A group of nine western Senators are ringing the alarm about a 2012 proposal to cut support from two wildland fire prevention programs, the Hazardous Fuels and State Fire Assistance programs. These critical programs provide funding for work that makes people and forests safer, through thinning and controlled burn projects on National Forest System and state and private forestlands.
Investments in the Hazardous Fuels and State Fire Assistance programs also save money, by offering preventative actions that limit costly emergency fires. Yet today we spend four times more money fighting emergency fires in our National Forests than we invest in preventing these destructive fires from occurring in the first place.
The cuts are proposed on the heels of the nation’s worst recorded fire decade, with record wildfires across the west and south. This most recent fire season burned more than 8 million acres of the nation’s forests, an area larger than New Jersey and Connecticut combined. Only five times has the nation experienced more than 8 million acres burned in a year; all of these have occurred since 2004.
As proposed in the Senate 2012 budget, these fire prevention programs would be cut nearly $100 million from the funding levels proposed in the House. The Senate proposes to fund these programs at $333 million, representing more than a 25% reduction from funding levels enacted in the last fiscal year.
“In light of the clear growing risk of destructive wildland fires, it seems unwise to eliminate investment in a program that makes people and forests safer,” said Chris Topik, Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Restoring America’s Forest program. “America’s forests provide jobs, clean water, clean air, material for construction and energy, wildlife habitat, and recreation. We will regret not investing in these programs.”