Wildfire Suppression

I used to own a log cabin way out in the wilderness outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. The house was way off the power grid, there were no utility companies... Nothing. One day I was reading the paper in my home in Phoenix and heard about the Hochtifer fire which was being battled by the U.S. Forest Service. It turns out it was an area surrounded my cabin. Bottom line, the US Forest Service saved my cabin by suppressing the fire that was raging around it. Ever since then, USFS has been my hero.

Well, it turns out that for the first time ever, the US Forest Service is spending more than half its budget to suppress wildfires. There is a new report that says in 10 years, the US Forest Service will be spending over two thirds of its budget on wildfires. USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack: "We are not in a position to do the restoration and resiliency work that is important and necessary, not just to keep our forests healthy but also to reduce the risk of these intense and enormous fires that we are now fighting." Vilsack says natural and human factors are increasing the costs of fighting fires. "We now have more communities that are located in and around our forests, hazardous fuel buildup has increased in part because of climate change. We see drier conditions. There is also the issue of the beetle infestation in the Western part of the United States. It has impacted 45,000,000 acres of trees. The US Forest Service report says the fire season is now 78 days longer than they were in the 1970s. The cost of fire suppression is expected to grow to $1.8 billion by 2025