New budget policy may face wildfire challenges
Idaho’s Congressional delegation was briefed on projections for the 2018 fire season at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise Wednesday. They took the occasion to announce the end of what they call”fire borrowing.”
As part of the latest budget bill, congressmen enacted laws improving federal budgets for wildfire by permitting firefighting agencies to access disaster relief funds for fire suppression. The provision takes effect when fire suppression costs exceed their ten-year average. It also includes management reforms that should result in positive impacts on forest health.
In the past, when firefighting costs exceeded budget estimates, managers, like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, had to divert funds from other projects. That “fire borrowing” diminished funding for activities that could improve forest health and enable recreational opportunities on public lands.
Idaho Senators Mike Crapo and James Risch, along with 2nd District Congressman Mike Simpson addressed a Boise news conference.
“This has been a bipartisan bill and a bicameral bill from the outset,” said Crapo during the briefing. “The battle we have been fighting is that catastrophic fires –one percent of the fires that absorb nearly 30 percent of the firefighting costs–have not been recognized by Congress as natural disasters or been given the funding support that they need. That has forced our agencies into the very difficult circumstance of fire borrowing, which took away from the other functions of the forest service and the Bureau of Land Management.”
“We’ve redone the way that firefighting is going to be funded, to free up the agency’s money to be used for what it should be used for – and that is land management,” Risch said at the press conference. “This has not been a Republican versus Democrat issue – it has been a great, bipartisan team effort.”
“This is perhaps the most important piece of legislation Congress has passed to help the Forest Service in the last 50 years,” said Simpson. “If we had not passed this bill, the Forest Service would have seen their fire costs grow to over 67 percent, essentially making them the Fire Service, and further decimating important programs, like trails maintenance, grazing, and recreation. Between the fire borrowing fix and the management reforms, we are giving land management agencies the tools to help prevent catastrophic fires.”
The Boise fire center predicts large parts of the western states will have above-average potential for significant wildfire this year. A dozen states including Idaho, Utah, and Montana should expect high potential of fire at various times between now and the end of August.
