million this year after sequestration. These cuts come as costs to fight
wildfires each year are soaring: during the 1990s, the federal government spent less than $1 billion a year fighting wildfires, but since 2002, it’s spent a yearly
average of more than $3 billion.
These cuts and the trend of
the Forest Service’s depleting funds are made all the more troubling by
warnings that wildfires will only become more intense and more frequent and as
the climate warms — already, wildfire seasons last about two months longer than in previous decades.
Despite a tragic wildfire in Arizona, the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, and major fires in Alaska and Idaho, this wildfire
season has been less severe than last year in terms of acres burned. So far, wildfires have
burned through about 3.5 million acres in the U.S., compared to last year’s 7.1 million acres burned at
the same point. But large, explosive fires like the one that killed 19
firefighters in central Arizona earlier this summer are already becoming more
common, and as climate change brings higher temperatures, severe drought and
expanded insect infestations in many parts of the U.S., conditions are becoming more and more conducive to wildfires.
Despite this year’s
relatively small loss of acreage to fires, 51 large, uncontained active
wildfires are still burning in the U.S. today — in Idaho,Montana, Oregon and
an out-of-control fire in California that’s grown to 165 square miles and entered a remote area of Yosemite National Park on Friday. The
blaze, known as the “Rim” wildfire, has prompted California Gov. Jerry Brown
declare a state of emergency in Tuolumne County on Thursday, and has cost $5.4
million so far.
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