Wildfires Suppression 2
Wildfires Suppression 2
Yesterday on this program we discussed some of the difficulties of 2020 wildfire suppression. It's been a hard year to be a firefighter - to be sure.
Deputy Forest Service Chief John Phipps told a House Agriculture Subcommittee last week about some of those troubles - including the impossible task of trying to have firefighters deal with a pandemic at a time when wildfires are so large - they can barely keep up - and sometimes even fail.
He told the subcommittee his agency has been challenged to balance fire suppression activities with better forest management.
“This year was an extraordinary year, and the system was not designed … it broke the system to try to respond to all that amount of fire, all at the same time. And it’s likely the case that we need to maintain the fire suppression capability while we’re working to manage the landscape better, at least over a 10-year period.”
