Leader

**NJFFSA16** · 07-22-2003, 10:48 PM

7/22/03

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Forest Service needs Congress to quickly
pass a broad overhaul of national forest management, a top official
said Tuesday, in order to reduce the threat of major wildfires next
year.
"Even if it passes next spring, we won't be able to use it in
the next fire season," said Mark Rey, the Agriculture Department
undersecretary in charge of the Forest Service.
Rey's comments came as the Senate appears headed for another
logjam over a bill passed last month by the House and backed by the
White House.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the administration is at least four
votes short of the 60 it would need to pass the House bill over the
Democrats' objections. He said an agreement is possible if the
White House is willing to work with Democrats who are reluctant to
tinker with the role of the courts in reviewing forest management.
"The ball is in the administration's court," Wyden said. "But
if they make a judgment that they just want to go on the campaign
trail, that it's the House bill or nothing, that would be injurious
to the country."
Last year the administration's efforts to speed up forest
treatment failed when senators could not agree on legislation.
Several expressed frustration at the prospect of inaction this
year.
"We're tiptoeing through the forests as they burn," said Sen.
Larry Craig, R-Idaho. "I would hope that politics would yield to
common sense on this issue."
The House bill would speed up efforts to cut trees from
overgrown forests and use controlled burns to consume excess fuel
in an effort to prevent the type of catastrophic wildfire that
charred nearly 7 million acres last year.
It would exempt 20 million acres of at-risk forests from normal
environmental reviews and would limit administrative appeals and
seek to expedite court challenges that the administration argues
have long delayed some forest treatment projects.
The Bush administration has already removed some of the hurdles
to forest treatment. Under rules adopted in May, logging on up to
1,000 acres and controlled burns on up to 4,500 acres in at-risk
areas could be "categorically excluded" from environmental
reviews and administrative appeals.
The administration estimates that 190 million acres of federal
land - an area the size of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming combined -
are at heightened risk for a severe wildfire.
So far this year, fires have charred nearly 1.5 million acres,
all of them in Western states.
The Senate Agriculture Committee has a hearing scheduled for
Thursday to amend the wildfire legislation and vote to send it to
the full Senate for action.
"We need Congress to act. This is an issue that has been
debated ad nauseam in D.C.," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a
Democrat. "While the clouds for the 'perfect storm' have been
gathering for a long time, we now have the perfect storm, with the
drought, the bark beetle infestation and the large fires."
Napolitano said the Western Governors' Association has endorsed
a plan that calls for protecting communities that border forests;
cooperation between federal, state and local officials; and a
substantial increase in the federal funding going to wildfire
prevention.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

**NJFFSA16** · 07-25-2003, 01:06 AM

July 24th

By ROBERT GEHRKE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate Agriculture Committee avoided a
showdown on a forest-fire prevention bill Thursday, advancing it
but choosing to deal with its thornier elements when the bill
reaches the full Senate in September.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said he is hopeful a
compromise can be reached to tackle the fire issue before Congress
returns in September from a monthlong recess.
"We have a real opportunity to address it and I hope we seize
that opportunity in a bipartisan manner," he said.
Senators from both parties concede the administration is about
four votes short of the 60 needed to pass the bill over Democrats'
objections if a deal is not struck.
Last year, efforts to pass legislation to streamline forest-fire
reduction efforts and limit environmental appeals got bogged down
in partisan bickering in the Senate. On Thursday, senators said
they cannot afford to wait any longer.
Sen. Michael Crapo, R-Idaho, said the death of two firefighters
in his state Tuesday - which brought to eight the number of
firefighters killed this year - demonstrates the need for action.
"These sacrifices underscore the need for legislation to
address the health crisis facing our nation's forests," Crapo
said. "We can't let our forests continue to decay as projects to
enhance their health are delayed behind frivolous appeals and
litigation."
Members of both parties have voiced support for speeding up the
process to cut trees out of forests that have grown too thick or
have been ravaged by bugs in order to reduce the threat of the kind
of massive wildfires that burned across the West in 2000 and 2002.
The major sticking point remains over whether Congress should
require anyone challenging such a project to show that the decision
to cut the trees was "arbitrary and capricious."
"Essentially what they're doing is reaching in and putting a
hand on the scale of justice," said Marty Hayden, an attorney with
the environmental group Earthjustice.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., agreed the bill tinkers with the
court system and continues to underfund forest treatment projects.
He introduced his own bill Thursday, bringing to at least five the
number of Senate alternatives to the House bill.
The committee added provisions to the bill that would create a
public land corps to put at-risk youth to work on forest health
projects, and provide $15 million in grants to help rebuild rural
economies in nine states that have lost forestry jobs.
Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., the sponsor of the House bill, said
it has been two months since the House approved the legislation,
and the Senate should act quickly.
"I know the Senate is busy these days, but this is a crisis
situation of enormous proportions and I would hope that my
colleagues on the other side of the Capitol would treat this
legislation with commensurate urgency," McInnis said.
The Bush administration in May enacted rules that allow logging
on up to 1,000 acres and controlled burns on up to 4,500 acres in
at-risk areas without environmental reviews and administrative
appeals.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

**NJFFSA16** · 08-04-2003, 10:55 PM

Budget Spent

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Forest Service has exhausted its
firefighting budget at a time that more than two dozen large
wildfires are raging in the West.
The agency said Monday it would begin transferring money from
other accounts - including fire prevention projects - to continue
putting out fires.
Underfunding is a perennial problem for the Forest Service and
one that has drawn increasing criticism from Western lawmakers and
watchdog groups. They say the agency needs to do a better job
estimating how much will be needed to fight fires and Congress
should find a way to provide the money.
"Here we go again," said Keith Ashdown, a spokesman for
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group that has criticized
the Forest Service. "Unfortunately, we handle every fire season
like it's a financial crisis."
Ashdown and other critics say the makeshift approach - borrowing
from accounts for fire prevention, road repair and restoration of
areas damaged by previous fires - makes little sense, since many of
the programs are intended to keep fires from happening at all.
Monday's announcement comes less than a week after Congress
rejected President Bush's request for $289 million in emergency
spending to fight wildfires. Bush had requested the money - which
would supplement $578 million already allocated for firefighting by
the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management - as part of an
emergency spending bill for natural disasters.
Pressured by record federal deficits and eager to leave town,
the House Republican leadership cut out the wildfire money before
leaving on summer recess July 25.
The Senate had initially approved the firefighting money in its
version of the emergency bill. But senators removed the funding
last week to align their bill with the House and send it to Bush
for his signature.
The omission of the firefighting money left many Western
senators seething.
"I have as conservative a voting record as anybody, but I don't
try to be crazy about it," said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah. "If
there's something that's a legitimate role of government, even
conservatives understand you fund it."
The Forest Service said Monday it expects to spend at least $773
million on firefighting this year, about $355 million more than
allocated in the current budget. That estimate could go up,
depending on the severity of large fires now burning in nine
Western states, officials said.
The Forest Service spent more than $1.4 billion in 2002, one of
the worst fire seasons on record.
In congressional testimony this year, Forest Service Chief Dale
Bosworth said the agency and Congress must find a long-term
solution.
"It's absolutely crazy to continue year after year wondering if
we have to transfer money to cover fire costs," he said.
---
On the Net:
Forest Service: http://www.fs.fed.us/
National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

**NJFFSA16** · 08-22-2003, 12:34 AM

REDMOND, Ore. (AP) - With the smoke of a wildfire billowing on
the horizon, President Bush urged Congress on Thursday to support
his plan to ease environmental restrictions on logging and speed
thinning projects in national forests to reduce the danger of
wildfire.
"We have a problem in Oregon and around our country that we
must start solving," Bush said, after flying over wildfires in the
Cascade Range. "The problem is too much undergrowth and that
creates conditions for unbelievably hot fires."
Environmentalists have complained that Bush's initiative,
announced a year ago during a visit to southern Oregon that was
also marked by wildfires, would allow timber companies to harvest
old growth forests, reduce public involvement in forest management
decisions, and could jeopardize endangered species.
"If you are concerned about old growth, you'd better be worried
about conditions that can create deadly fires," Bush told a crowd
at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in central Oregon.
The strategy, he said, "is not something invented in
Washington. It is the collective wisdom of scientists, wildlife
biologists, forestry professionals, firefighters."
"Our administration is taking their advice. Congress needs to
take their advice," Bush said.
Bush had planned to tour a U.S. Forest Service thinning project
near Camp Sherman and urge support for his initiative in a speech
in the mountain community. Plans changed after the Booth and Bear
Butte Complex fires grew to 4,000 acres, forcing evacuation of the
tiny community of Camp Sherman and closing U.S. Highway 20.
The fires broke out Tuesday afternoon in the Mount Jefferson
Wilderness and grew quickly. The cause was under investigation. The
president toured the area by air, but vision was obscured by smoke,
which could be smelled in the cabin of his aircraft.
A bill sponsored by Republican congressmen Greg Walden of Oregon
and Scott McInnis of Colorado sailed through the House last May,
and is awaiting consideration in the Senate, where Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Ore., has demanded changes.
Wyden wants the bill amended to add federal funding for thinning
projects, rather than paying for them through the sale of large
trees that are the most fire-resistant. Wyden also wants to exclude
logging in the old growth forests that have been battlegrounds in
the Northwest.
Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff, said he did not hear
anything in the president's speech that would indicate his
willingness to offer the kind of compromise needed for the House
bill to be embraced by Democrats and pass the Senate.
"The president has been the father of the Healthy Forest
Initiative but he has been something of an absentee father of
late," Kardon said.
Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said existing budgets could
be stretched farther if the agency did not have to devote so much
money to paperwork.
Last year, wildfires burned nearly 7 million acres nationally
and killed 23 firefighters, destroyed hundreds of homes and cost
the federal government $1.5 billion.
Bush's bill calls for aggressive thinning on up to 20 million
acres of the 190 million acres the Forest Service has estimated at
high risk of wildfire. It would eliminate some environmental
reviews, limit appeals on overgrown woodlands, and direct judges to
consider the need to protect forests from wildfire when considering
lawsuits, so forest projects could be completed within months.
Critics say the Bush plan will make it easier to harvest large
trees - the most valuable for lumber mills - and damage habitat for
fish and wildlife.
Tim Lillebo, Eastern Oregon Field representative for the Oregon
Natural Resources Council, an environmental group, said he was
encouraged by the president's mention of protecting old growth
forests, setting priorities for projects that protect forest
communities, and maintaining public participating in forest
management decisions.
"If you're saying it, George, write it into the bill," Lillebo
said. "If you write it into the bill, we'll get some real good
common ground."
The bill includes a provision allowing logging projects on up to
1,000 acres without environmental review if they are infested with
insects. Controlled burns up to 4,500 acres could be done without
environmental studies. Though not eligible for administrative
appeal, such "categorical exclusions" would still be liable to
court challenges.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

**ratpak13** · 08-28-2003, 01:18 PM

Clinton vs Bush-Fire Prevention?

Do you have any budgetary numbers on the amounts allocated for Wildfire Prevention?
What hinderances are there to prevention, imposed by ultra-environmentalists, ie access to rugged, remote regions?

Thanks

**NJFFSA16** · 09-02-2003, 09:28 PM

These are the numbers I found on the web.

The Bush Administration requested $2.2 billion in wildfire prevention and firefighting money for the Interior Department and the Forest Service. (FY2003)

The Clinton Administration's proposal for wildland fire management in September of 2000, was for 2.8 billion dollars, an increase of 1.6 billion over the current allotment at that time.

Now.....does logging reduce the threat of wildfire?
Food for thought:

Perhaps the most significant big wildfire occured in 1871 near Peshtigo, Wisconsin in an area that had been extensively logged. Salable timber was removed, whereas slash and dense undergrowth were left behind. On October 8th, a small brush fire quickly grew into an inferno, consumed Peshtigo within an hour, damaging 16 other towns, and burnt more than 1.2 million acres. More than 1,200 people died, making it the worst wildfire disaster in US history.

**RspctFrmCalgary** · 09-02-2003, 10:47 PM

Puts it all in perspective doesn't it, the horrendous fire season in BC and parts of Alberta. I like to think that shows the advances in technology etc that we haven't lost 1200 lives. 3 lives lost is bad enough.

**NJFFSA16** · 10-14-2003, 12:01 AM

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - A group of U.S. Forest Service employees
and others want the government to study its firefighting policies
and the use of chemical fire retardants.
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics contends that
decades of aggressive fire suppression have created even more
dangerous fire conditions in the nation's forests, resulting in
increased risk of death or injury to firefighters.
The Eugene, Ore.-based group said it will seek a court order on
Tuesday requiring the Forest Service to prepare a comprehensive
environmental study on its use of fire retardant and an examination
of firefighting's toll on human life.
"Too many firefighters die each year in a fruitless and
self-defeating war against fire," Executive Director Andy Stahl
said. "We can't think of a more appropriate organization to come
to the defense of wildland firefighters or to hold our agency
accountable for the unwarranted risk it places on its employees."
Twenty-six people died in firefighting-related incidents this
year, and more than 900 wildland firefighters have died since 1910.
A call to the Forest Service's regional office in Missoula went
unanswered on Monday, a federal holiday.
"The Forest Service has never, not once in its history, weighed
the pros and cons of firefighting," said attorney Marc Fink of the
Western Environmental Law Center, which represents the Forest
Service employee group.
Because an environmental impact statement must examine social
effects, it would have to consider the deaths of firefighters
killed fighting wildfires in the past century, Stahl said.
The group contends the Forest Service has violated the National
Environmental Policy Act by failing to go through an open public
process to examine the environmental impacts of dropping retardant
on wildfires.
It also claims that the Forest Service violated the Endangered
Species Act by failing to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service on the lethal
effects on threatened and endangered bull trout and salmon of
dropping fire retardant in streams.
Nearly 3.1 million acres of range and forest has burned so far
this year with the cost of suppression still being calculated. A
year ago, 6.7 million acres burned at a cost of $1.6 billion,
according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The 10-year
average of 4.1 million acres.
---
On the Net:
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics:
http://www.fseee.org

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

**NJFFSA16** · 10-31-2003, 12:18 AM

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Just as the Southern California
wildfires were beginning late last week, the Bush administration
quietly turned down a six-month-old emergency request by Gov. Gray
Davis for help in removing dead and dying trees in the same forests
now being consumed by flame.
In April, Davis asked for a federal emergency declaration in
three counties where bark beetle infestation had left thousands of
acres of dense woodland vulnerable to fire.
If approved, the presidential proclamation would have paved the
way for millions of dollars in federal support for clearing dead
trees in San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
"We made the request in the hope of making a horrific situation
less serious and we were turned down," Davis spokesman Steve
Maviglio said.
A spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which
handled the Davis request, said it decided against the proposal
largely because Congress had already agreed to provide $43 million
this year for fighting the beetle infestation in Southern
California and the sum seemed appropriate at the time.
But state officials say the money represented only a small part
of the $450 million needed to clear the forest of dead trees and
eliminate the fire danger.
State officials have estimated the fires - which have burned
about 2,600 homes, blackened about 730,000 acres and killed at
least 20 people - could take a $2 billion toll on California's
economy.
After four years of drought, nearly a half-million acres of
dense woodland in Southern California had become infested by the
bark beetle. Local and state officials had warned that the forests
were a disaster waiting to happen, and some have criticized Davis
for not moving more aggressively to combat the problem.
In an April 16 letter to FEMA officials, Davis said,
"Supplementary federal assistance is necessary to save lives,
protect property, public health and foster safety."
A response from the letter has still not been received by the
governor's office, Maviglio said. The state was notified by the
office of Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., last Friday that the request
had been turned down.
The FEMA denial came a few days after the first of the major
fires began to rage out of control in San Diego and San Bernardino
counties.
"I don't want to second-guess that decision," said Chad
Kolton, FEMA spokesman. "They were asking for federal resources
and federal resources were being provided."
State Sen. Jim Brulte, a Republican whose district includes big
parts of the fire-ravaged area, said that it was not fair for Davis
to suggest the federal government has not been doing enough.
"The Davis administration twice rejected San Bernardino's
request for a state of emergency to be declared and we had to beat
up on them to finally get it," he said. "The fact is that
everyone has been late to this party."
The beetles, which are native to California, drill into bark,
seeking the moist inner layers to feed on. Typically, they can kill
only drought-weakened trees.
Healthy trees are able to expel the invaders by flooding the
infestation with resin, which drought-stressed trees can't produce.
Once the infestation has begun the trees are starved of water and
nutrients and quickly die.

APTV 10-30-03 2136EST

**NJFFSA16** · 10-31-2003, 12:20 AM

October 30th

WASHINGTON (AP) - Against the backdrop of raging wildfires in
the West, the Senate approved a forest management plan late
Thursday that would allow expanded tree thinning on 20 million
acres of federal land to reduce the risk of fires.
Meanwhile, the House approved a record $2.9 billion for
firefighting and fire protection in federal forests as part of a
$20.2 billion spending bill for the Interior Department.
The congressional debate over the forest bill and the
firefighting money took on urgency because of the devastating
wildfires that this week have destroyed more than 2,600 homes and
blackened 730,000 acres across southern California.
"There is a tremendous lesson in these fires. That the land has
to be managed," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a leading
co-sponsor of the compromise forest bill. The Senate approved it by
a vote of 80-14.
The compromise bill must now be merged with legislation passed
by the House in May, which would allow more aggressive and more
wide spread tree cutting than approved by the Senate.
The legislation, a modified version of President Bush's
"healthy forest" initiative, calls for establishing expedited
procedures for tree thinning on 20 million acres of federal forests
that are especially susceptible to fire threat and in many cases
are close to populated areas.
The bill would authorize, subject to future appropriations, $760
million a year for forest management, more than double current
spending. About half the money would be earmarked for forests
situated in areas where wild lands begin to merge with populated
areas.
Environmentalists have criticized the legislation because it
would allow forest-thinning without environmental reviews and with
limited - and in some cases no - judicial review. They accused
lawmakers of using the Western wildfires to open federal forests to
new logging, including the cutting of mature trees.
Feinstein and other supporters of the bill rejected the
criticism and said the compromise was designed to limit logging to
only the most at-risk forest lands out of the 190 million acres of
federal forests. They said it specifically includes protection for
large old-growth forests.
"For those who have been so worried that we're going to log the
forests to death. They have watched them burn to death," said Sen.
Pete Domenici, R-N.M. "It's high time we fix it."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said old growth forests will continue to
be protected. "Even with respect to the amount of acreage to be
thinned, it is a fraction of the work necessary in high risk
areas," he said.
The Bush administration supported the Senate bill and said it
would provide "the needed flexibility to manage public lands
wisely" and implement a forest management plan "good for both the
environment and our economy."
The firefighting funds approved by the House by a 216-205 vote
would provide $800 million for battling wildfires, an increase of
nearly $300 million over the current budget. It also would allocate
$937 million this fiscal year for activities such as tree thinning
aimed at reducing the wildfire threat.
Supporters of the "healthy forest" bill in the Senate argued
that a buildup of dead trees, brush and undergrowth has aggravated
the fire threat and resulted in the kinds of wildfires that have
devastated much of the West in recent years including the current
fires in California and Colorado.
During the day, a series of amendments came up seeking to
further limit the tree thinning program. But each was defeated as
was a proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to funnel more of the
forest protection fund to areas close to populated areas.
A proposal to limit the program to five years, offered by Sen.
Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was defeated 61-31. Domenici said the job of
improving forest health to significantly reduce the threat of
wildfires could take 15 years or more.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

**NJFFSA16** · 11-10-2003, 11:58 PM

KOOSKIA, Idaho (AP) - Environmentalists claim the Forest Service
unnecessarily cut old-growth timber to fight the Slims fire in
north-central Idaho this summer, and one federal official concedes
the assigned crew may have been overzealous.
Ken Castro, fire management officer for the Nez Perce National
Forest, said resources specialists are looking at the area along
Meadow Creek near the Selway River to determine if there should be
an investigation into cutting scores of cedar trees up to four feet
in diameter.
Castro said the trees were cut to protect the crews fighting the
fire that burned more than 14,000 acres and cost the government
over $21 million to fight.
Many of the trees that were cut were rotten in the core and were
being held up by an outer shell no more than eight inches thick, he
said.
But Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League says a
number of the trees had little rot and questions the need for a
more than 20 miles of fire line - some up to 30 feet wide - on a
fire that probably should never have been fought.
"This was a totally natural mosaic burn in a roadless area with
the biggest threat of it burning into the Selway-Bitterroot"
Wilderness, Oppenheimer said. "I have a hard time convincing
myself there was justification to dump $21 million on this fire and
build 22 miles of fire line."
But Castro argued the fire was too risky to let burn. Foresters
feared it would gain momentum and jump from the Meadow Creek
drainage into the American and Red River drainages, where insects
left the forests dying and tinder dry, he says.
Elk City and scattered home sites in the area would have been
difficult to save if the flames had made it into the
bark-beetle-infested forests, and historic weather patterns put the
chance of that happening at 38 percent, Castro said.
The fire line was put in to foreclose that possibility, he said.
Although the fire burned for more than two months, no structures
were lost.
But Oppenheimer wants an investigation and disciplinary action
against the team of firefighters who made what he calls an
excessive timber cut.
"The most important thing that can come out of this is to make
sure this kind of abuse does not occur in the future," he said.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

**engine1321** · 12-31-2003, 12:08 AM

Why don't we just burn all the forests and when the hippies bitch tell them they should have supported the bill that would have saved them, instead suing and protesting and lobbying to serve their own self serving agenda.

**NJFFSA16** · 05-12-2004, 04:48 AM

Funding in question...already??

US Forest Service lacks funds for fires-lawmakers
By Christopher Doering
WASHINGTON(Reuters) - The U.S. Forest Service is
facing a serious threat of wildfires this summer, but the
agency underestimated the firefighting money it needs and will
have to shift millions of dollars from other programs to make
up the shortfall, Senate lawmakers said Tuesday.
Firefighters are already battling six fires in Southern
California, an early start to the annual wildfire season that
was fanned by lingering drought, hot temperatures and wind.
Forest officials told a Senate Energy subcommittee hearing
that a build-up of brush, six years of drought in some Western
states, and insect-damaged trees "have resulted in a greater
potential for large wildfires" in 2004.
In the last five years, the Forest Service has borrowed
nearly $3 billion from other accounts to fight wildfires,
according to lawmakers.
"That's a pretty good indication that you're falling short
in your requests," said Sen. Jim Bunning, a Kentucky
Republican, who said the Forest Service should ask Congress for
more fire-fighting money in its annual budget request. "That's
the answer, whether you like it or whether you don't."
Lawmakers said the annual borrowing results in poor
management of public lands by minimizing the impact of projects
with long-term benefits such as thinning at-risk forests.
Mark Rey, the U.S. Agriculture Department's undersecretary
of natural resources, said the department would continue to
borrow from other projects or ask Congress for extra money to
pay for fighting fires if they exceed their annual budget.
"I don't disagree" that the department needs to find better
ways to pay for suppressing wildfires, said Rey. "But it's the
only avenue available."
Rey said it was difficult to estimate how much funding will
be needed to combat wildfires because annual budgets are
submitted more than a year before the corresponding wildfire
season begins.
The Forest Service, part of the USDA, and the Interior
Department, which work together to fight forest fires, are
asking for a total of $2.46 billion for fire-fighting programs
in fiscal 2005, an increase of $60 million from the previous
year.
Their budget proposal would ask Congress for $760 million
to implement President Bush's forest management plan signed
into law last year. The funding would allow forest managers to
thin about 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) of forest
land, up from 1 million acres in 2000.
In the last three years, more than 15 million acres (6.1
million hectares) of U.S. land was burned by wildfires.
Drought conditions now exist in more than 50 percent of the
West. In California, more than a dozen homes have been
destroyed and thousands of people have been evacuated due to
six fires that have ravished more than 20,000 acres this
month.
The Forest Service estimated a total of 190 million acres
(77 million hectares) of forest land in the United States are
susceptible to fires.
REUTERS

Reut16:38 05-11-04

**NJFFSA16** · 06-17-2004, 01:13 AM

Audit: Larger-than-expected cost of wildfires hurts fire-prevention
programs
By ANGIE WAGNER
Associated Press Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Federal agencies responsible for fighting
wildfires have borrowed so much money from other forest programs
that fire-prevention efforts have suffered, according to
congressional auditors.
In the past five years, the Forest Service and Interior
Department transferred more than $2.7 billion from other programs
because they repeatedly underestimated how much money would be
needed to pay for firefighting, the report by the General
Accounting Office said.
Because of the frequent borrowing, officials were forced to
delay projects to prune some forests of dead tress. Wildfire
training courses were also postponed, along with the purchase of
extra firefighting equipment.
The June 2 report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress,
came as no surprise to lawmakers who have complained for years
about insufficient wildfire funding.
Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho said the report confirms
his suspicions that "we are robbing Peter to pay Paul."
"Each year we are told that the administration's budget request
will meet firefighting costs," said Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman
of New Mexico. "Yet each year the administration's budget request
proves inadequate to cover those needs, resulting in the chaos of
having to transfer money from one account to another to make up for
the shortfall."
The report suggested the Forest Service and Interior Department
improve the estimates of firefighting costs and said Congress
should consider alternatives, such as creating a reserve account.
The agencies now rely on a 10-year average of firefighting costs
as the basis for budget requests. That practice was criticized by
the GAO, which said it resulted in estimates well below what was
needed.
The cost of fighting wildfires has exceeded appropriated funds
almost every year since 1990. In 2002 and 2003, the government
spent more than $1 billion fighting fires.
The agencies, in written responses, agreed with the report, but
the Interior Department defended use of the 10-year average,
calling it "a reasonable and durable" method of budgeting.
The department did say it is working with the Forest Service to
develop a new statistical forecasting system to better predict
costs.
The frequent borrowing often meant that forest projects were
delayed, sometimes allowing fire risks to worsen, auditors said.
For example, the government had planned to remove 150 acres of
trees infested with spruce beetles from Colorado's White River
National Forest last year. But $111,000 was transferred from that
project to fight fires, and now the beetle infestation has grown to
230 acres.
The project would now cost an extra $24,000, and the increased
number of dead trees, along with dry conditions, only raises the
risk of wildfires.
The borrowing practices also strained relationships with states,
nonprofit groups and communities, the report said. Congress
reimbursed agencies about 80 percent of the money borrowed.
House subcommittees recently approved adding $2.6 billion for
fighting wildfires in 2005, a near 10 percent increase over this
year's levels.
---
EDITOR'S NOTE - Angie Wagner is the AP's Western regional
writer, based in Las Vegas.
---
On the Net:
GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04612.pdf

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